DOUG SCHUMACHER

experience designer + writer

gaming

Creativing :: Where good ideas come from, YouTube’s new mobile site, and WiFi on ‘roids

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What’s going on in new media marketing, pulled from social bookmarking site Creativing.com:

Where Good Ideas Come From [VIDEO]

Excellent animated video on where good ideas come from. A lot of this will ring true to the importance of conversation monitoring, which is really just a way of plugging yourself into the community, or conversation, that the author talks about in this video.

Digital Marketing: Security Tech CAPTCHAs as Advertising – Advertising Age

Most of the time it’s annoying when advertising creeps into every nook and cranny of daily life, but this idea comes off as clever, and really making a pretty drab event — entering CAPTCHA info — a bit more interesting. And for brands, getting viewers to actually type out their tagline or product features based on a paid impression is pretty remarkable. One of the more clever new ad units I’ve seen in a while. The only limit will be that there really aren’t that many times a user has to see CAPTCHA’s, assuming they have cookies turned on.

The State of YouTube Mobile: Viewing up 160%, Operator Partnerships Sought

A couple of interesting things in this piece. For one, Google’s not happy with the way Apple’s YouTube app works, and are promoting the WAP version of YouTube mobile, instead. It offers a considerably better user experience, which shows that WAP has a lot to offer versus native app development. Secondly, Apple controls the YouTube app on iPhone, and if they can’t keep a major brand like Google up with the latest and greatest mobile experience, then it really underscores how much this brand really needs the larger development community on it’s side, and developing apps like mad for their platform.

SCVNGR provides deeper integration with Facebook Places

I’m following SCVNGR closely, as they seem to be the most aggressive of the location-based apps at trying to figure out survival in a post-Facebook Places world. It’s also interesting, because they’re backed by $4m from Google Ventures. And Google would love to kill both the social and mobile birds with one stone. But I still feel like SCVNGR lacks the simplicity to really go mainstream. For one, it requires an app download, a big barrier, whereas Facebook’s mobile app already has 100m users. And then there’s that problem of less than 1% of all mobile phone users use a location-based app more than 1x per week. So driving consistent use is going to be a real challenge. But the logic behind SCVNGR’s actions are on target, as they get that it’s ultimately about making brands more dynamic on their Facebook properties.

Digital Marketing: The Top 10 Viral Ads of All Time – Advertising Age

Just ran across this list. What I find interesting is that most of them are from the past two years. I’d think having more time on to accrue views would help. My guess is that two factors contribute to the recency of the leaders. One is that companies are getting better at promoting their videos, versus just tossing them on YouTube and telling a couple of forums about it. And secondly, the metrics tracking these views are improving, as they’re extending the analysis beyond YouTube views alone.

“WiFi on steroids” gets final rules, drops spectrum sensing

Any involved in online marketing should be a fan of anything that dials up our broadband speeds here in the US. They’ve been rated as low as 25th in the world, or something abysmal like that. But this is great. Take some unused TV spectrum and allocate it to wireless broadband. And I like that they’re focusing on wireless. It may not have the topend speeds of cable now, but ultimately it will be the most cost effective solution to scale, and seems like the most probably path to blanket coverage.

Phones Begin to Replace Hotel Keycards – Popwuping

Simply a smart way to differentiate yourself amid a battered travel industry. While it might not be enough to attract new customers, this will certainly make a strong impression on anyone who uses it (assuming no bugs, of course!). It also shows how companies need to focus on consumer touchpoints, and not media inventory, when looking at ways to make a real impression.

Hand Craft Your Way to Great Prizes in Etsy API Contest

Etsy is an interesting company to watch, as they’re developing a reputation for interesting, community-centered marketing campaigns. Earlier, they had a UGC video contest (http://www.youtube.com/user/etsy), and now an open API contest, with cash prizes. A couple things are truly helping them in these efforts. One is having a product that naturally attracts a lot of creative, artistic people. The other is having VC Fred Wilson (www.avc.com) as one of your backers.

5 Important New Trends in Location

An overview of the post-Facebook Places location-based services landscape. As expected, this is quickly moving from fun and games to real functionality. And that’s the big opportunity for brands. Because you may need several million people to make a game fun, but good functionality can be delivered on a 1-1 basis.

Creativing :: Twitter the movie?, Mafia Wars goes guerrilla, and the future of the Internet is ‘things’

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What’s going on in new media marketing, pulled from social bookmarking site Creativing.com:

Zynga Runs Guerrilla Mafia Wars Campaign In Hermosa Beach, CA

I like the use of QR codes in this game. I scanned it off the blog image using I-nigma on my iPhone and it had no trouble reading and taking me straight to the site. QR codes have made a lot of progress in the past couple of years.

Advertisers flocking to Facebook: eMarketer – Yahoo! News

Facebook’s taking a page from Google’s playbook. There’s a lot of money in automating the ad process, even if it’s small amounts from a lot of advertisers. Or perhaps especially if that’s the case.

Twitter Movie Trailer:  Rated Awesome

Very well-done parody of the trailer for the Facebook movie, which is here if you haven’t seen it. http://www.thesocialnetwork-movie.com/

Where Else in the World Will Kids Think to Put the Web? [VIDEO]

Interesting that when kids 6-12 were asked about what they want from technology, it’s to better connect them with the physical world. And they’re the ones who should be most comfortable with technology. Refreshing.

China Moves to Dominate the Next Stage of the Web

Interesting that while a recent survey of kids pointed to a future demand for bridging the technical world with the future world, and here China is setting themselves up to the the future of the Internet of Things. Pretty telling. A great stat at the end of this article, too. Earlier this week it happened for the first time that there are now more objects connected to wireless data plans than human subscribers.

Facebook Pages Become Customer Support Centers

There’s been recent buzz online about Facebook’s — and social media in general — ability to function as a customer support resource. Scalability is often at the core of the discussion, but then, customer support has never been any more scalable outside of social media. The objective for customer support technology is always to provide helpful information as fast as possible. Ideally faster than calling and talking to a CS rep. Facebook’s big advantage is familiarity. Even within an app, people may feel more comfortable using it to gather information versus a site visit. So speed and relevance will be the litmus test for this new CS tech, Parature.

Behind the Scenes of MTV’s Twitter Jockey Competition [VIDEO]

Twitter seems more like a content channel than a media platform. While arguably still outside the mainstream compared to most media vehicles, it has a large user base that wouldn’t be considered early adopters of new technology, while at the same time many traditional early adopters find little use for the service. In that sense, it’s a source for the truly influential to get those first bits of information across a range of subjects that most new techs never scratch the surface of.

Whrrl: Living In Foursquare’s Shadow

As my use of Foursquare continues to flatten, I’m interested in what’s next for location based services. Whrrl is the one I’m checking out lately. It’s more complicated than Foursquare, but offers extended value in the form of community. I guess those badges are wearing off, and if I wanted deals, I’d go to Groupon. Right now, my network isn’t to a point where I’m really getting the value, but as Whrrl is adding 2-3,000 users per day and I live in a fairly early adopter area, hopefully the value will emerge.

Gowalla CEO: Sorry Mobile Web: Users Prefer Apps

Start with this quote from the CEO: “Many people perceive the web as source for content rather than a source of services. An app puts the illusion of packaging around a web-delivered service so people feel like they are buying functionality, not merely visiting a site to perform a function or access content. This subtle perception not only explains why apps are popular, but it might also be a clue as to why folks can charge for apps while still unable to monetize their web-based services.”

While marketers are typically focused on building website experiences — for reasons ranging from cost to seo — there are distinct advantages to building apps. For one, once an app is installed, you have ongoing awareness every time the user scrolls through their apps. We all know how easily bookmarks get lost in normal web browsing. That has to increase 10x for a mobile experience. But well beyond that, there’s the perceived value of an app that the CEO is talking about. It’s packaged.

Fact: Most People Have Never Heard of Location-Based Apps

The harsh reality of leading edge technology is that it’s often very difficult to reach a mass audience. This study shows that less than only 1% of those surveyed use location-based services (LBS) more than 1x per week. Not the rate at which you can build a market. This leaves brands with two options at the moment. 1. Determine if you have a key influencer group using LBS and if so, plan for a ripple effect. 2. Do something to generate word of mouth buzz that extends well outside the LBS user group. Unfortunately, neither option is a high-odds play.

Creativing :: Tweet of the Week, Facebook’s privacy blowup, and Google’s version of TVs future

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What’s going on in new media marketing, pulled from social bookmarking site Creativing.com:

Tweet of the Week

From writer Kathy Hepinstall: “what happens in the gulf of mexico does not stay in the gulf of mexico.”

Here’s What Google TV Looks Like (PHOTOS)

I’ve posted several things recently on Google TV, which is probably the most interesting happening around TV technology. Here are some early screen snaps from the experience. This is classic Google. Throw something out there early, it looks kind of ugly, but the upside potential is clear and massive.

Can One Man Communicate Solely Through Social Media for a Month?

A remarkable story for anyone interested in cause-related marketing through social media. It really underlines the fact that successful social media campaigns are about big ideas. The ‘social media’ tools are just the distribution channels.

ESPN to Launch Social Games for Sports Fans

If you consider the popularity of sports, sports-related gaming, and social viewing (which is really best for live events, like sports), this seems like enormous territory. Actually surprised I haven’t heard about this before.

NBC Turns Television into a Social Media Game

Several interesting things about this. 1. Foursquare is featured along with the heavyweights of social media (and note there’s not a single Google property), 2. The Facebook rules and regulations say you can’t pay people to “Like” something, but they’re offering rewards for liking things, and those rewards have value. Maybe they’ve found a loophole with “Rewards”, but it seems like a thin line. 3. The article speaks of “Liking” doing a makeover on the Nielsen ratings system. That’s a big indicator of the power of the “Like” button.

Facebook Knows That Your Relationship Will End In A Week

A lot of people wonder what the value is of all the behavioral data Facebook can track. This example of Facebook’s supposed ability to project the end or beginning of a relationship is all they should need. Imagine just from this info, the number of related businesses that could want to target messages to either party, going into or coming out of a relationship. Then extend that across all behaviors in your life, and there quite a lot of potential for marketers. All of this potential isn’t available to companies yet, but if Facebook’s recent trends about selling your info play out, then it likely will be.

Mayors of Starbucks Now Get Discounts Nationwide with Foursquare

More interesting events on the mobile front. While Foursquare only has about 1 million users, they’re certainly the type of people Starbucks wants. Early adopters, socially active, and willing to broadcast much of their brand loyalties throughout social media.

Booyah Hits 2 Million, Stealing Foursquare’s Thunder

Booyah’s MyTown. The biggest mobile game you’ve never heard of. Already about 2x as many users as Foursquare. It’s interesting to contrast/compare with Foursquare, which is sort of a game, but not really taking the social gaming concept head-on, which MyTown is definitely doing.

The Big Game, Zuckerberg and Overplaying your Hand « The Jason Calacanis Weblog

A very well written lambasting of Facebook from a number of angles. Of course, right after this, Facebook inked a long-term deal with Zynga, the Facebook whipping boy in this article. Beyond the vitriol, Jason makes a far-reaching point about the very essence of the Web’s progress being about openness and existing outside any single company’s motives, that single company being Facebook.

Well, These New Zuckerberg IMs Won’t Help Facebook’s Privacy Problems

Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t seem very concerned about privacy. At least not yours. However, it’s interesting to see people digging up all sorts of things from his past, like these 5 yr old IMs where he literally calls people ‘dumb fucks’ for trusting him with their information on Facebook. If he’s not responding to reporters questions about this, does it mean they’ve uncovered something he’s not comfortable with? i.e., Information he thinks should be private? Privacy advocates could start targeting him in much the same way they exposed Justice Scalia’s personal information after he opposed privacy laws.

Facebook Enters into Five-Year ‘Strategic Relationship’ with Zynga – IndustryGamers

At times, Facebook seems like a company moving so fast they’re going to meltdown, but then they pull moves like this and show how far ahead they’re thinking relative to the other majors, including Google and Apple. Social gaming isn’t even close to being tapped out, IMO. That’s why I’m impressed by Facebook putting together such an unprecedented (for them) long-term deal with a social gaming company.

Creativing :: How the iPad will change computing, The future of gaming, and a 70s music vid way ahead of it’s time

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What’s going on in new media marketing, pulled from social bookmarking site Creativing.com:

Tweet of the Week

Past tense of ‘bing’: If bing is like ping then it’s ‘binged’. If it’s like sing, it’s ‘bung’. If it’s like bring, it’s ‘bought’.

Starbucks Listens to Customer Request for More Sizes | Starbucks Coffee Company

This was my favorite April Fools prank. Starbucks again showing the best way to battle brand backlash is to not let it throw you off your game.

How the Tablet Will Change the World

The more I read about the iPad, the more impressed I am by Apple’s vision. I’m also enjoying the battle of the titans between Apple and Google. And while I generally favor the open system approach of Google, Apple’s been providing value through a far more consistently better user experience for the masses of users who never really care about doing their own Google Maps mashup.

10 Apps We’re Excited to Try on iPad Launch Day | Gadget Lab | Wired.com

Another post in the topic du jour. To a lot of people, the gap between a laptop and an iPhone experience seems like a small niche. True, almost all apps demonstrated here can already be done on either of those two devices. But looking at these large images and realizing that they’ll be delivered in the tight interface of the Apple app system, and you can see why this is going to be a very different computing experience.

NYT: Data Show Best Corners to Hail a Cab in New York

This article hits on several interesting points. The use of data to create a more fluid society — think traffic management or urban planning. Also, the release of this data as an app means the loop comes around and future data could reflect how this data was reacted to. And lastly, this is all about mobile and location based services; probably the strongest tech meme going.

Jesse Schell’s mindblowing talk on the future of games (DICE 2010)

A great presentation on the current and future state of gaming and how it could be worked into seemingly every facet of our lives. Watch this video and get 10 bonus points.

Amazon Filler Item Finder – Get Free Shipping on Amazon.com

Since opening up customer reviews in the mid 90s (to the howls of critics), Amazon has refined and redefined the online commerce business. This is right in line with their trend. A tool that shows you a range of products which will fill that last $3.11 you need to add to your order to get free shipping. Brilliant!

YouTube – Prisencolinensinainciusol

Remarkable video from the early 70s. The song from Italian singer Adriano Celentano is actually a parody on what English sounded like to him. Thus the rather odd title. It actually looks and sounds more like someone trying to take a funk hip hop group and send them time traveling back three decades.

Creativing :: Tweet of the Week, Pissed off at Google, and Foursquare goes for the gold

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What’s going on in new media marketing, pulled from social bookmarking site Creativing.com:

Tweet of the Week

if ($caffeinated) { echo ‘good morning!’; }

P&G Launches eStore to Test Marketing Concepts – MarketingVOX

I’m curious to see what this ‘lab’ looks like from a features and development angle. It’s clearly designed for nimbleness, which will only be a growing trend as everything seems to be moving toward immediacy. From product development to brand experience to social marketing.

Fuck you, Google « Fugitivus

I’ve felt for a while that the tech industry is veering perilously close to blowing the top off the whole privacy issue. From location-based services to misunderstood social network sharing to cookie tracking, there are a lot of hot buttons, and people are starting to push them.

Twitter Is Still Growing Rapidly [STATS]

A week or two ago it was widely reported that Twitter was dropping off in popularity. However, they were gauging unique visitors to the site, and with so many people using 3rd party apps, like TweetDeck, that could have a large impact. The other key stat is obviously overall Tweets sent, and that’s where apparently Twitter is looking just fine.

Foursquare Inks Deals With Major Media and Entertainment Brands

Mobile is certainly heating up, and Foursquare is on the front burner. While Foursquare currently operates under the guise of fun and games, location-based services on mobile will likely soon be the way most people figure out what they’re going to do for entertainment on a given evening.

Wi-Fi Turns Arizona Bus Ride Into a Rolling Study Hall – NYTimes.com

Another good story on technology improving lives in a very simple way.

Google Liquid Galaxy live demo at TED [VIDEO]

Google connects 8 large LCD screens in a wraparound view to it’s Earth and Street View apps for an amazing voyage around what feels like a pretty small world. The trip from LA to SF beats any bullet train proposal I’ve seen.

Skittles | Experience the Rainbow

Very fun experience. The surreal carnival feel fits great with a product as quirky as Skittles. The long extended page reminds me of suck.com back in the day. It’s an unconventional format which defies most usability issues, but who’s really coming to Skittles.com for functionality anyway?

E-commerce and Facebook: Friends or foes? – BusinessWeek

Some of the good and bad of doing ecommerce on Facebook

Motorola Maintains Mobile Subscriber Market Share Lead – MarketingVOX

Amid the iPhone craze, it’s important to keep in mind that overall, there’s still a small percentage of users who have one. Thus if you want to go mass on mobile, you’ll have to go more lowest common denominator.

Creativing :: Google Google and more Google, a restaurant does brand experience, and Guitar Hero for the holidays

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What’s going on in new media marketing, pulled from social bookmarking site Creativing.com:

Google Chrome promotional videos

Fantastic videos from the Chrome campaign in the UK. It’s great to see Google doing something different from their homespun Wave video approach. This is real artistry.

Ultimate Guitar Hero Experience

It’s amazing what happens when you take a cultural phenomenon like Guitar Hero and mix in the wonderfully hackable Wii system. This kid gets the Christmas present of a lifetime, and a killer Guitar Hero experience, as well. And is there any better proof that companies that open things up benefit enormously from the creativity of the crowd?

When Google Runs Your Life

Great overview of Google Apps, and the power of cloud computing. Particularly noteworthy is the speed at which Google can react to needs and improve an experience across the entire user base. While so many companies talk about their listening skills, Google’s demonstrating it. The ongoing stream of improvements and new features is the first thing I noticed when I started using Apps.

5 Creative Ways to Hack Your Facebook Profile Photo

Interesting way to creatively ‘hack’ your Facebook photo. Hack being used innocuously. These are more just some ways to make your photo stand out visually.

Isn’t the Value of Social Media What Business Is All About?

Good reminder by the head of Dell’s social media and community that social media is at the core of what successful small business operators have always done well. Develop great customer relationships.

Maloney & Porcelli Expense Report Generator

Need to write off an expensive dinner? Let this receipt generator help. A fun brand experience for a restaurant.

Obama moves to boost U.S. broadband access

Of course I love this, and I realize it sounds self-serving, but having the best broadband access in the world is part standard of living, part infrastructure, and part education. It’s an enabler across many areas beyond e-commerce and e-services. I just hope this is enough budget to make an impact.

What Google’s Real-Time Search Means for Brands

Four things Google’s Real Time search means for brands. The bottom line is, what’s said about you on the Web will be easier to find, and more influential, than ever before. For companies that participate in and drive that conversation, there’s power to shape those conversations. For those that don’t, they’re leaving their brand to drift whichever way the conversation flows.

Google Earth Comes to Audi A8

Great idea. Especially the feature enabling you to send maps from your computer to your car. I just hope the download speeds are better than what I’ve found most mobile broadband systems can generate, or you’ll end up driving around in circles waiting for maps to appear on screen.

Android Market Hits 20,000 Apps

One of the more impressive stats I’ve seen in a while. When you think that after 2 years, the Apple store is now at 100,000 apps, 20k in this short of time is significant. Google’s  taken steps to make it easy to convert existing iPhone apps to the Android platform. Apparently, it’s working.

Creativing :: Social gaming’s revenue model is working, Twitter tools and insights, and Facebook Page updates are generating responses

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What’s going on in new media marketing, pulled from social bookmarking site Creativing.com:

The Goods May Be Virtual, but the Profit Is Real

Recently, I’ve posted a number of articles on this trend, and yet more reinforcement keeps popping up. This is a look at gaming, particularly social gaming. While the article doesn’t delve into it’s counterpart, console gaming, it’s not hard to connect the dots. Currently console gaming companies spending 100s of millions to launch a title, selling them at a high cost — often $40 or more. And like the movie industry, they lose money on most of their productions, making it back on a few hits. By contrast, social gaming sites product games that are free, played by millions, and then make their money selling small items for a buck or two. Their investment is less, so they don’t need enormous sales to recoup it. Zynga, the leader in this space and producer of games like Mafia Wars, says only 3% of those who play actually make a purchase. Yet they’re profitable. I think entertainment companies need to address this model, and stop trying to pull as much profit from as few people as they can, and start trying to get a little money from a lot of people. A great change would be to simultaneously make movies available in theaters, via download and on DVD. Capture the excitement while it’s there, realizing that there are potentially millions of people who want to see the movie, but just never make it out to the theater.

Weber Shandwick’s Inline Social Media Melting Pot

Good information, if not that surprising. What did take me back was the number of accounts the 73 Twitter-active companies have set up. 540. That’s an AVERAGE of over 7 accounts per company. And while the report overall has some good insights — I think they’re right on about companies just spouting off brand information and not really having a conversation — there are some aspects of the report that I feel are skewing the data. Namely, they look at absolute Tweets and Followers, not relative figures based on a recent time period. Twitter is still an emerging technology, and as such, many of these accounts could have been set up in the past 6 months. So unless the company has been posting at a very heavy rate, they likely wouldn’t have that much activity in aggregate to rank high in this study. I think brands can get a lot of value out of Twitter without posting at a level that, say, @garyvee posts (Over 60 posts a day average over the past week). And if you’re one of those brands, you didn’t look that good in this survey.

New Facebook Inbox Increases Response Rates For Page Updates

Insightful comparison between response rates for email newsletters (the opt-in variety) and Facebook Page Updates. While newsletters draw significantly higher response rates, they’re typically sent out with much less frequency.

Twitter Analyzer | Twitter Statistics | Twitter Analytics

One of the more interesting Twitter stats tools I’ve seen recently. A lot of information, although like most of the tools, it’s a little kludgey, and some of the data being presented could be more thought out in terms of whether or not that information is really helpful in making a Twitter use analysis.

On Twitter and in the Workplace, It’s Power to the Connectors – HarvardBusiness.org

A dissection of how corporate America structures are changing, from more rigid vertical hierarchies, to interpersonal networks that can expand across multiple companies and disciplines. There’s a strong leadership undercurrent to this, exemplified by the following blurb:

“Wherever teamwork across positions is desirable, natural connectors who instinctively reach across divides to form relationships get the plum jobs, on small sports teams as well as in large companies. For example, on the North Carolina women’s soccer team, a perennial winner among college teams, Jordan Walker was a team leader because she was a connector who helped other players work together, even though Coach Anson Dorrance called her one of the least athletic players he had ever seen.”