DOUG SCHUMACHER

experience designer + writer

mobile

Creativing :: Android gains on iPhone, Tablets to outsell netbooks by 2012, and Twitter goes local

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

Tweeter of the Week

This guy at the Twitter account @DavidOnDemand will apparently do anything (legal) that you ask him to do via Twitter. Seems a bit of a stretch realistically, and he’s getting a lot more requests than I’d think anyone would have time to do. Oh yeah, and he works for an ad agency and is doing this to get a free trip to Cannes. I’d guess he’ll have earned the trip. This is a search thread of the latest requests he’s receiving.

More Data Shows Android Gaining on iPhone

A few weeks ago reports came out about Android sales surpassing iPhone sales in Q1 of this year. Now the logically-ensuing usage stats. Most noticeable is the change in share of consumption. The charts are very simple and readable.

Sorry, Sheryl Sandberg, Stats About Teenagers Don’t Show Email Dying

While email isn’t quite the killer app is used to be, it’s still highly relevant to most people, including teens. When the PEW research came out, there was a lot of buzz about the email stat saying only 11% of teens email daily. But it says more about their choice of communication platforms than anything, as even in 2006, the figure was only 14%.

Forrester Projects Tablets Will Outsell Netbooks By 2012, Desktops By 2013

I don’t doubt this for a minute. In fact, as the article states, it could be a serious underestimate. What this really means? That the online user experience is going to continue to fragment into more and more devices. These trends also show how computing is becoming less and less a work chore tool, and more and more a way of doing just about anything in life. So the heavy lifting of a desktop become unnecessary (along with the added expense).

Espresso Machine Personalizes Service Through Mobile Phone Identification | MobileBehavior

My first reaction was, Why have the dock and not just use BlueTooth? Whatever, the point is well made at the end. That to realize the future potential of mobile, think way outside the current structures of content, search, and communications.

World Cup 2010 Twitter replay | guardian.co.uk

A nice animated info graphic featuring the top keywords Tweeted during given World Cup matches. The graphic style and animation of this is great. I think they need to filter out the more obvious words, tho, to make it more varied and tell a deeper story. Check out the England vs. USA match, when USA got their lucky break goal, and the term LOL pops up.

Twitter Blog: Twitter Places: More Context For Your Tweets

It’s been a little surprising that Twitter hasn’t integrated this long ago, given the rise of location based services. Bottom line is, Tweets can now be sources to a location if the sender OKs it. For a lot of location-oriented companies, there’s a lot of potential here.

Brands Planning for a Mobile Future @ The #Promise | MobileBehavior

The Web has always had more to offer individuals than corporations, and this is an interesting look at how social and mobile developments of the future should extend that trend.

Bars Turn to Texting to Warn of Rowdy Patrons – NYTimes.com

Interesting use of texting to share information among bars, much like they track cheaters in Vegas. Of course, any time you have people sharing info outside the standard law enforcement practices, someone’s going to have issue with it. But I have to credit the police and bar owners for a creative solution to their problem.

Why Twitter’s new ads are ingenious – CNN.com

Pete Cashmore on Twitter’s advertising model. He writes a good overview of how it works, although the service doesn’t seem that innovative to me. He brings up some good points at the end about how this really excludes the small marketer, and just applies to large brands willing to drop the large $ to get their presence on Twitter. And that’s an interesting distinction from Google, who broke new ground in advertising by doing the opposite. Enabling anyone to play, and on a level field. Understandably, Twitter’s trying to figure the whole revenue thing out, but at this point I don’t see their model as nearly as scalable as Google’s was right out of the box.

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 :: Tweet of the Week, Craigslist TV?, and Foursquare links to print ads

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

Tweet of the Week

RT @hodgman “Just out here retweeting.”

Craigslist TV: Just as Awkwardly Entertaining as You Would Imagine [VIDEO]

Craigslist never ceases to amaze me. For one, it’s ongoing popularity, despite a horrible user interface. But even moreso, the way it frequently extends directly into popular culture. The personals are read for entertainment, artists do visualizations of the “Missed Connections” sections, and now this. There’s a fairly personal nature to much of Craigslist content, from personal ads to what people are selling out of their garages, that helps people identify with the content.

Facebook to Simplify Privacy Controls – NYTimes.com

Facebook responds to the privacy blowup. Given the speed of change Facebook’s been going through, and the Apple-esque disregard for outside opinion (some that’s both asset and liability for both), this whole scenario isn’t surprising.

More than anything, this really points to the role user experience plays in app and site development. Ignore it at your own risk.

Earthjustice Uses Foursquare to Make Print Ads Actionable | MobileBehavior

With Foursquare all over the news, the big question is, What are the different ways brands will be using technologies like this in their campaigns? This example links print work to mobile, with mass transit posters prompting riders to ‘checkin’ on a give subject to support an environmental cause. One great feature is that they’ve taken a print piece and given it a highly-trackable action.

Mobile creation – the Japanese way – Popwuping

The Japanese have long been ahead of us in mobile usage, and this is a good topline of their user behavior and why it’s different from the computer-based Internet.

YouTube Launches Platform for Crowdsourcing Suggestions

I’m seeing a lot of activity around the crowdsourcing/answers site format lately. Here, YouTube demonstrates again their value to Google in the way that Google can so quickly integrate many of their broad span of features into the largest video site in the world. In this case, I’m not sure video adds that much to answers, although given the power of video, it’s certainly worth Google trying. Bottom line is, there’s a lot of potential in answer sites, and that’s what Google’s trying to tap.

5 Ways To Turn Your Traffic Into Valuable User Data

Clearly your site visitors are a valuable source of insights and information about what interests them and others like them. The question is, How do you gather that information? This is a list of 5 tools that can help you ask them questions, process the information, and even compare it to competitor sites for relative value.

Google Rolls Out More Tweet-Based Ads

Using a Twitter feed to create the content for a Google AdSense ad is a great idea not only because it’s new and innovative, which generally tends to do well for online marketing, but because it does two things at once. It provides the advertiser with an extremely simple content management system for piping fresh messaging into their ad, and it also prominently promotes their Twitter account, which is a strong conversion action for many marketers.

Flash Enthusiast Sends a Hidden Message To Steve Jobs

This is quite clever. A creative at McCann built his website in Flash, and for the image that loads incase you don’t have the Flash plugin, he’s inserted a photo of Steve Jobs giving you the finger. He’s offering the image to anyone who will install it, and I wouldn’t be surprised to find this image popping up across the Web.

Yahoo Announces Deep Integration Partnership With Social Gaming Start-Up Zynga | AllThingsD

Social gaming is red hot. And it seems such a natural for brands to get involved. An existing, highly-active audience. Relatively low production costs. And of course, it all ties in to their social media networks for sharing.

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.

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 :: 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 :: Na’vi seen at the mall, Facebook’s threat of dominance, and Twitter’s new capabilities

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Tweet of the Week

Project Virgle was an April Fools joke but Sir Richard is discussing Google/Virgin collaborations with humor.

Facial Recognition Software Turns Shoppers into Na’vi Avatars – MarketingVOX

I really like how they’ve taken an idea that could have easily been applied to an app, and placed it in the middle of one of the busiest malls in LA. I’d guess there are crowds around this checking it out. Then to link that to a database acquisition is icing on the cake.

Create Super Customized Dress Shirts with Blank Label

I’m impressed by how H&M can get take fashion trends from the street to their shelves in 6 weeks. But this might even circumvent that speed to market.

Google Buzz Hits Google Maps; Search Suggest Comes To More Countries

With all the ‘buzz’ about Facebook, Foursquare, Apple and Twitter, I’ve almost forgotten about that little company Google. At any rate, this is a pretty good UX, really only limited by first, a lack of quantity, and then, a way to filter. But the combination of logins in an environment as practical and comprehensive as Google Maps has obvious big potential. Especially for mobile.

Hospital Outfits Staff with 100 iPads

What really impresses me about the iPad is the distinct benefits we’re already seeing coming from it. Game changing for businesses and people alike. Here’s another good story about how the iPad has enabled a 99 year old woman to start reading again with the text enlarging feature (yeah, that was dooable in most browsers, but not really practical). http://mashable.com/2010/04/23/ipad-99-year-old-woman/

How Does One Compete With This Beast? Here’s How: | Stay N’ Alive

A developer (who also happens to be a good writer) gives his take on the impact of Facebook’s latest announcement around global connect, and what the next evolution of the Web might be beyond that.

On Google’s Brand – John Battelle’s Searchblog

John has literally written the book on Google, so always interesting to hear his thoughts. And given he’s been a big proponent of the Google way, his sense that Google is meeting a critical point in their history is clear.

Ajaxian » Blowing up HTML5 video

The Apple – Adobe brawl over Flash is looking like a bantam-weight fight compared to the Facebook – Google square off. But if you’re in content development, it’ll probably factor into some of your decisions over the next few years. What’s interesting to me about this is the text at the top of the page remains searchable HTML text, while the video is able to expand right over that text. Keep in mind that the big problem with Flash for many people is it’s relative invisibility to search engines. That, and this would enable all sorts of expandable banner ideas, possibly without requiring rich media apps and their related ad serving fees.

NYT: Twitter Gets More Features, and Competitors

If you had any doubts about Twitter’s continuing popularity, they’re adding 300,000 new users a day. Remarkable. Their new service, titled “@ anywhere”, will integrate location-based services to Twitter as well as a database of nearby places, for which you can then view a feed to Tweets coming from that specific location. Pretty remarkable stuff for finding out what’s going on wherever you are.

Facebook Looks to Extend Its Presence – NYTimes.com

Interesting to note that Facebook using Connect to spread their presence across other websites is very similar to a tactic Google used a decade ago, when they syndicated their search box to other sites around the web, and then followed by doing the same with their advertising system. Facebook is also changing their “Share” button to “Like”, although the real story is they’ll be tracking the things you “like” and you’ll be able to see things across the web that were “liked” but your friends. As we already know that seeing what your friends like is a big draw, this is a great idea. Here’s Facebook’s own page explaining this in a very simple graphic: http://www.facebook.com/sitetour/connect.php

How Facebook won the web – CNN.com

Mashable’s Pete Cashmore weighs on on why Facebook is a serious threat to both Google and Twitter, with the implication that the best solution for those two would be for Google to buy Twitter.