Redefining Navigation Simply by Nokia
The World’s Biggest Signpost from adghost on Vimeo.
The corner bookstore and the amazon partnership
If you enjoy reading, as much I do, and even more so with my new Kindle, you will realize that the challenge of finding books is still the biggest problem even though you can get them instantly anywhere, even with Amazon’s recommendation engine. Now Kindle (probably the iPad will do the same as well) has literally transformed how I read, because its the ultimate reading user experience – On the subway, I can sync to the page I was on at home and then continue to read my book on my Kindle Ap on the iPhone, on the airplane, I can download a couple books preflight, or just sitting on the couch or the beach and I can read my kindle like a book, and when I am done with that book I have access to entire bookstore at my command.
But it isn’t the reading experience I struggle with, its finding books. You see this is exceptionally complicated for my family, as we all have Kindles and we all have multi-discplines of categories we like to read. I find the best way to find books is the old fashion way word of mouth or walking into a bookstore. But with Kindles we can no longer share books, so finding still requires word of mouth and then going out and buying. But walking into Barnes and Noble is basically the same as logging onto Amazon and finding that perfect book, is exhausting and its not very efficient in terms of user experience. Its not like having my mother-in-law who is a veracious reader, is on the board of a Detroit book event group, and knows both my wife and I well recommend x book because she knows we will like it both after reading it and knowing us personally.
I am not sure if either technology or bricks and mortars can ever get achieve the recommendation engine of my mother in-law, but just like a date recommendation it requires someone who knows both parties intimately to make the perfect match, and that’s more than your last purchase through a single channel (ie amazon.com)
Living in New York, especially in the neighborhood we live in, we have the wonderful opportunity to browse local bookstores, and yesterday we went into Posman Books in Chelsea Market. I have to say that instantly this became one of my favorite bookstore. The difference between Posman Books and Barnes and Noble is that like a niche museum or art gallery, Posman Books is curated, its curated looking at books as art, and creating an environment that supports that methodology. The books are basically the same price as Barnes and Noble, but the quantity is a fraction, and the size of the space is but a corner of one of the larger B&Ns. But you don’t have to fight through crowds of people, climb over people laying (sometimes sleeping) in the aisles, or hike 20 miles and speak to five people to find that copy of a small run publisher that fits your needs, most likely you might not even find any of that (including that niche publisher, unless the folks at Posman choose them), but you will find an environment and a collection of books that will satisfy any of the world’s literati.
So the question then is what happens when I only buy on Kindle? Or I only buy on Amazon or Apple? Its simple. . . Posman books suffers and runs the risk of disappearing. But this doesn’t need to happen! Posman doesn’t need to be just a bookstore tucked away in a corner of Chelsea Market. They can be a curator, a brand, and an ambassador for the perfect books, and so can 192 Books, Biography Bookstore, or any of the wonderful bookstores in the world. While yes maybe their revenues at their bricks and mortar stores may fall, but they can simply diversify this revenue. They should partner with Amazon and Apple vs fear it. And Amazon should leverage the foundation they have of an affiliate marketing program (like the one where if you chose to buy the kindle from my link above I make a small commission) and create the small bookstore sales platform. The program should allow Posman Books or any other bookstore to create a page that when people are browsing their site or have been in their store and want to remember a book, they saw can simply go to their new ecommerce site (funded and hosted by amazon) and buy the book directly from Amazon’s fulfillment platform, either via download or hardcover, and in return Amazon can design the program so that it delivers a similar margin on the book to the retailer as selling it in their stores. This allows the retailer to continue to deliver their valuation of curation of books as a small bookstore, but ultimately they can extend their brand beyond the single retail environment, prevent themselves from loosing money on the movement to more books being sold or downloaded via the web, and ultimately scale their business far beyond one or two single disconnected local stores.
Just a thought. . .
Apple to ship tablet in March
Although the tablet has been around in many reincarnations, and many different CE developers have tried, the fact that Apple is launching a version is a validation that that platform and form fact is ultimately the next evolution in how we consume our content.
Apple to Ship Tablet Device in March – WSJ.com
By YUKARI IWATANI KANE And GEOFFREY FOWLER
Apple Inc. plans to unveil a new multimedia tablet device later this month, but doesn’t plan on shipping the product until March, people briefed by the company said.
All Things Digital’s Kara Swisher joins Simon Constable on the News Hub to discuss a major product announcement by Apple, which many believe to be the much-awaited tablet computer.
While the shipping time hasn’t been finalized and could change, people briefed on the matter said the new tablet device will come with a 10- to 11-inch touch screen. An Apple spokesman said the company doesn’t comment on rumors and speculation.
One of the people briefed on the matter added that Apple was working on two different material finishes for the tablet, though it was unclear whether the Cupertino, Calif., company was just testing them or planning to come out with multiple versions of the device at different prices.
Analysts currently believe an Apple tablet will be priced at about $1,000, possibly including a subscription to a nationwide Wi-Fi wireless service.
The tablet is expected to be a multimedia device that will let people watch movies and television shows, play games, surf the Internet and read electronic books and newspapers. People briefed by Apple also say that the company believes it could redefine the way consumers interact with a variety of content. Textbooks and newspapers, for example, could be presented differently through color screens, a touch interface, and the integration of live up-to-the-minute information from multiple sources.
Complaining about AT&T? There’s an app for that.
I am not completely sure if they is application is really a crowdsourced maintenance tool for the AT&T network, a way to manage the huge inflow of negative customer service calls and emails to AT&T wireless, or really a brilliant idea. But what I will say is that if AT&T does make the effort to reduce dropped calls, upgrade the network based on feedback, then all I have to say is Cheers AT&T, I will stick around even after your network looses the iPhone contract.
Lets see how much better Union Square (an iPhone dead zone) in NYC gets in the next couple weeks.
AT&T’s New iPhone App Lets You Complain About AT&T
AT&T’s New iPhone App Lets You Complain About AT&T
December 7th, 2009 | by Ben Parr20 Comments and 555 Reactions
iPhone owners may love Apple’s sexy mobile device, but they absolutely can’t stand AT&T. It ranks dead last in customer satisfaction for dropped calls and spotty 3G service, a sore spot that Verizon has been poking at with new ads.
Now the U.S.’s second largest wireless provider is looking to turn things around, hopefully before it loses iPhone exclusivity rights. Its newest strategy is especially unique, though, because it comes in the form of an iPhone app called Mark the Spot [iTunes Link].
The free customer service app is really quite simple. Whenever you experience a problem with your service (e.g. a dropped call, bad 3G connection, poor quality), you can open up the app and report the issue right where you are. Once you cite the problem and add additional info, it gets submitted to AT&T’s customer support team. The key to the app is that it’s location-based, meaning that AT&T can aggregate this data to find dead spots and trouble areas.
This app is simple but smart — it provides useful data to AT&T while giving customers an outlet for venting about their hatred for AT&T and how they wished the iPhone was on Verizon. Still, it may be too little, too late.
Following a flood of information about Moms
Now that I am a dad, and well my wife is a mom, and since I spent a lot of time working on brands such as Dove and Suave, I find the mom demo very interesting. I also love how we as users of social media can consume content in huge waves without really needing to dig very deeply and deliver much effort.
So today, while watching my twitter feed I came upon an event being hosted at Google called MomDotCom or in hashtags #momdotcom. I didn’t exactly attend the event but I sure did learn a lot about the mom demo.
Such as:
TV prompts search usage – 83% of moms search for products based on seeing product in TV commercial
78% of moms type in brand terms in search engines
67% of moms look for discount codes before purchasing.
Search is vital for moms
When it comes to food choices for mom “health trumps choice”
A new mom is created every 7 seconds in the US
46% of the conversations between moms and 6 month-olds involve the word “cereal”
and much much more here
Looks like the power is shifting
Well let me rephrase that, the power has shifted, and now publishers are just realizing it. .
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Web Publishers Fear Agencies’ Demand-Side Platforms
Web Publishers Fear Agencies’ Demand-Side PlatformsNov 29, 2009
-By Mike Shields
Top tier Web publishers–already wary of ad networks and exchanges–are growing increasingly squeamish about the potential impact of demand-side buying platforms created by the top agency holding companies.
According to sources, several publishers have discussed banding together to establish their own publisher-centric ad platform, designed to protect pricing and data for premium sites.
Some sites are advocating for the creation of some sort of top publisher ad network; a handful are even said to be mulling whether they should just say no to selling inventory to demand-side platforms such as Publicis’ VivaKi and Havas’ Adnetik.
At issue is the industry’s overarching fear of being further commoditized and disintermediated. In the last 18 months, the online publishing business has been rocked by a brutal recession and an ever-worsening overabundance of inventory, making business conditions bad enough already for sellers.
Adding to the mix has been the emergence of ad exchanges shepherded by the Web’s biggest companies—Google, Yahoo and soon Microsoft—along with new companies introduced by agency holding companies focused on purchasing avails for clients at scale.
Both these platforms are built on the premise of buying Web audiences using data and technology rather than selling ad placements alongside specified editorial.
Disruption + Innovation @ (Fair Market Value) + Recession = Success for Apple and Amazon
Interesting article about why Apple and Amazon are succeeding while still transforming the industry during a recession.
Apple and Amazon Do Platform Innovation–And Succeed in a Recession – BusinessWeek
Apple and Amazon Do Platform Innovation–And Succeed in a RecessionPosted by: Bruce Nussbaum on October 21
Amazon just announced that people are reading more and more books on the Kindle days after Appple announced that people are downloading more and more applications on the iPhone. And profits rose 47%. It’s no secret that these two companies are among the handful that have kept up revenues and profits throughout the worst recession since the Depression and are poised to do even better as the economy begins to growth again.
The reason is simple—but not simple enough apparently for most managers in most global companies to comprehend. Apple and Amazon have created disruptive platform innovations that change the game for consumers. And they have done it within a price range ($300 to $400) that reduces the cost and risks to people even in a recession.
Let’s take this strategy apart. First, a game-changing BIG innovation—a platform innovation. Second, a price for consumers that is low enough to entice them to take the leap into the new, disruptive innovation. Third, a multitude of applications and “stuff” (products, services, experiences) on the platform that provide value (information, insight,entertainment) to people.
That’s it folks. It is that simple. Or that complex. It takes a special type of culture, organization and leadership to make it happen.
Spectrum of Online Friendship to the Funnel
I just started following Mike Arauz on Twitter @mikearauz, and while browsing some presentations on social media, I came upon his chart:
which refers to the spectrum of online friendship. I think this is a very interesting chart as it creates a quanitifiable way of looking at the relationships between people online and ultimately how they evolve. Now mind you, I do not see this as an absolute since it doesn’t factor in many aspects of “online friendships” and it does look at the primary relationships in somewhat of a vacuum, ie I stumble upon a site/feed/microblog/etc and begin to take even a cursory view of the content, and then become immersed into a relationship with the author, and if we keep that as the thesis, then the chart makes a lot of sense, and we can then apply it to a relationship with a brand and thus becomes another evolution of the standard marketing funnel.
Now I wouldn’t take the spectrum of friendship as the be all and end all of social media relationships to CRM, but you can derive a considerable amount of strategic influence from such doc. I created a starting point for you to consider. Though not ideal, when you begin to look at social media as marketing it take a bit of the mystification away from it
Below is Mike’s blog post in deeper details, also please note the caveots on the bottom of his post, very relevant.
Mike Arauz: Spectrum of Online Friendship
Blog: Stream of Thoughts
Spectrum of Online Friendship
Update: Part 2, responses to comments here.“What is a friend?” This question is constantly echoing across the internet. But, digital relationships (just like non-digtal ones) are not absolute. They are fluid. And online friendship is better described along a spectrum defined by the actions people take and how we feel about them. The more useful question for individuals and brands who are interested in cultivating online friendships is How do I move my friends from acquaintanceship to “best friendliness”? (as I called them on my Friend For Hire flyer PDF)
Last week I wrote about how online friendships are different from what we’ve traditionally called friendships. Digital technology has affected the number of relationships you can maintain, and the intimacy of those relationships, effectively enabling us to create fans who feel like friends.
I wasn’t finished thinking about the nature of online friendship, though.
Click for full size image
Mike Arauz Diagram
Passive Interest
This is the easiest level of engagement. It asks the least of your friends, and achieves the least commitment from us. But, it’s the crucial starting point. I follow my curiosity to you, I’m interested in what I find, and I choose to pay attention. e.g. repeat visits, blog readers, fans, followers, etc.Active Interest
This is when I care enough to let you know that I care (in a nice way, not in a stalker way. It’s a small step, but a big opportunity for you to identify key members of your audience who are candidates to move along the spectrum. We don’t yet expect a response, we’re just letting you know that we’re listening. e.g. people who leave comments on your blog, wall comments, @replies on Twitter, etc.
Sharing
At this point the audience member starts to become a fan. You and your work become part of my identity as I use it to talk to my own friends about what interests me (remember that we share content for social reasons). I also have made myself more valuable, because I am now partly responsible for the spread of your ideas. e.g. social bookmarking, retweeting links, posting links and content to my own sites and profiles, etc.Public Dialogue
This is the first phase that requires action on your part. I have either demonstrated an Active Interest or have Shared your work with my own friends. You foster a relationship by responding to my interest in a public forum. By doing so, you make the rest of your friends aware of my existence, and welcome me to the group. e.g. public @replies, referrals in a blog post, and references posted to our various sites and profiles, etc.Private Dialogue
At this step, we begin to transform mutual interest into mutual trust. We are willing to share thoughts, ideas, experiences with each other directly. We trust each other with direct access, which has increasing value in an increasingly always-on world. e.g. exchanging email, TXT messages, IM, and direct messages on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, etc.Advocacy
At first glance, Advocacy looks a lot like Sharing. But, the crucial difference is that Advocacy means that I am making an explicit recommendation of you to my friends. It’s too easy now to simply share, all it takes is one click on your bookmark tool bar. Choosing to actually say, “This is important. It’s worth my friends’ time. And I’m willing to risk my own reputation to convince my friends to check it out.” e.g. same tools as Sharing, but different language; usually entails recommending the person or brand, and not just a specific piece of contentInvestment
The brass ring of online friendship. This is the most difficult achievement to recognize or quantify. But it’s the most important because it represents the willingness of your friends to take action on your behalf. In the words of former Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, “I know it when I see it.” e.g. Your wins are my wins.The last tier, Investment, became clear to me in the wake of well-wishes deservedly showered on David Armano after his announcement last Friday of his move to the Dachis Corporation. I was one of those well-wishers myself, and was genuinely proud and excited to hear about his new gig.
When I think about people (or brands, or people-brands) who have had success at moving their audience from one end of this spectrum to the other, Armano is one of the first examples that comes to mind. This is why he was able to raise over $15,000 in one night for a friend in trouble. And it’s why thousands of people offered up congratulations when they heard he had taken this new job.
Look at what most brands are measuring in this space. It rarely goes much farther than the first tier, Passive Interest. We count visits, friends, fans, followers, etc. Unfortunately the reasons for these limited metrics have more to do with efficiency than efficacy. These metrics are the easiest thing to measure and they return the biggest numbers. But, as you can see there’s so much more value to be had as we move beyond those basic actions.
Your online ambitions can only be as grand as the quality of the relationships you foster. What would you like to accomplish online? As you move your audience from Passive Interest to Investment the possibilities grow.
Caveats:
* In the digital world, none of these behaviors, even dialogue, requires a reciprocal feeling of friendship on your part. I can be your friend without you being my friend.
* These phases are not absolute gateways. It is possible occasionally to skip over one action or another and to advance to the next phase.
In-flight Ad supported Free Wifi
As wifi enabled planes become the standard and there are no other places where you can be untethered from your digital world, it seems to make sense to try to monetize the environment with ad supported access. The question I ask is why hasn’t it worked in other digital access offerings? NetZero? People PC, etc? Was it the user experience? The interface or lack of interface?
Seeing more and more ad supported browsing environments pop-up, like hospital waiting rooms in Canada, as users are cutting costs maybe this is an opportunity to deliver access that is ad supported as a real value ad. But outside 30,000 feet and maybe underground (ie. subways) where are we where out portable devices don’t get access?
In-flight ad system lets flyers kill time for free | VentureBeat
In-flight ad system lets flyers kill time for free
October 6, 2009 | Paul Boutin | Comments |Wi-Fi advertising network JiWire, which serves ad pages to coffeehouse laptop users, has partnered with in-flight broadband provider Row 44 to create a portal called Skytown Center that will let laptop-toting flyers surf the best version of SkyMall ever.
JiWire will deliver the ads to Skytown’s home page, as shown in the mockup below. Depending on how the airline configures the system, flyers may have their choice of Internet access, ad-supported free Internet access, or free advertising content.
For now, no airlines have officially declared that they’ll be using Skytown Center. But Southwest and Alaska have tested Row 44’s system, which connects from an in-flight plane to a satellite. Row 44’s system can connect flyers to the Internet, or give them offline content to peruse.
reflections on a startup social network
So if you haven’t seen this site befuckingawesome.com, its a pretty amazing idea, make the world a better place by doing “awesome” things, quite benevolent. The problem is, that like many start-ups the market can eventually define the platform, not the other way around, and what you start out building can evolve considerably from the original plan or vision. Sometimes you accept this evolution as the stars aligning and you grab on to the railing, snap on your seat belt, and watch the world unfold. . . this has happened many times over, from our friends at Wild Tangent (which started as a game developer), to many of the current ad networks, to much more. . . most of the time for the better. . . Wild Tangent is now a very success game aggregation platform and game ad network. And other times you hit a bump loose complete control, but eventually you get back on track and your company/product/platform returns to where you wanted it to be, and you make it out a little scathed, a little tired, but a lot smarter.
This is a great post about that.
A Social Network Built Around Doing Good But With An F-Bomb In Its Name? What The F Am I Thinking?!
Ambitious. That’s one thing it could be called. Stupid. That’s another. But after two weeks being live with Be Fucking Awesome dot com – the first social network designed for doing good – I’m choosing to simply call it A MASSIVE LEARNING EXPERIENCE.
It’s been a ride. That’s for sure. At first it was all good. We got some exciting press courtesy Josh Spear. He’s got a big blog following and his review was pretty sweet. Thanks Josh. Then we got a great write-up on the front page of the Denver Egotist. Very nice. And we got a couple of other nice web-press-hits too. And our Google Analytics were looking good. This was just one week in, and it was feeling nothing short of FA.
Then week two started. I was hoping for more press and promotion, more steady growth of new users and FAdeeds. Well, being raised at CP+B I’m just like a lot of Crispinites – I never learn. This time the lesson that I hadn’t learned was “be careful what you ask for.” Because last Tuesday the 6th, we got more press. This time from Asylum.com – another glowing review. Pretty cool, right? Well… let’s just say that depends on who you ask. Because all of a sudden, our burgeoning userbase went from a demographic of those who cleary understood that the site was about posting good deeds, to one full of Maxim-magazine fratboy types who were into it to post stuff that they thought was funny or “awesome” from a “I just took a giant shit” or “I just banged two chicks” POV. And not only did this demographic get into it, they LOVED it. On Tuesday the 6th alone we had something like 12,000 views and at one time more than 1,000 concurrent users. But the content being posted spawned a major dilemma for me. “Do I ride it out? Do I trust the system? What if so many of this new type is onboard now that they’ll hush the others? What if they vote up the nonsense FAdeeds to the point where it gets out of the original vision entirely? Do I edit it? Do I delete posts and kick people off the site? But wait… they’re not WRONG. Nowhere does it dictate what is an “awesome deed” and it’s open to interpretation… What do I DO? Have we created a MONSTER?!”
Picture 26
Ambitious. That’s one thing it could be called. Stupid. That’s another. But after two weeks being live with Be Fucking Awesome dot com – the first social network designed for doing good – I’m choosing to simply call it A MASSIVE LEARNING EXPERIENCE.
It’s been a ride. That’s for sure. At first it was all good. We got some exciting press courtesy Josh Spear. He’s got a big blog following and his review was pretty sweet. Thanks Josh. Then we got a great write-up on the front page of the Denver Egotist. Very nice. And we got a couple of other nice web-press-hits too. And our Google Analytics were looking good. This was just one week in, and it was feeling nothing short of FA.
Then week two started. I was hoping for more press and promotion, more steady growth of new users and FAdeeds. Well, being raised at CP+B I’m just like a lot of Crispinites – I never learn. This time the lesson that I hadn’t learned was “be careful what you ask for.” Because last Tuesday the 6th, we got more press. This time from Asylum.com – another glowing review. Pretty cool, right? Well… let’s just say that depends on who you ask. Because all of a sudden, our burgeoning userbase went from a demographic of those who cleary understood that the site was about posting good deeds, to one full of Maxim-magazine fratboy types who were into it to post stuff that they thought was funny or “awesome” from a “I just took a giant shit” or “I just banged two chicks” POV. And not only did this demographic get into it, they LOVED it. On Tuesday the 6th alone we had something like 12,000 views and at one time more than 1,000 concurrent users. But the content being posted spawned a major dilemma for me. “Do I ride it out? Do I trust the system? What if so many of this new type is onboard now that they’ll hush the others? What if they vote up the nonsense FAdeeds to the point where it gets out of the original vision entirely? Do I edit it? Do I delete posts and kick people off the site? But wait… they’re not WRONG. Nowhere does it dictate what is an “awesome deed” and it’s open to interpretation… What do I DO? Have we created a MONSTER?!”
