Weekly Round-Up 6/13/2011

Most of the attention was about WWDC and Apple’s announcements although we should probably mention something about Groupon’s IPO Announcment:

• A quick-read in list-form of the Apple keynote/product announcements including Steve Job’s presentation
• Business Insider: Building Twitter into the iOS is a Game-Changer
• International Business Times: Top 5 amazing features if iOS5

And now a little bit about Groupon IPO plans to raise $750mm. Some highlights from filing:

• 7,000 employees and 83 million subscribers in 43 countries
• $714 mm in revenue up from $30mm the year before
• With claims of a frothy valuation, not surprising to see All Things D report on the Groupon reporting “Smack-down” following the IPO announcement

Closing with a fun little conceptual hack worthy of a big Apple announcement week. This “invisible phone” uses hand gestures and a depth-aware camera to interface with your smartphone–essentially allowing it to sit in your pocket or purse.

Weekly Round-Up 6/5/2011

It was largely the week of the API for us.

• API Basics for Retail Companies from Best Buy
• Oren Michels of Mashery talks about APIs as fuel for “The New Creativity:”

Speaking of killer apps and creativity, something about virtual world hopping into real world engagement pretty much ensures virality on YouTube–4mm views and counting for this top-app, Angry Bird in a T-Mobile video:

Weekly Recaps 5/30/2011

Google Wallet by far the biggest announcement to date this year with potential impact to create massive disruption due to:

1. Android platform integration and influence on handset manufacturers–could be fairly easy for Google to make an Operating System specification require NFC on all future phones for common functionality and it’s 50% of all the world’s smartphones or 1/3+ of all sets globally running Google Wallet by end of 2013
2. Trusted partners–they’re taking an ecosystem approach which will invite in more “wallet” use cases, partners, etc.–it won’t be just about giving Apple 1-click access for content, which has proven to be compelling enough for 200-million people so far. This will be about speed, content, access, etc. and will be marketed by some serious players in Telco, Payments, retail and more.
3. NFC+a number of other Google innovations like Goggles, Voice Search, Voice, etc. will make the current state-of-the-art being talked into happening, QR Codes, look as dated as dial-up modem. Nostalgic but useless because they ask too much of users to really be great.
4. Probably the biggest part of this announcement is how further enables the co-opetition between Google and Amazon to move from online to offline ubiquity–something I’m calling Googlezon. Keep an eye on all the way these two are exploiting the strengths of their combined platforms to win back share, utility and time with consumers from Apple. It’s really amazongle.

Here are the announcements and some related links:

• Mobile Marketer: How Google’s entry changes mCommerce as we know it
• Read Write Web: Google gives everyone $10 to try new Google Wallet
• TUAW: What Google+Mastercard could mean for iOS Users
• 360i’s David Berkowitz delivers an insightful and humorous overview of the virtual wallet’s role in disrupting business and popular culture in AdAge
• Here’s the actual video announcement–mostly dry, presentration-trained speakers but some interesting stats and insights embedded within:

Related: “Why would you buy an Android phone anywhere but Amazon?” Includes HTC Inspire for $30 w/contract.

Weekly Round Up for 5/23/11

Social Media

• Social media has a secret weapon: Email. Thoughts from Union Square Venture Partners’ Fred Wilson. I agree with his conclusions and will raise the issue one-better. Social|Local|Mobile programs require an armada of traditional media and channels support to succeed—from POS and advertising support to sales support, email marketing and more. So, the rise of these new media doesn’t have to spell the end of traditional marketing; in fact we’ll need more not less of those disciplines and artisans around
• 15 marketing and social media trends of 2011 – by Rohit Bhargava; mid-year & how are they holding up so far?
• Learn about some LinkedIn Lessons
• AdWeek did a fluff-piece on Klout, a company that rates the influence of tweeters by 35 attributes including tallying retweets, responses, Facebook likes and click-throughs to produce an influence score. Not much in the article about the nuance and opportunity Klout represents, but it’s a company worth serious consideration

Shameless Self-Promotion

• Register for my presentation, “This Can Change Everything: Marketing in a World Changed by a Hashtag”

Technology

• Ashton Kutcher and Intel come together to create “Digital Content Units”
• Wi-Fi calling is now free for Android owners that have T-Mobile… all you need is the Smart Wi-Fi application and the Even More calling plan
• Roundup of kickstarter Apple-related projects
• Why governments will benefit from embracing open source technology
• Google Doodle –those fun variations on Google’s logo on the search homepage each day—can drive up to 2mm page views according to Edelman’s Steve Rubel
• Discovered this podcast for what’s going on in location based marketing this week

In case you missed it, each of the individuals called out above–Fred Wilson, Rohit Bhargava and Steve Rubel all deserve a click and Twitter follow.

Weekly Round-Up w/o 5/16/11

Social Media

• 33% of Facebook postings done from mobile devices.
• Facebook announced that its insights analytics would be available for regular websites.  Here’s how to set it up.
• Take the Booz/ Buddy Media survey on social media
• New rules from Facebook on contest fight spam and have implications for marketers.

Your Content

• Location-based services are potentially great sources of content marketing.
• Curate your content with these top 20 websites.

Trend Lunch

Each month Anthem San Francisco hosts a Trend Lunch to share trends in culture, marketing and design. Here are some highlights  from last week’s lunch:

• QR codes in shoes takes you to video of shoes being fabricated.
• Terrible brand message & marketing, good functional product delivery but weak  marketing concept with “energy strips.”

Miscellaneous

• 39% of U.S. smartphone users check in.
• Kiip gives brands the opportunity to reach gamers right where they live at the critical point of engagement.
• Jonathan Salem’s good points on Progressive’s user/tech smarts running into old-ad Gimmicks
• Groupon’s “do or die moment.”
• My favorite session during the Social Loco conference.
• Where do developers invest their time?  Flurry presents apps by the numbers (slideshare)

Weekly Round-Up 5/9/11

Social|Local|Mobile –SoLoMo

• Groupon’s fast ascension to establish and lead the deals space is challenged with the introduction of Facebook Deals and other established incumbent entrants such as Yahoo! And AT&T Interactive.  Where Groupon has to rely on paid acquisition for new email and socialgraph distribution to drive demand and activation, Facebook Deals owns those channels for 600mm worldwide. Hard to compete with “free” or sunk costs. Other Incumbents like Yahoo! And AT&T Interactive can leverage sophisticated email marketing intellectual property and systems along with other forms of communications and relationships built into their existing businesses.
• Here’s how Facebook’s thinking about deals—something between friends
• Facebook begins paying users to watch advertisements because of low banner click-through rates.
• Today, 17% of mobile users are using location-based apps, or 70mm+ of projected 2011 smartphone & tablet users.  Half of these people are concerned about privacy, but can these be mitigated by greater transparency, utility and even value-exchange dynamics we’re seeing from the deals space?

BTW, note how the linked article decries “only 17%” using LBS–it’s amazing that nearly 20% of an enormous installed base are already here and growing. New behaviors and media used to take decades, then years and now months to create. Little perspective.

• R/GA’s Richard Ting weighs in on the cleverly named “New Social Media Splinternet”—while we’re big fans of Richard’s thinking, we respectfully disagree about holding off on experimentation with emerging platforms or that marketers lost their shirts as some platforms failed to emerge to scale. Ping us if you’d like to see our applied strategies for evaluating emerging media and its fit for your brand, strategy and objectives
• Social-Loco 2011conference was in town last week. We’ll work on a more comprehensive recap shortly, and in the meantime, here are slides used to frame one of the great panels from the day:
  • The “Other Dr Phil” Hendrix on “E-Commerce Goes Hyper-Local”

In Other News: Apple

• Apple crowned the most valuable brand
• Apple jumps 21 spots, to the 35^th largest corporation in America, according to this year’s Fortune 500 ranking

Fitness

• Make sure to turn it up a notch on your next run.  According to both Medincine & Science in Sports & Exercise and Ultimate Bootcamp, sprinting burns more fat than running longer–fits the theme from fast-spaces to fast companies to leaner start-ups; super performance is built into speed.

Weekly Round-Up 5/02/11

Shameless Plug

• For more about Social/Local/Mobile, see us at the Social-Loco Conference—I’ll be speaking on the “Big Brand” money panel.

Entertaining/Inspiring

• Wrap your mind around this:  Escher’s Waterfall has our mind boggling!
• Check out Little Thor, a miniature hero who gives this year’s favorite Super Bowl character, Little Vader from the Volkswagen commercial, a run for his money.
• Will Turnage, VP, Technology & Invention for R/GA, shows off a shirt he hacked for a South by Southwest session.  This shirt not only flashes when he taps his phone through a Bluetooth control, but also lights up when someone tweets his twitter handle.

AppNation

• AppNation brought the growing consumer application trend to the forefront of the minds of all those who were fortunate enough to attend.
• Drew Ianni, Chairman of AppNation, joined us at Anthem Worldwide in San Francisco to share his view-from-the-top of the Apps Ecosystem.

Mobile

• I spoke at AppNation last week on Mobile Video. It’s going to be huge—already ½ of total mobile traffic in 2011. Here’s a run down of relevant data.
• Privacy Concerns over Apple’s tracking of location data on the iPhone flared
• GigaOm argues for greater transparency in this area
• Good reason for tracking concerns. Last week, Tomtom got into hot water when media discovered they were reselling anonymous data to local Police.
• Facebook unveils its group deals program putting the heat on Groupon and Living Social through it’s enormous scale and command of the socialgraph
• Since Apple added gyroscopes to the iPhone and iPad Augmented Reality (AR) apps have been exploiting those coordinates for a greater cool factor

State of Mobile Video-Research Round-Up

I’m speaking on the state of Mobile Video for marketers today on a panel at AppNation in San Francisco. I hope to have a video of the panel to share later this week and in the meantime, wanted to share some of the public sources–in addition to  custom data from syndicated research services–of information on this subject. When the only barrier to a market is speed we can have every confidence that Moore’s law will cure that issue.

Already Akamai reports Korea has the fastest Mobile internet connectivity averaging 17+mps speeds. As we heard from Jimmy Kim, CEO of Nexon in Korea, (19:19 timecode in video) “I have 70mbs dedicated to my home. When I come to the United States I go crazy looking for WiFi, dropped calls.” At these kind of speeds people know you’re lying when you say you got a dropped call. Imagine what that means to the richness of content available at that speed and higher. It means you can download an iPhone/Android screen optimized full-length movie in under 45 seconds. It means you can experience mid-core gaming with intense graphics and concurrent connectivity with others. It means a more satisfying, rich experience. And much, much more profitable as a result, btw.

Here are some the publicly available sources and if you haven’t done so already, I encourage you to invest an hour watching/listening to Mary Meeker’s overview presentation below:

• Akamai State of the Internet Quarterly Report (registration required)
• Cisco Global Mobile Video Report from February 2011 (see below)
• Jason Spero’s “Time for Mobile is Now” preso from Google’s Think Mobile event
• Rhythm New Media’s Mobile Video Advertising Report (Q2 2010)
• Bertram Gugel’s “Mobile Video” overview (2010)
• Chris Baraclough’s Telco2.0 2010 Mobile Video overview
• Amani Channel’s “State of Mobile Video” from a producer’s perspective

Embedable reports:

• Cisco Global Mobile Video Report:

• KPMG’s Mary Meeker’s report:

Watch Jason Spero, Mary Meeker and Matt Murphy share their insights and data on Mobile Video–well worth the hour to watch:

• Rhythm Newmedia’s Q2 2010 report

• Kevin Shatzkamer of Cisco’s Q&A on Mobile Video

• Chris Barraclough’s Telco2.0 Mobile Video Overview for Operators

Seen anything else that should be included? Please add your sources to the comments below.

Weekly Round-Up 4/25/11

Apps and Tablets

• AppNation Conference hits San Francisco this week, April 27-28 at the Moscone center. Register now at AppNationConf.com Here’s a preview & taste of why this is such a big deal:

• Like the smart phone, tablets are slowly but surely being integrated into everyday life.  We use them to watch movies, read books, and order a meal?  Massachusetts Institute of Technology dropout, Rajat Suri thinks that with his E La Carte we will all be doing just that.

Social Media

• Our friend Wedbush Securities SocialMedia Analyst Lou Kerner likes to say “Google gets Social” and here’s some evidence he’s on the right track: Facebook and Twitter influence Google’s Search Rankings
• Meanwhile, Fortune 500 companies aren’t optimizing their social media pages–Facebook and Twitter account aren’t showing up in online searches
• Keeping with this thread “5 Ways Facebook is Changing Search Marketing”
• And, one more commonality Twitter shares with Facebook: allegations of a forgotten co-founder
• Facebook facts round-up, ferinstance: there is a member profile for one for every 11 people on the planet

Global Social Gaming Overview

Two weeks ago, at AdTech, we presented a comprehensive overview of Social Gaming in the US.  The presentation was featured as a “Presentation of the Day” and Tim Chang of Norwest Venture Partners believes this may be the most current and comprehensive snapshot of the industry available today. You can also view the slides synchronized with the AdTech audio on Youtube.

Global Social Gaming Overview

On Tuesday April 12 we presented a sweeping overview of Social Gaming from its scope, scale and size in the US to the development of this space around the world. We shared how marketers can engage consumers in the space and wrapped with some informative case studies by Toyota. Some impressions, slides, video and links follow.