DOUG SCHUMACHER

experience designer + writer

ipad

Creativing :: A baby-photo meme, Facebook’s Hackathon winner, and measuring word-of-mouth

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

Dilbert Takes on Social Media Marketing Managers [PIC]

This is funny, and probably painfully true for some.

Score a Celebrity Twitter Follower by Donating to Charity

I like this concept because it plays into the Twitter culture of “who’s following who” so well. And it’s simplicity. Just bid on a celeb (like Justin Bieber), and they’ll follow you, retweet you at least once, and will also send out a tweet including your @twitterhandle. It’s tough to tag this with a value, as the big unknown is how many of JB’s 5.2m followers will ever see either of the references to you. But it’s a fresh idea.

10 Facebook Tabs to Add

If Facebook’s recent elimination of boxes left you baffled, this won’t necessarily explain their reasoning, but will give you a sense of how to revise your page to get back the content that’s now missing. For brands, this is a good chance to see how an advanced user is making the transition from boxes to tabs.

Nau, inc.’s photosets on Flickr

Fashion brands would seem to be a natural for photo-based social media. Yet it seems like so few of them take advantage of the technologies. One that is is Nau, a personal favorite of mine. In particular, I like their user submission contest, in which each month they select the best shot submitted by users, and that person gets, what else, free Nau clothing. They’ve also integrated the photos and Flickr’s slideshow capabilities on their site very nicely.

Does Speed Trump Quality for Startup Iteration?

With the term ‘agile marketing’ popping up more and more frequently, it’s interesting to note other situations where the rapid deployment and iteration approach is working. Personally, I think there’s a lot of headroom in this direction for agencies, as there’s no question they need to get more done in less time. The real question is, How to do that without ending up a pile of debris.

7 Strategies I’m Pitching for Businesses to use Facebook Places | Stay N’ Alive

A good list of ideas that many businesses should be doing with Facebook. Much of this is going to become foundational, and will support numerous other online marketing initiatives that involve social media, so it makes a lot of sense to have these capabilities already in play and having a good understanding of how to use them.

A new way to measure word-of-mouth marketing – McKinsey Quarterly

Some interesting findings in this. For consumer purchase decision-making, word of mouth has greater influence in developing nations, yet they also rely more on advertising, even at late stages of the decision making process. That makes sense given that mature markets tend to be more cynical about advertising. But word of mouth will almost certainly increase more for mature markets in the future, due to advanced in technology.

Another interesting bit. Word of mouth can lift a company’s market share 10% over 2 years, but also drop it 20%. Obviously, there’s a huge need to generate positive word of mouth. Imagine what 10% market share is worth to most brands.

A Baby Photo Becomes an Internet Meme – NYTimes.com

An entertaining story about memes, in particular a Florida parent’s baby photo that went viral in Japan.

Social shopping app wins Facebook Hackathon

Another indicator of the social shopping trend. Right now the simple idea is to map products to ‘Likes’, usually weighted towards your circle of friends. Of course this all underscores the importance of friends in recommending products, the most reliable source of information.

Is the iPad Devouring the Notebook Market?

Steve Jobs predicted this, and it’s remarkable to see the iPad’s impact happening so quickly. Keep in mind it was just a couple of years ago that laptops surpassed desktop sales. The trend is certainly to light, portable, and easy to use. For marketers, the question is, How will this impact future computing? So what are the user traits for iPad? Less typing, a more graphic experience, instant access due to not having to ‘boot up’, and an app-like experience, even if over the long-term that becomes more perception than technical reality. Bottom line: The Web has become (or perhaps always has been) a confusing mess of information, and now that’s it’s entirely mainstream, there’s a lot of room for optimization. The iPhone and iPad have taken us back to a simpler, almost pre-Web era of siloed experiences that feel simpler because, like traditional, they have a more contained set of options once you’re inside the app. Choice is good until it’s overwhelming.

Creativing :: Facebook is heroin, Farmville engagement is sliding, and the Twitter Times personalized newspaper

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

Tweet of the Week

“There was $250,000 lining the walls of that stand, how much clearer can I say it: “THERE IS ALWAYS MONEY IN THE BANANA STAND!” #ADquotes

Facebook is Social Media Heroin and that Puts It at Risk–Or Does It? | Forrester Blogs

Admittedly, the headline got me. But it’s an interesting case for why just because a social media experience is addictive doesn’t mean it isn’t in jeopardy of competition. Remember MySpace? Me either. But they were flying high when Facebook was just starting. And Facebook took over because of a better user experience. And that’s what people are complaining about Facebook now.

Bar codes get around town and get more useful – Yahoo! Finance

I’ve long felt that QR codes will have their day. As someone who’s found all sorts of convenient life hacks around mobile phones (taking a picture of my parking deck location is a fave), QR codes provide a convenient shortcut to entering text on a mobile phone. I really like how Google is distributing codes to their businesses. Think about walking along and seeing a store that you don’t have time to visit. Or it’s closed. You take a snapshot of the QR code on the window, and have their info logged for easy access later. That’s a very functional use, and I’m sure there are a lot of creative opportunities out there, as well.

The Twitter Tim.es – a personalized newspaper generated from your Twitter account

This is a great idea for people who find value in Twitter without having to constantly update the world on their last meal. It creates a magazine-style interface of all the links the people you follow are sending out. You can also filter it by lists or media sources. A much improved interface for consuming Twitter information than Twitter of any of the content generation-focused 3rd party apps.

Flipboard for iPad

Check out the demo video for a quick intro to the concept. This looks like it’s very well done, and like the Yahoo iPad app demonstration, makes a convincing case for why slates will dominate media consumption. Also, keep in mind we’re still in the very nascent stages of this type of content interface. The Flipboard branding is also nicely done.

Dribbble – What are you working on?

A fun site. Upload a snippet of a design. Limited to 400×300 pixels. So you’re not going to see the full page here. And that’s what I like about it. Interactive design is made up of so many micro-components, and sometimes simply a great button design or rollover effect can gain as much notice as a complete page. This site forces you to focus on the smaller aspects of design, and I found that a refreshing perspective.

Putting Facebook’s 500 million in perspective.: The Social Path

You may have heard about Facebook crossing the 500 million user mark. This is an amusing look at some other things that have hit 500 million, for better or worse.

Zynga’s Farmville Lost 4.4 Million Players Last Month

Ran across this older article on Farmville’s drop in traffic earlier this year. And it’s been a continuing slide. I think a lot of game-oriented systems are going to find people’s ever-changing interests a big help at launch, but a challenge for keeping long term activity. The article does a good job breaking down the information.

YouTube – Pug sings Batman theme

Randomness of the week. Thx to @gregtypes.

Twitter’s Noon Nadir – NYTimes.com

Can’t say I’m shocked that the ‘happiest’ day on twitter is a weekend, and the ‘saddest’ is a workday. The inforgraphics are interesting. The west coast lags the east coast a bit even when adjusted for time zones. Possibly because west coasters waking up later?

ToneCheck Checks Your Tone Like A Spell Checker Checks Your Spelling

I’ll be curious to see how well this works. Gauging sentiment is very difficult, and that’s really what this is doing. If they have a great algorithm, it could be the key to much more accurate assessment of online conversations.

Creativing :: Mary Meeker’s online advertising predictions, Flash ads on iPhone, and 600 shopping mashups

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

Tweet of the Week

I say, “Someone I follow on Twitter said…” way too often in normal conversation.

@CMSummit – Mary Meeker’s Internet Trends Presentation

Probably the single best predictor of the future of the ad business I’ve seen in one place.

Record A Song On The Subway… Or Anywhere : NPR

Yes, there’s no shortage of tech wonders as of late. And yet, sometimes things really stand out amid a wave of innovation that reminds us just how absurdly advanced things are becoming. This did that for me. I’ve been playing with multi-track recording for years, and to think that technology that you can record a studio album on could be something you carry around on your phone is remarkable. As if we need yet another reminder of really how crazy this mobile revolution is going to be.

Bros Icing Bros

Latest in the ‘creative meme’ department. This would seem to have all the earmarks of a brand-driven meme; especially the seemingly way-too polished website. Then again, the whole thing is an insult to the brand. Interesting, but I’m not ready to carry around my “Ice Block” just yet.

BP buys Google, Yahoo search words to keep people away from real news on Gulf oil spill disaster

Just pathetic. This isn’t the era of transparency because someone thought it was a good idea. It’s because the free flow of information is such that it’s more and more difficult for companies like BP to lie.

Live, From Deep in the Gulf – NYTimes.com

While I haven’t found much to credit BP for in this mess, this is one instance. It really plays to a much deeper approach to handling this problem. Instead of trying to spin everything, acknowledge the problem, and give people access to information so they don’t feel like they’re being played. Of course, they haven’t done that across the board, and thus this feels more like an aberration for the brand versus a genuine effort to level with the public.

IfItWasMyHome.com – Visualizing the BP Oil Disaster

This smart data/map mashup places a region equal to the BP oil spill on a map in the area your most familiar with: Your home area. What I find really smart about this is that the title “If it was my home” adds emotional relevance that just the technology mashup alone wouldn’t do.

Adobe to Bring Flash-Based Ads to iPhone

I wouldn’t think Apple would oppose this, because unlike their previous blocking of using Flash to author iPhone apps, the authoring of banner ads isn’t where the money is; it’s in selling the ad units. That’s a very different scenario from apps, where it’s all about the sale of the app, and so Apple would have a much more vested interest in controlling that process. Whatever the case, though, it’s odd to see a company like Adobe — which via Flash played such a large role in bringing a richer experience to online advertising — being relegated to this sort of workaround to keep their technology relevant. Another reminder of how fast things change in this biz.

Best Buy’s Movie Mode Enables Second Screen Interaction | MobileBehavior

As we’ve seen, the future may not be so much about the merger of the proverbial three screens as it is the integration of them. This is a mobile app that gives you a peak into what characters are saying during the end credits of a movie. Seemingly a small sliver of the real potential here.

Seth’s Blog: Paperback Kindle

It’s interesting to see how Seth’s recommendation to the Kindle team for warding off Apple is all about user share. That’s something every mobile manufacturer and carrier should be taking notes on, as well. But the crux of the story is in the last line, when he tells of seeing a kid in diapers operating an iPod Touch. One of these days people will stop underestimating the importance of good user interface design.

600 Shopping Mashups

One of the things I recommend is reading about marketing-oriented technology, even if you don’t understand much of what they’re saying. So while the site is Programmable Web, don’t let that scare you. What’s readily noticeable is that the vast majority of these are shopping comparison tools. And while they may be full-screen tools right now, most are probably a fairly simple conversion away from being a mobile app. The list is definitely worth a quick scan.

Creativing :: Facebook plugins overview, Personalization gone extreme, and crowdsourcing crime fighting

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Tweet of the Week

Just geeked out about iPads with some SF policemen. Man I love this city.

McDonald’s to Use Facebook’s Upcoming Location Feature – Advertising Age

Facebook offering location based technology was inevitable, and it will be interesting to see how this further shapes the war between Facebook and Twitter. The bomb drop stat in here is Facebook has over 100 million users on it’s mobile app alone, which is what Twitter has in it’s entirety.

Participatory Sensing: SnapScouts App Crowdsources Crime Prevention | MobileBehavior

The idea of crowdsourcing crime fighting might seem a bit nutty, but then again, that’s not far from America’s Most Wanted TV show. I can only imagine the abuse this could generate in the form of practical jokes. At any rate, the app is enough to pull comments from Bruce Sterling, who sees it as a key link to the future.

Apple Worship: Creating a Brand – Design and Architecture on KCRW

There’s a good interview at the front of the podcast with brand marketer Sasha Strauss on how brands extend beyond feature sets and price points.

Advertising Lab: Private Customized Adventures

A company that will privately engineer someone’s day, for better or worse? A bit creepy, but could definitely see this used positively for a buzz-worthy human interest story.

5 Ways Facebook Will Impact E-commerce

What most brand’s want to know about Facebook’s Open Graph is “How will this help me sell more product?”. Here are some good examples of that.

Facebook’s Social Plugins

Facebook’s Open Graph was just announced, and it’s the pervasiveness of the “Like” button that seems to be the topic of most conversation. However, there are a number of plugins that marketers can use on their sites to make a visitor feel more at home. They’re explained, with visuals, on this page.

Confessions of an Executive Producer: i have seen the future

I’m not familiar with the Canon D5, but certainly appreciate how technologies — even the non-Net variety — impact the marketing and advertising business. Jerry Solomon, Managing Partner of Epoch Media, outlined some interesting thoughts on how this, camera and others like it to come, will further shape the production process.

8 Lessons for Creating Social Impact | Fast Company

While focused on physical product design, I was struck by how similar these principle’s are to product/app design on the Web.

Tim Hanlon Reviews New Role at Catalyst S+F, And Agency As Venture Fund

A lot of advertising people are reevaluating their careers, and the industry at large. Tim Hanlon just joined CatalystSF as a partner responsible for venture investments, and shares his thoughts on the changing role of agencies. It’s a particularly interesting POV given his venture capital background, and I think this is a space a lot of agencies would love to be operating in, assuming they can make the numbers work.

Creativing :: Hugo Chavez Tweets, Facebook’s Open Graph explained, and the best iPad app yet

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Tweet of the Week

Technically, “Twitterer” of the week. This week, Hugo Chavez joined the digerati. And his username roughly translates to ‘devil’ in many Latin American countries, although in Venezuela, it also means ‘rabble-rouser’. Either way, a little nutty coming from the 5th largest oil producing nation in the world.

The Color of Words | Codename: “Cuttlefish”

Copywriters and Art Directors, unite. This is both entertaining and useful for checking people’s creative color explorations. Each color is given a name, generally closely tied to the color it brings up. Well worth a few minutes of mousing around.

Facebook Sends Window Decals to Local Businesses

Start looking for this type of thing to be as common on a store window as credit card stickers.

Augmented Reality Billboard Puts Passersby in a Street Fight [VIDEO]

Strong execution using Augmented Reality in a digital billboard.

MobilGlyph: Making Data Tangible – Popwuping

Video demonstrating the use of QR codes as a way to enable data entry in a mobile phone for illiterate people. The final interface is a little like scrolling through the Facebook mobile app to make a call.

Facebook and the New SEO | Stay N’ Alive

If you read one article this week, this is probably a good one to read. An explanation on the power of Facebook’s new Open Graph Protocol and it’s potential impact on advertising.

More Absurd Social Media Analysis – The Value Of A Fan

If you didn’t hear about the attempt to value a Facebook Fan at $3.60, it pulled a lot of commentary. Beyond the narrow definition of the value of a Fan that this approach took, it’s just as wrong to think that every company will benefit the same from their fan base. At any rate, this post delves into why whatever the value, the equation they used doesn’t really capture it.

Google TV to be Unveiled Next Month

Here comes Google TV. And the web-enabled TV platform is based on Android. Get ready to use your mobile phone as the remote control for your entire TV. And while you can do this with an iPhone and AppleTV today, it is an Apple TV after all. And the power of bringing together numerous mobile phone and TV manufacturers on the same platform will likely pay off well for the Google TV participants.

Google’s nightmare: Facebook ‘Like’ replaces links – CNN.com

Why Facebook’s ‘Like” and Open Graph system are such a threat to Google. It takes the idea of indexing what’s popular on the Web, and puts that information inside Facebook, where Google’s search algorithm can’t ‘see’ it. Not good for Google if that algorithm drives the bulk of your revenues.

Lessons from Yahoo’s iPad App in the Cloud

The most impressive iPad app i’ve seen yet. And from Yahoo, no less. I really like how seamlessly this app brings together a large cross section of news and entertainment. When they go to the TV listings, you can see how you could navigate directly to the show, when available. Then, just add a button to push the video feed to a large TV monitor, and the iPad becomes a must-have device for finding content that you then share with everyone in the room. Compare that to the current way of finding out what’s on TV and then playing it.

Creativing :: Twitter trend #songprequels, It’s Foursquare day, and how marketers are using Twitter’s new ad platform

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Tweet of the Week

It’s Tweets of the week this week, picking up a trending hashtag #songprequels. Some funny stuff.

YouTube – Alice for the iPad

If you have any doubts about iPad or any other slate’s ability to transform the publishing, and specifically the book industry, this 45 second video for the iPad ebook version of “Alice in Wonderland” is a must see. While it may seem like it plays the same trick over and over, keep in mind this is the first attempt and within the first couple of weeks of the iPad’s release.

It’s 4SQ Day, But Foursquare Has (Almost) Nothing To Do With It

It’s 4/16 today. 4 squared. Get it? So in cities around the country, Foursquare users are getting together to celebrate post-tax day. About 150 businesses are giving Foursquare users special deals. There’s even a badge for it. McDonalds is getting involved.

What’s remarkable is that Foursquare the company had nothing to do with it, other than just making the badge. Probably took them an hour.

Most companies would die for this level of momentum.

Foursquare Cracks Down on Cheaters

As Foursquare starts to go more legit with companies actually paying to play along, this type of enforcement was just a matter of time.

History Channel Launches Foursquare Campaign and a New Badge

At the moment, I’m interested in anything happening on Foursquare. You can’t get much farther out on the edge than a location-based social gaming platform. Pairing the History Channel and the latest technology is interesting in it’s own way, but I do like the functional, or at least educational, aspect of this. It definitely adds a needed dimension to ‘checking in’, which is getting a little old and I think has people starting to ask “OK, What’s next?”.

Twitter Promoted Tweets Are Live

Just in case you haven’t seen a screen grab of Twitter’s new ad platform, Promoted Tweets, here you go. Note the tie-in between the hashtag and the content of the Promoted Tweet. Curious how many brands will be able to find that much context in the stream of Twitter conversations.

How Virgin America Uses Promoted Tweets

A good overview of how Virgin America is using the new Twitter Promoted Tweets ad platform. And VA appears to be doing a great job with this opportunity to participate in the launch of an ad platform. My question is, How mass-scalable is this (I can’t imagine Twitter is thinking this won’t be a mass advertising model). My questions are more around the average advertiser’s ability to use this ad model as judiciously as VA is. I don’t see most advertisers being anywhere near as creative, and certainly not as restrained. So I still have a lot of questions about how this opens up to a much larger base of advertisers who aren’t so much concerned with reputation as they are with reach. Of course, I’m sure Twitter gave that a thought or two before launching, so I’m curiously watching.

The Twitter Platform’s Inflection Point

Where’s Twitter headed? Or where’s the business or creative opportunity around Twitter? As Fred Wilson says, It won’t be in the same sandbox everyone’s already been playing in.

Advertising – Marketers Placing More Products Into Plots – NYTimes.com

Very interesting idea here of customizing products for a given TV show. Sure, there’s a certain cringe factor, but it’s a great way to get on a TV show in a more organic way and also tap the world’s insatiable desire for anything celebrity.

GetJar Facebook App Downloads Exceed 50M

Talk about nudging your way into a niche. This is a smartphone app that’s been downloaded 50 million times, and it’s nothing more than a link directly to Facebook’s mobile site (not the Facebook app). Also, jargon alert: MSS = Mobile Site Shortcut. I didn’t realize we needed an acronym for that, but WTF.

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.