In the 1700′s English newspapers started to run the first mass reproduced print ads. Around 1920 the world heard the first radio ads. The 1940′s brought our parents and grandparents the first TV ads. And the first banner ad showed up in 1993. We’ve had a long time to get good at “traditional” advertising but digital advertising is only 18 years old.

Correction: Digital advertising is already 18 years old. 

Technology moves fast and in that time we’ve evolved from simple static images and moving gifs to dynamically generated interactive rich content experiences that can connect real-time to millions of networks, devices and people. Along with that evolution in format there’s been an evolution in focus. We live in an always on world. Where advertising and entertainment blend together across 1,000′s of environments and screens. Even TV – possibly the most captive of channels – has to compete with our iPhones, tablets and laptops. With the most recent numbers pegging that distraction level at 88%. We have to evolve our process and our thinking.

Take a look at the spend and impression numbers across media channels for our clients and campaigns. For many of them, not all of them, but many – you’ll notice a trend: impressions and reach in digital channels meet or far exceed the others. How can we hope to connect our message unless we’re crafting it with the right medium in mind? Why start the creative process with a print ad when millions more will see the web banners? How do we create digital advertising that is engaging enough to cut through the noise?

None of us have the answers to those questions. But like every great problem finding the answer starts with trying to solve it.

With that in mind I’d like to mention Project Re:Brief.

Re:Brief has been kicking around for a few months and was even featured in a session this year at SXSW. Some of you may have heard of this, some not. But I think everyone will find something interesting and inspiring from it. In 2011, Google partnered with four global brands in an advertising experiment to re-imagine and remake their most iconic ad campaigns from the 1960′s and 1970′s with today’s technology, led by the creative legends who made the campaigns.

Project Re:Brief doesn’t include any secret sauce of advertising. It isn’t “the” answer. But it’s an attempt.

Lets give it a go – let’s evolve.

With that in mind I’d like to present two quick stories around the subject of creativity. Each taken with a grain of salt and as food for thought.

Things I Believe

Written by Faris Yakob, Chief Innovation Officer at MDC Partners

I believe that ideas are new combinations. I believe that stealing is genius, but copying is the reserve of the uninspired.

I believe that originality, as currently understood, is a romantic notion, often depicted as Athena springing forth fully formed from the mind of Zeus, and just as mythical.

I believe, like the postmodernists, that you can attempt to create a higher order of meaning by standing on the semantic foundations of other creations, employing referents instead of starting from scratch.

I believe that the remix is the dominant cultural construct of a digital age, bits endlessly co-mingling with bits.

The idea of the remix can be traced back to the philosopher John Locke.

Back in the 17th century, he posited that human imagination was essentially a sampler and sequencer – cutting and pasting perceived reality into new constructs. Complex ideas are combinations of simple ones: to form an idea of a unicorn, take a horse and a horn and mix them.

All ideas work like this. The archeology of any idea involves decompiling it into its constituent elements.

Creating ideas is the same process reversed.

As Jonah Lehrer points out in his book, How We Decide:

“From the perspective of the brain – new ideas are just several old ideas had at the same time”

Stephen Johnson, in his excellent book Where Good Ideas Come From, has pointed out that only some ideas are possible at any moment – he calls this solution space the ‘adjacent possible’.

The most obvious combinations, the most obvious ideas, the most obvious creative solutions to a brief, sit at the nearest edge of the adjacent possible.

This is why the first round of responses to the same brief tend to be so similar, again and again. This is why so many ideas are the same, copying either conscious or unconscious, blending with convergent evolution, as mind tackle the same problems in different places.

How, then, to have better ideas? Better, more unusual, more interesting, more differentiating ideas exist at the furthest viable extremes of the adjacent possible.

So, in order to get them you must

1) expose yourself to the most diverse set of influences possible, and allow luck to lead you

2) get past all the obvious ideas first

This is where I diverge with Jonah Lehrer’s belief, espoused in this new book Imagine: How Creativity Works, that brainstorming does not work.

It works excellently for certain things.

One of those things is blowing through all the obvious ideas first, together, to save time. Getting access to all the existing ideas inside many people’s heads and getting them out on the table and blended together.

Hence, volume – quantities of concepts – is the key objective.

People often say there are no bad ideas in brainstorms.

This is obviously not true; there are many, many bad ideas in brainstorms.

And that’s the point.

FX

Talent Imitates, Genius Steals

The original letter can be found here: http://farisyakob.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341ca6f253ef0167650c8e57970b-pi

Monetizing the Mundane

A short story about embracing behavior instead of changing it.

Armed with popcorn and soda you walk into your favorite theatre to enjoy a few hours of silver screen entertainment. You settle into a comfortable seat and wait for a well hyped (and well advertised) big budget movie to start. As the pre-preview commercials are winding down you’re expecting the familiar modern movie message; NO TALKING AND TURN OFF YOUR PHONE.

Instead the message reads:

What does your phone dream about when it’s asleep? Text us before you turn off your phone. When the movie is over we’ll show you.

Once the movie ends you turn on your phone to find a message with a special link. After a quick sign in (using Facebook) you get a video of your phone’s dream. A video created specifically for you.

This isn’t just a story, it is Sprint’s pre-movie ad that launched with the AVENGERS on opening weekend. With a little creativity they’ve taken the mundane (and always sponsored) message to silence or turn off your phone and made it a personalized experience.

Great content, nice use of modern browser tech and an awesome list of design resources at the end.

Be sure to click, touch and explore the site. There are a lot of fun extras in the linked text, images and graphs.

Spotify is great because it just focuses on music. Twitter because they just focus on quick communication.

When you try to do everything you fail at everything – like a movie with too many plot lines.

Doing less doesn’t mean thinking small. It doesn’t mean being “risk adverse”, “conservative” or “unimaginative”. The best organizations push the limits of possibility in select areas. The best products and services follow this same pattern.

Think big. Go small.

The web gives anyone with an idea a chance to make something more. Too often those ideas become creations that are corrupt with extras that detract from their core. It’s easier to add than it is to subtract – but often it’s better to subtract than it is to add.

Don’t cut for the sake of cutting, just ask “why” more often. Why do we have that many products? Why is this feature here? Why does that page say that?

(Brands as Patterns – SXSW – Friday March 9th 2012)

Establishing a brand relies on the principal of consistency. Traditionally that came down to using the same elements in multiple places, telling the same story in varied mediums and using a universal voice. But today’s brands can exist in multiple mediums and are defined by many voices – both by the brand and by the consumer. This has presented us with a challenge: How do we maintain a brand through so many varying communication channels?  

Since today’s consumer doesn’t interact with a brand the same way that they used to, consumers are now in the driver’s seat when it comes to when, how, why and where they see a brand. What a brand stands for and how they are perceived by the public can shift daily and brands today are defined by WHAT THEY DO not what they say. Brands that try to hold on to a single big idea or follow repetitive fixed rules lose their connection to their audience and seem unresponsive to what their customers want.

In today’s ever fluid world brands must evolve past a “message” and become an experience.That experience is defined through a brand’s pattern. This idea was at the core of the Brands as Patterns session.

“Brand equity is not in consistency anymore; it’s in coherence.” – Greg Johnson

Coherence communicates a personality that a consumer can feel. That personality comes from a pattern of choices, statements and actions by the brand that represent it. That pattern IS the brand and that pattern creates consistency. Rather than a stagnate and formulaic repetition of the same message, the brand ends up conveying it’s meaning in many different ways through many different mediums. Each one helping to support the personality of the brand. “Consistency in human behavior isn’t derived from repetition alone; it’s about the formation & recognition of coherent patterns.” – Marc Shillum

Personality with a “click” (or touch or swipe or hover)

We’ve all familiar with the idea that “digital mediums give consumers the ability to interact with brands in a personal way” and there are obvious examples of this in social media and customer service. Because when we think about “personality” and “personal interaction” we immediately focus on areas where that link is easy to make. Customers write on a company’s Facebook wall and the company writes back – connection made. Someone tweets or calls about a bad experience and a (good) brand jumps into action to fix the issue.

But where the “personal” connections aren’t so obvious is in the non person to person interactive channels. Websites, apps, automated phone systems, email blasts, display advertising – all of these are interactive, and all of these have a personal connection to your customer. People use these mediums to interact with your brand by clicking, touching, talking and reading. The click of a mouse or touch of a screen might not SEEM interactive – but it is. Today’s devices are as much a part of a person as their clothes and jewelry. They’re brought to life by what people say and do with them. To the touch they feel like a smooth piece of glass or a springy keyboard, but they take on a texture and feeling when you do something with them. And when a person navigates your site, uses your app or reads your email they are going on a journey chaperoned by your brand. They’re have an experience that has a life of it’s own. We have to put brands IN the interfaces and experiences we work on – not on them.

If a brand is known for being funny, witty and easy going – wouldn’t it feel strangely out of place for them to send you a dull 20 question survey? Would a brand that is known for being smart and innovative have a out of date and hard to use website? These statements talk about the personality of the brand through the things the brand makes. A solid brand pattern helps to ensure that how a brand acts, what they make and what they mean all mix nicely together.

Understand the ABCs

A key to creating a brand pattern is to understand a brand’s ABCs –  Artifacts, Behaviors and Concepts.

• Artifacts: the things you make that represent who the brand is. They’re what people will remember. They’re logos, colors, icons, shapes and sounds.
• Behaviors: How people will interact with the brand. But also where, why and what they will interact with. It’s the traits, actions, response and experience of the brand and the consumer.
• Concepts: It’s not about a big idea. It’s the big IDEAS – plural. An idea can be great but it won’t live in the future. The brand will. And the brand needs more than just one idea to carry it. Concepts are the plural thoughts and visions that strategically bind an organization.

By establishing each of these elements we create a brand pattern that promotes consistency through every medium. The brand becomes a believable entity because every medium supports each other – not just repeats one another.

From Marc Shillum’s June 2011 article “Branding Is About Creating Patterns, Not Repeating Messages“:

“When we create a pattern of ABCs, a TV channel’s brand, for example, is no longer the constant logo in the corner of the screen, or a series of interruptive advertisements. The brand’s identity is defined by the set of interfaces it lives on: the design of the video player, the interactions of the user, and the discrete set of functionalities that gives the user dynamic control of the content. The identity of the iPhone is not just the Apple logo on the back. Instead, the iPhone brand is recognized by the reconfigurable app grid on the front, a pattern that can be personalized by the individual. Ikea is not just the yellow and blue brand, or the Swedish furniture store; it is a shopping event that connects multiple experiences through a physical maze. By using patterns, we place the brand in something, rather than just on it.

A brand pattern creates more value than repetition. It provides coherence among disparate mediums and continued relevance that can adapt and respond to its audience. A brand pattern connects a product to an experience and an audience, allowing the brand to continually grow.”

Brands as experiences, not owned entities.

If brands are what they do, then we are no longer just storyTELLING. We are storyCREATING. And creating that story takes more than just a logo, brand imagery, a tagline and a voice. It takes relevant, highly user centric experiences. Experiences that ring true to the personality and characteristics of the brand while taking into account the wants, needs and expectations of your customer. Because if you don’t know your customer you’re just talking to yourself.

Well, while you and your business continue to change that site is frozen in time. After a while that very expensive and well thought out website starts to seem dated and ineffective. Maybe the marketplace has changed. Maybe the business goals have shifted. Maybe technology has made users expect more. No matter the reason it’s apparent a change is needed. But the cost of recreating the site might seem too large to swallow. That’s where web optimization comes in. Optimization is like a tune-up for your site.

Web Optimization can fall loosely into 3 categories: Content, Structure and Iteration.

Content 

Content optimization is the modification of content to appeal to a specific audience in line with business goals and objectives. The term “SEO” generally falls into this category but can also apply to structure as well. Depending on the condition and structure of a site content optimization can often be done without needing to rebuild or recreate the website.

Examples include: Technical content reformatted for a non-technical audience, Website copy written to focus on specific keywords or phrases for the intention of increasing search engine results, and rewriting or formatting existing content to improve readability and flow.

Structure 

Structure optimization is the modification of the architecture, priority and organization of a site to increase conversion. Conversion can be defined as any metric that the site would like to affect. Such as increasing sales, getting more site subscribers or increasing visitors time on site. Structure can also apply to modifying the user path or flow through a site. This would include adding, changing or removing functionality. Because the process of optimizing the structure of a site is so dependent on how it’s built it often leads to the creation of a new version of the site. However, that is not always the case and is completely dependent on how extensive the changes are.

Examples include: Reorganizing content ‘buckets”, Changing the hierarchy of page layout, rearranging or organizing the site navigation, changing from static to  database driven pages or modifying functionality.

A partial list of key identifiers that you might need to optimize content or structure:

• A site isn’t appearing in search engines or appears low on the results list
• Users find the content valuable but too complex
• You believe the content on the site is exactly what users need and have good site traffic but aren’t getting the engagement you want or visitors have a short time on site
• Site visitors are failing to reach the target conversion page
• Metrics show a high bounce rate
• There is a problem with the usability or navigation of the site
• You would like a new feature added to the site
• Generally believe the site is ineffective.

Iteration

Iteration focuses on the ongoing optimization of a web presence for both content and structure. Of the three categories this one is the most involved and is a process of reviewing metrics, reacting to them and refining the site accordingly. The goal of iteration is to keep the site from becoming ineffective over time by regularly checking on the health of goals and objectives. This process is why the giants of the web are constantly changing how their sites work and what their sites offer. It’s why Facebook changes their site every 6-8 months, Google keeps adding new features and news sites regularly tweak their layouts.

Iteration can include all of the steps and deliverables of the previous two. In fact, in a well thought out process, iteration is the responsible the next step to either of the other two categories. It’s a site’s regularly scheduled maintenace.

So, how do you actually do this optimization thing?

For all of these categories the process is very similar. First, identify what metrics you want to change. Maybe it’s the number of email list signups or your rank in search results. Then review site analytics, user feedback, industry standards and competitor comparisons to decide what steps would be taken and what changes would need to be made. Once you have that list it’s a matter of weighing the effort of those changes against the effect it will have.

A warning in regards to optimization:

Now, a common approach to all of these categories is a “redesign”. Often that term is referring only to the look and feel of the site. And that, is the wrong way to optimize.

The “new coat of paint” approach is rarely effective on it’s own. There are very few sites that are in need of only a new look and feel. Usually the problems that are causing a site to be ineffective stem from the quality of the content, how it’s structure or how it functions. A fresh cosmetic appearance isn’t going to fix any of those. It’s like spending the money adding flame decals and ground effects to a car that has horrible gas mileage and bad brakes – Hardly a sound financial investment. While the visual representation of a site might be the easiest thing for us to gravitate to it matters less than how the site is structured, how it functions or how valuable the content is to the end user.

Also, it’s entirely possible that while going through the process of optimization it becomes apparent that the most effective course of action is to build a new site. But, in that case, at least you have the hard data to backup the decision. That data then becomes the solid foundation for all the choices you’ll make when you approach the process of building your new web presence. And this time – You won’t forget to take it in for it’s quarterly oil change, right?

If you have any other questions, concerns or thoughts on web optimization I’d love to hear them.

On Demand Lifestyle

Consumers now live in an on demand world where every media you want to consume, good you want to buy, conversation you want to have or answer you need requires little more effort than a simple search. Those that control the information know this and are consistently introducing new ways to reach those users. As this shift occurs connecting with those consumers will take more effort and ingenuity. While 2011 didn’t see any huge advancements in this category it did have quite a few small transitions that will have lasting impacts to the future of digital behavior.

Video Content Delivery

Last year:

Netflix broke up their DVD and Streaming offerings, announced their own original programming and expanded their content by signing on Dreamworks. At the same time their streaming service has been made available on iOS and Android devices as well as being a staple in almost every web enabled TV, Video game system and BluRay player released.

Comcast changed their OnDemand programming to prohibit fast forwarding through commercials on some programming and adding same day as DVD and theatre content.

HBO launched HBO GO on iOS devices resulting in over 3 million downloads. HBO GO allows existing HBO subscribers to view HBO programming from their devices whenever and wherever they want.

Hulu averaged close to 30 million unique viewers a month in 2011 and their pay service Hulu Plus broke 1 million subscribers. They are the only online streaming service to carry in-season content from 5 out of 6 of the major broadcast networks and their service is available on most mobile devices, gaming systems, Tvs and BluRay players.

YouTube had over 151 million unique viewers in November alone and has dedicated $100 million in 2012 to creating original content.

Apple, Amazon and Facebook all expanded their video on demand services. Adding new content, new ways to subscribe and new ways to connect with other viewers.

Web TV devices like Apple TV, Google TV and Roku all made significant improvements to their devices and offerings. Adding support for YouTube, Vimeo, sports channels and video services like HBO Go, Netflix, Amazon VOD and Hulu.

According to Nielsen timeshifting in television has become a common occurrence with select shows seeing their audience double when adding in DVR and on demand views.

While none of this represents a huge shift in what users are doing it all builds a foundation for a substantial transition in how people absorb content. The more services that become available and the easier it becomes to get content delivered to you – the more people will adopt that practice.

Traditional Texts go Digital

2011 has also seen the growth of digital books, newspapers and magazines. Thanks to Amazon’s Kindle, Barnes and Noble’s Nook and the iPad for many buying and reading is now electronic.

Amazon sold over 1 million Kindle devices each week in December. Gifting of Kindle books was up 175% between Black Friday and Christmas Day compared to the same period last year. Kindles were the #1 selling item across all of amazon this holiday season. Christmas day was the biggest day ever for Kindle book downloads (They did not share exact numbers.)

Apple‘s Newsstand and iBooks apps have had significant effects on magazine subscription rates (PopSci’s digital sales jumped 13% after newsstand was released) and digital book sales (Penguin, Random House and other publishers have had ebooks sales double over the last year).

Boston Globe introduced a new responsive designed subscription site to connect with their mobile audience and the New York Times introduced a pay wall for it’s content with one very important caveat – if articles were shared in social networks anyone could see them. Both of these changes resulted in positive, but not groundbreaking movement for their subscription rates.

These numbers may not have the widespread impact of other digital trends, but they represent the start of a movement that once again reinforces the idea of “I can get it online when I want it”.

A good indicator of where advertising will go has always been to look at where people get the entertainment and information they want. The online, on demand shift in video and text content means more people are spending time with their devices and online. But it also means people are going to expect that they will find what they are looking for quickly and easily. This generation of web user doesn’t have time to hunt and has unlimited options on where to find what they’re looking for. In order to connect with that consumer it’s going to take great content organized into a well thought out experience.

Social

Social media has been a buzzword for quite sometime and while every company is clamoring to do something in that space most are using this new channel the same one dimensional way they use TV and Print. The power in social media lies with the people who are using it. What a brand or company can do there is far less interesting or impactful as what the users can accomplish. Social media is the most powerful when used for connecting with other people, sharing information and talking about shared experiences. Both major social networks know this and have found a way to help themselves while helping users and brands to connect.

Facebook went from “like” to “life”.

At the F8 conference in September Facebook introduced Open Graph. A shift in their user interaction platform that attempts to add more value and deeper meaning to the interaction users have on their network. The goal is that brands and app developers will build tools that let users share more than just “likes”.

From the September announcement: Open Graph and Custom App Actions will work together to give greater context to a user’s actions. Instead of being limited to just “liking” something, apps can be built to let users show that they’re “reading”, “running”, “cooking”, “watching” or any other verb we can think of. Apps will also be able to have certain actions that post to a users’ feed without the user having to be on Facebook.

Since Open Graph was implemented we’ve seen the release of the Washington Post social reader (https://www.facebook.com/washingtonpost?sk=app_240513036001435). A Facebook app that will post to your wall for you whenever you read an article within the Washington Post site. We’ve also seen music service Spotify (https://www.facebook.com/Spotify?sk=app_111157228963798) shift from being an invite only web app to a Facebook enriched music streaming app. I’m sure by now almost all of use have seen our friends Spotify listening activity show up in our feeds. Thanks to this change brands can go from gathering “likes” to building experiences in Facebook that mirror what people do in real life

This transition for Facebook is their attempt to breathe more life into their service. While they work to add more depth to user interactions we can reap the benefits of a more powerful platform on which to build our ideas and a more engaging experience for our users.

Twitter grew up.

For the past few years Twitter has been the little brother to Facebook in the social world. But in 2011 Twitter found it’s place in the world spotlight.

TV shows, news reports, magazines, presidential debates, revolutions and occupations are all using Twitter to communicate and share experiences. Most major news outlets and magazines regularly report on what is being said on Twitter. TV Shows share hashtags on screen during the show with the hopes that people will use them talk about their program. People across the country and the world use twitter to share their thoughts, ideas and opinions leading to robust conversation about politics and social economic issues. The Egyptian and Libyan revolutions owe a lot of their steam to Twitter and the entire Occupy movement has been organized and implemented thanks to it. Most of this activity is happening because of the universal conversation tools on Twitter – Hashtags and Trends. Both of these allow people to easily find those conversations and join in themselves.

In 2011 Twitter turned the power of these tools into a way to make money through the use of promoted trends, hashtags and tweets. Which just helps to reinforce the use of those techniques.

All of those examples highlight the power of that network – but how does this apply to us? It reinforces that social is the most powerful when used for connecting with other people, sharing information and talking about shared experiences. Most brands can not expect to gather a substantial or influential twitter following if they aren’t doing those things. Brands should be carefully considering three key aspects of their twitter strategy: Communication, Conversation and Expectation.

Communication: Talk about what your USERS want to hear about and pay attention to their preferences.

Conversation: Participate in your followers conversations and empower them to talk about you by providing value – not just promoting.

Expectation: Twitter is a two-way engagement channel, closer to a discussion board or customer hotline than a promotion/sales channel. Treat it accordingly.

Google+, Tumblr, Instagram and Pinterest

2011 has also seen the rise and/or launch of many more “social” services. While none of those are quite ready to be as mainstream as Facebook and Twitter they all deserve a look. Because anyone of them may be the next service everyone is buzzing about. The best way to understand the appeal or value of any of them is to use them.

Google+: Google’s own version of Facebook. (http://plus.google.com)

Tumblr: Microblogging platform that feels like Twitter but looks like WordPress. (http://www.tumblr.com/about)

Instagram: iPhone + photos + retro filters + twitter-like feed. (http://instagr.am/)

Pinterest: Digital image boards with grouping, categorizing and user comments. (http://pinterest.com/)

Mobile

For years the promise of mobile greatly outweighed it’s actual ability. That is no longer the case. Today almost anything you can do with a web browser on your computer can be done with a mobile device and users now realize this.

In 2011 70% of US mobile subscribers used SMS, the US penetration of smartphones reached 45% and the tablet market exploded with over 73 million sold in 2011. Mobile web usage grew just as fast in 2011: 50% of local searches were mobile, 50% of traffic to Facebook and Twitter was from mobile devices and 87% of all smartphone users are using the web.

And people aren’t just using the mobile web when they are on the go. A study in Nov of 2011 by Google-Ipsos found that while 87% of users are using mobile we while on-the-go a whopping 93% are using it while at home. Along with 72% at work, 77% in store, 73% at a restaurant and 66% at social gatherings. On top of that 80% of smartphone users multitask while watching TV. Using their phone for communication (94%), searching (82%) and web browsing (60%). For 25% of US web users – mobile is their preferred browsing method.

All of this adds up to a huge shift in how people interact with the internet. Going forward mobile isn’t an option – it’s a necessity. In 2011 consumers have transitioned to a mobile friendly lifestyle and with it have an expectation that they can accomplish any task on their smartphone or tablet. For us this means that any idea that lives on the web needs to work regardless of screen size or device.

Here are some great articles that talk about this shift in a little more detail:

Mashable: Smartphone Multitasking - http://mashable.com/2011/11/10/smartphone-multi-tasking/

Adage: Value of Mobile Ad Placements - http://adage.com/article/digital/placing-ads-underestimate-mobile/230853/

SearchEngineLand: Smartphones over 50% - http://searchengineland.com/smartphones-now-over-50-percent-for-under-44-crowd-99803

PEW: 25% prefer smartphone for web access - http://searchengineland.com/pew-25-percent-prefer-smartphones-to-pc-for-internet-access-85125

LukeW Data Monday entries on Mobile: News on Mobile - http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?1461, Holiday Shopping Mobile - http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?1478, and Mobile Transition: http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?1298

All in all 2011 wasn’t a year for huge leaps but rather – behaviour adjustments. People are still using the web just as much – if not a little more – than they were before. But how they’re using it is shifting their attitude and expectation. These adjustments that will have a profound affect on how we communicate with people in 2012 and beyond.

When it comes to the web every experience has one very important thing in common: The Web Browser.

There is a very dated metaphor from the early 2000′s that says “Web browsers are the car that let us drive along the information superhighway.” (ugh…)

If you’re still thinking that way then allow me to adjust the metaphor slightly for you. “Web browsers are the vehicle that gives us access to the information superhighway”. It’s a slight adjustment – but an important one.

There was a time when browser’s abilities were much more limited than they are today. And during that time almost every browser would bring you to the same online experience. It didn’t matter if you were using Netscape Navigator, AOL or the brand new Internet Explorer 6. You would get the same content, displayed in almost the same way. Back then, the car-drive metaphor worked well.

Fast forward to today: Netscape and AOL browsers don’t even exist anymore and IE6 is 10 years old. We all know how fast things change online and you could say that using IE6 today would be the equivalent to using a 50′s sedan as your daily driver. Not very practical is it?

Over the past few years 100′s of new ways to browse the web have been released. Wether it’s on your phone, your Xbox or laptop – today’s modern browsers came in all different sizes, on different devices and each have their own abilities. The experience you have online today is heavily dependent on the vehicle you use to access the web. So how do you know what browser to choose? And what does that mean to our clients?

There are a handful that lead the pack. The major browsers are considered to be: Internet Explorer (IE), Google Chrome, Firefox and Safari.

The market share of each browser combined with it’s abilities should be our guiding light when it comes to choosing one not only for your own personal use – but when choosing which browsers we should support for our clients.

Abilities:

New technologies and web standards are adopted on a regular basis. Choosing a browser that keeps up with the changes means you’ll always have a chance to get the best and most secure experience the web has to offer. Things like location powered searches,  auto updating web pages or videos and games without installing flash. (Just to name a few…)

Most of these new technologies revolve around the web standards of HTML 5 and CSS 3. I won’t go into the meaning or details of each of those, but I will say: choose a browser that supports them.

Market Share:

Market share in the browser world works the same way it does everywhere else: “How much of the market uses product x”. But since browsers are software and software changes rapidly the browser market share numbers can swing wildly from one month to the next.

Here is how market share breaks down as of November 2011 and some notes about what each one supports:

Just two months ago Chrome was in 3rd place behind Firefox, now it’s the leading individual web browser. Of course, if you were to add up all the versions of IE and Firefox the leader board would look something like this:

But perhaps the most interesting statistic out of these new numbers is Mobile*. It’s market share is 6.95% and keeps growing every month. Mobile market share is bigger than Firefox 3.7 or Safari. More to the point: It is bigger than IE6 and IE7 COMBINED. Anyone here who has worked on an interactive project knows that one of our first questions to the client is: Will we be supporting IE6/IE7?

If we think that question is important enough to ask when those browsers only represent 6.49% of the market then shouldn’t we also be making a point to talk about mobile? I think the answer to that is obvious: Yes.

In Summary:

Choose a browser that supports web standards. (Chrome, Firefox, Safari or IE9) And when it comes to your clients: Don’t forget about mobile, it’s too big to be ignored.

*The mobile number here represents ALL mobile browsers. (iPhone, Android, Blackberry, etc..)

Over the last few years, Google has tried their hand at creating a social network a few times.

• First, there was Orkut, which was popular in Brazil & India but never really picked up in the U.S. or Europe.
• Then came Google Buzz, which was quickly shot down due to its privacy concerns, bad user interface and Gmail integration. (Although I should note that I disagree with that last part.)
• Most recently, they introduced Google+ and it’s still gathering steam.

Given how large their user base is, it makes perfect sense that Google would want to create a social network. However, through all their attempts, they seemed to forget about a secret weapon they’ve had the whole time: Google Reader.

When it comes to the web, one thing reigns supreme: content. Being able to find and share content is the cornerstone on which the web was built. It’s the reason Tim Berners-Lee created the web browser, the reason Napster ever existed and the reason Google, Facebook and Twitter became social media giants. People want content that matters to their interests. Delivering great and relevant content is one thing Google Reader has always done well. In October, Google made a substantial design change to Google Reader and in the process killed one of the most powerful social tools in their arsenal.

From 2007 to 2011, you could share stories in Google Reader with any of your friends who were also on Google Reader. Those shared stories showed up in their own feed called “Friends’ Shared Items” and worked just like any other feed to which you subscribed. It was a quick and easy way to see and interact with the content your friends had shared.

In 2010, those shared stories also started to show up in Gmail thanks to Google Buzz. You could comment on, like or re-share any story someone shared with you. Through this feature I discovered content I wouldn’t have found otherwise, had some great interactions with friends and broadened my understanding of what my friends like.

I could find and share content with a community of people. That sure sounds like a social network, doesn’t it?

On October 31st Google Reader changed their sharing feature to use “+1″ and removed the “Friends’ Shared Items” feed.

Since then, when a user shares something in Google Reader, it doesn’t go to Google Reader or Buzz, it only goes to Google+.

Wait… What? That’s like sharing something on Facebook and having it only go to Twitter!

In order to see what my friends have shared on Google Reader or read their comments on the things I’ve shared, I now have to go to Google+.

Let’s take a look at how this works:

The old way:

• I log into Google Reader on my morning commute and share five articles over the span of an hour.
• Those items go to the shared items feed on my friend’s reader account and wait for her to login and read them whenever she logs on next.
• She reads, likes, re-shares or ignores what I shared.
• She could also see those items in Gmail thanks to Buzz where she’d also be able to like, comment or ignore them.

Result: There is possible social content sharing happening.

The new way:

• I share five articles over the span of an hour on Google Reader using the +1 feature.
• They go to my Google+ feed immediately.
• My friend isn’t on Google+ all the time and doesn’t get any notification that those items have been shared.
• She logs on to Google+ later in the day and by then those five shared articles have fallen down the list thanks to all the other Google+ activity that’s happened since.
• She never sees those shared items.

She logs into Google Reader or Gmail and still has no idea I ever shared anything.

The beauty of Reader has always been that it created a content queue. It didn’t matter if you logged in 30 times a day or once every 30 days. The content was still there; organized and displayed by source.

By making Reader sharing part of Google+, those shared items have just become part of the social firehose. Sure, it might make me log into Google+ a little more often (which appears to be the goal) but more importantly, it has hurt Reader.

Since the beginning, using Reader to keep up with my favorite sites and learn about new things has been just as important to me as finding and sharing stories that my friends would love. Now that the social element of Reader has been removed, it went from being a personal social powered news feed to just another content source. Sure I can still share from it; but that sharing would just send it to one of three already existing non-stop content feeds: Google+, Facebook or Twitter. Once there, it would get lost amongst all the other content that already gets pushed through those channels.

With so many other sources already vying for our daily attention, Google can’t afford to lose one of the few truly personal tools it has at its disposal. By losing its “discovery” ability, Google Reader will quickly become impersonal and stale, which means users will move on to their next great content source. That will be a loss for Google AND a loss for RSS.

My suggestion: Put the sharing back into Google Reader. Give us back a feed of our friends’ shared items. You can keep the Google+ integration because, on its own, it’s pretty cool.

Here’s how it could work:

• I share an article on Google Reader using the +1 feature.
• It goes to my Google+ feed AND the shared items list.
• If my friend comments on, likes or reshares the Google+ post OR the shared item, that comment is associated with that article and shows up in both Google+ AND in Reader.
• As a bonus, If my friend is interacting with the article on Google+, mark it read in Reader!

Instead of social activity being forced to happen in Google+, it can happen in either place at a user’s pace.

Giving your users flexibility would be the best way increase their engagement.

Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments or join this week’s #SheHeChat on Twitter - One of the topics will be Google Reader.

While you’re at it you should check out what Jim Raffel and Shelby Sapusek have to say about the Reader changes in preparation for tonight’s chat.

You can also join the petition to save Google Reader.

Or read my story of how it got to this point: Part 1 – Information Addiction OR Part 2 – The Love Affair

Lastly – I’d like to give a personal thank you to Silvio Rizzi - Creator of the fantastic Google Reader iOS and OSX App – Reeder. Thanks to Reeder’s stellar integration of all Google Reader features my wife and I are still using the sharing function on iPad and iPhone. If you use Reader and have an iOS device – Get Reeder. It’s well worth the cost.