DOUG SCHUMACHER

experience designer + writer

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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 :: What Steve Jobs should say, kings of YouTube, and dissecting the Old Spice campaign

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

Tweet of the Week

If Jobs doesn’t start this press conference with “Look at your CEO now back to me now back at your CEO now BACK TO ME” he’s missed a trick.

How the Old Spice Videos Are Being Made

A good overview on how the campaign was created. It’s interesting to see user generated components kicking in, which is mentioned towards the end of the article.

Skin Lightening Facebook App Sparks Controversy

Have to say I think this issue is blown out of proportion. Maybe it’s because in Venice Beach all I see are people trying to darken their skin.

Seth’s Blog: A hierarchy of failure worth following

An excellent distillation of where to take risks, and where not to.

Chatroulette Rolls Out Local And Custom Channels. Top Channel: “Sex”

Shocking!

5 Non-Profit iPhone Apps You Should Know About

A few mobile apps from the non-profit sector. My pref on these is the simplest one, the Salvation Army “Bellringer”. A nice way to reenforce a strong brand icon.

Queen Rania of Jordan takes to TwitVid to Promote Her Country [VIDEO]

While the contest info delivery vehicle, the video, might be what you expect from a Royal, the underlying promotion has a nice feel of global inclusiveness. Swap two people from your country with two people from somewhere else in the world.

YouTube – Most viewed videos

With the recent Justin Bieber / Lady Gaga ‘most viewed’ showdown, I was curious to see the 100 most viewed vids on YouTube. Perhaps not surprisingly, the majority seem to be music videos, interspersed with baby’s laughing, people dancing, and allusions to sex. The view counts are also interesting to note. The top vid has 245m views. The 100th: 40m views. That’s a pretty precipitous drop, and if you consider that 2 billion videos are viewed every day on YouTube, it’s really a long tail play with a huge majority at very low view counts.

Is Social Media Failing to Produce Business Leads?

This pulled select from the article says it all in regards to shifting marketing forces: Former President of CBS News Andrew Heyward wrote in the Harvard Business Review last year that “every company is a media company,” summarizing the idea that marketing is shifting to an environment where advertisers need to produce compelling content in order to succeed.

Creativing :: Social Media’s World Cup, Ridley Scott directs YouTube, and social media meets the offline world.

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

Tweet of the Week

Come on, city of Cleveland, you’ve been on top for years. Give another city a chance.

The World Cup of Social Media – Advertising Age

While there’s been a lot of talk the last couple of years about the need for global marketing, perhaps nothing drilled that message home like the World Cup. A good read as much for the prose as the content.

Ridley Scott and YouTube Want You To Film One Day in Your Life

I’m quite curious about this because it seems to intersect a lot of different things that already exist. I mean, isn’t YouTube really an ongoing day in the life? So then this is just an edited version of that, with even less contest to what each of the video clips is about? I’ll be very curious to see how they bring a bigger POV to this and make it more than just a mashup of video clips. Perhaps this is the Internet version of Powaqqatsi.

What Is The Value Of A Facebook Fan? Zero! | Forrester Blogs

This line pretty much sums it up: It is what companies do with fans that creates value, not merely that a brand has fans.

Seth’s Blog: Payola

A lot of SEO people spend their lives trying to outsmart a campus of Google geniuses with PhDs. Kinda like going 1-on-1 with LeBron James. You might get a lucky basket now and then, but he’s just going to come back even stronger. If you want good SEO, don’t think like a Google engineer, think like a consumer. Bottom line is there are always games going on to goose online performance. But long-term value tends to align with consumer interests.

NYTimes Shows How Civic APIs Should Be Built

I like how often we see data going from rote facts to entertainment value. The idea of taking voting district information and attaching that to landmarks in NYC is exactly the type of way brands can take data and create interesting stories about what they or their customers are doing.

Google’s Display Advertising Plans Include Gmail, YouTube – Advertising Age

This isn’t the first time I’ve heard someone suggest the online display game is on. And if Google’s piling money into it, that’s a pretty strong indicator.

The Real Life Social Network: How Facebook Affects Offline Relationships | MobileBehavior

This highlights a major challenge of social media at the moment. Sharing the same posts with vastly different networks of people in our lives. This includes a nugget of insight about where Google’s going to be aiming to penetrate Facebook’s armor.

Why Google’s Launching ‘Me’ and Facebook’s Real Future – Advertising Age

If you’re not familiar with Facebook’s Open Graph or why Google is gunning for Facebook, this is a good quick read.

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 :: 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 :: YouTube tips for goin’ viral, Big Brother on Facebook, and new media units when you fly

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

Tweet of the Week

“Orkut for Android?” Nice. If they just added pro sports, scrapbooking, and Ron Paul, I’d finally have my perfect “Who Cares?” engine.

Five Keys For Creating Viral YouTube Titles

Interest in creating viral videos will probably be around for a while. These simple tips are well worth the quick read. I also found the video for creating a “Tim Burton” look with makeup surprisingly interesting.

Digital Marketing: YouTube Opens Up Overlays – Advertising Age

I still say the YouTube deal will ultimately play out (and pay out) well for Google. With the level of usage still going through the roof, and Google wanting to get their text ads in every nook and cranny of the Internet, this video-based version of Adwords is right out of their play book.

“My Mom’s On Facebook” Song Goes Viral

From somewhere between Twisted Sister and Save By The Bell comes this video that’s trending upward. Not sure what qualifies as ‘going viral’, but at 250k views in a couple days, it seems headed there if it isn’t yet.

Attention, “Star Wars” Fans: The iPhone Lightsaber Duel is Coming

So I’ll admit to downloading the first Lightsaber iPhone app. And this bluetooth-based multiplayer version certainly ups the ante. Sold!

Facebook, The Tool Of Big Brother?

The idea is simple. Govt agencies like the FBI and DEA are using Facebook to lure and track suspects across a number of potential infractions. On the surface, it’s almost funny to think that some FBI agent could be posing as a cute girl to lure a criminal into confessing something stupid online. Of course, if it goes beyond the FBI and some ‘stupid criminal’ to monitoring general citizen activity, that presents another picture. And while the intent may be different between those two, the basic activities are identical. More privacy regulation fun ahead.

The Current State of Twitter [INFOGRAPHIC]

Sometimes I like data just for the way it’s presented. These charts are a lesson in info design. It’s also interesting to note how the majority of Twitter users have posted so few times. I’d guess squatters are making a fairly big impact, but still a very high percentage of “users” rarely use it. Also interesting is the days of the week. It still looks like a heavy workplace distraction that spills over into the commute home or drinks after work.

Google TV: Five Burning Questions – Yahoo! News

I don’t usually like speculating on things too far out in the future. As Wired magazine once said, It’s virtually impossible to predict technology more than 6 months out. But this article brings up some great scenarios to consider, and involves speculation on the future of advertising. I also think the idea of Web-capable TV will probably happen fast. I could almost see people forgoing home computers, and bridging the gap with mobile phones and a Web-enabled TV.

New Ad Opps Abound at Airports, in the Air – MarketingVOX

If you fly much, you likely noticed the increase in ads popping up everywhere; from security bins to seat trays. The new interactive displays are not only showing up at airports, but in downtown areas as well. Triggered by motion (the one’s I’ve seen), they’re a fun technology, but I haven’t seen them really used that creatively yet. Opportunity alert!

4 New APIs: a Job Search API, a Movies API, a Book Metadata API, and an API for Researchers

A short article about some new APIs. Keep up on these. They’re the backbone of innovative marketing solutions of the future.

Creativing :: Tweet of the Week, The next Twitter?, and Foursquare gets around to revenue

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

Tweet of the Week

“Your respect’s the size of your attention span.”

Given it’s been called the “attention economy” we work in, this quote nails it.

Social Media: Is Voice-Based Bubbly the New Twitter? – Advertising Age

One question I hear a lot is, “What’s the next Twitter?”. With 100 million users already, Bubbly’s obviously a serious player. Most indicative in this is where they’re rolling out this latest social media app. 5 non-Western countries. One of the big factors in mobile usage isn’t just having a mobile phone, but also NOT having any other means of connecting on the Web.

Foursquare and Starbucks Team Up to Offer Customer Rewards

Foursquare has navigated to a nice sweet spot between entertainment and promotion. While obviously any mobile location based service technology has deep utilitarian potential, with the emphasis on badges and points, it’s currently a game appeal. (The new version does move towards emphasizing utility — most obviously enabling people to track the past places they’ve been for future reference). Starbucks, who has a good iPhone app and could obviously have integrated a game/coupon component into theirs, wisely opts to join an existing community versus the work required to ramp up their own. That’s a trend we’ve seen expanding since the early days of social media, and certainly shows no sign of abating.

4 Fun and Crazy Chatroulette Videos

Whether ChatRoulette turns out to be a sprinter or distance runner, it’s the net meme du jour. And amid the nudity, flakiness and boredom, there are a few things popping up worth checking out. The best one is the 3rd one using Auto-Tune, T-Pain style. If nothing else, this is a good reminder that any time you jump on ChatRoulette, you could end up starring in a viral video with someone ridiculing you.

Also, the bonus video 1 has a good lo-fi research bit on ChatRoulette behavior.

Google Goes Live With “In-Stock, Nearby” Mobile Shopping

For a company so deeply rooted in online technology, GOOG has done a great job connecting people to the physical world around them. This is a classic Google move, placing themselves directly in the pathway of consumers on their way to purchasing a product. Not only do they still dominate the digital search for merchandise, but now they’ll know which bricks and mortar store we’re going to buy it at. And given they’re also the ones giving us directions to the store, they’ll also know when we’re going, and which route we’re taking.

MediaShift . Witness Creates Sophisticated Evaluation Tools for Video Impact | PBS

If your in marketing and your not up on the latest in campaign metrics, you can’t dive in too soon. While some complain the data isn’t clear enough, closer to the truth is, there’s so much people are having a hard time parsing it all. And given the explosion of social media combined with it’s early-stage metrics, you can expect interest (read: demands by clients) in this category to jump sharply.

Take a Virtual Walk through Hong Kong with Google Street View

While Street View has been all over the US, I’m surprised it hasn’t been used more for promotional purposes, as it is here. Street View and it’s cousin Google Earth have generated a lot of viral interest around quirky ‘Easter egg’ surprises found amid the content. I’m surprised more large brands haven’t figured out a way to use these techs for promotions.

Perspective: Popwuping’s Clark MacLeod On The Design And Culture Of Mobility | MobileBehavior

If you care about marketing via mobile, this is definitely worth the read. It’s like very readable user research report from a Canadian designer who’s been working in Taiwan for the past 11 years, currently focusing on mobile.

CNNBC | Breaking News, Weather, Sports, Tech, Opinions, and Multimedia | By You, For You, And About You

I know this application of Facebook Connect has been done before, but this is really well executed. Glenn Beck’s obviously great fodder for the concept.

Pomplamoose Music – I don’t wanna miss a thing

I love what these guys are doing with music. Creating very low-fi vids to sell mp3 versions of what they call VideoSongs. Many are covers of other bands songs. The quirky spirit of their videos is not to be missed.