The web is a blessing and a curse: there is simply too much information. And it's coming at us too quickly. Meanwhile, the tools we have to process the data flow are failing miserably, and yet, very few people are building us better ones. Instead, these days, it's far easier to build the next great photo-sharing app than it is a better Gmail. It's more fun to build a new social network for taking pictures of food than it is a tool that tells us exactly what we missed when we went offline for an hour. And no one, and I mean no one, is building a better RSS reader for a niche audience of serious news consumers.
Where are the magical email auto-responders that answer, tag and organize emails for us? Where are the intelligent calendars that integrate with messaging systems (social, email and otherwise), capable of reading text-based communications and turning them appointments and meetings? Where are the automaters, the filters, the noise reducers? Where's the Siri for everything?
Let's start with email. As a tech bloggers, we tend to get a lot of email. But the email overload situation is not unique to this industry. It's become such a common complaint that they now hold entire conferences devoted to the issue. There are some tools to help deal with the flow, or at the very least, allow us to step away from the inbox for a minute without completely losing track.
Quitting email is not the solution. (But it was an interesting experiment to watch.)
We know already know the entire idea of how email works is broken. You send an email, and another one comes in response. You delete an email, so it's sent again – you know, in case you missed it the first time around? The problem here is not just that there's too much email, it's that email is dumb. Gmail is dumb. Gmail, the one-time savior from the Inbox 1.0 era, was heralded as the second coming of email. Deliver us from email, deliver us unto Gmail. I sought that Gmail invite with a desperation that has never been matched since. It defined the era of the "invite only" beta. A secret club only a few can get in.
And now, Gmail blows. It's been far too long since the platform has seen any real innovation (except for that Priority inbox thing, which is amazing). But tags? That you have to add yourself? That don't intelligently learn from the millions of times you've used them to tag the exact same type of information? Search that takes you to an entirely new page, forcing you to leave the email you were in the process of composing? A suite of related products that aren't actually smart enough to interact with each other?
Why can't Gmail, for example, read my email and see that a phrase reading "are you available at 2 PM on Thursday?" is a meeting request, then automatically create the associated calendar entry? (Privacy, shmivacy, I'd opt in for that). Why shouldn't person's email signature be parsed then added to their entry in the Gmail Address Book? And while we're at it, have you seen that address book? It does almost nothing. It's the simplest, most basic product for one of our most critical everyday systems. It's a travesty.
I don't mean to harp on Gmail – I couldn't live without it. I even pay for the extra storage. And while Hotmail has made some impressive leaps in terms of spam fighting, gray-mail filtering, attachment handling, and general utility, its most useful integrations are obviously designed for use with Microsoft’s products – Live Photos, SkyDrive, OneNote, and other things I'm no longer using. (Although maybe it’s time that changed.)
In other words, email as a platform is ripe for disruption. It's begging for it. Of course, it's no small matter to build a better email platform, because you can't really just build an email platform – you have to build an entire life and work management platform. That means email, tasks, contacts, calendar, CRM, voice, text, office and maybe even social. It's no wonder we're seemingly trapped in Gmail indefinitely.
Beyond email/Gmail, let's not forget the other services that need to exist, but don't. A web-based RSS reader that replaces Google's, but runs faster, de-dupes, summarizes and lets you mark as read entire categories of related items, A social address book and personal CRM system that automatically tracks not just who you know and what they're doing (tweets, status updates, etc.) but also a history of your communications, what you said to them last, where you recently saw them, when you need to respond to something they've posted online, and when you need to reconnect.
Why doesn't my address book tell me when people changed jobs, had a baby, moved houses, asked for help, or tweeted something amazing? (What, I'm supposed to log into LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter for all that, all the time?) Shouldn't I be able to peek at my address book product and see reminders of those work/life events, the way Facebook reminds me to say happy birthday to my friends? And if these are the types of things being built for enterprise CRM users, while aren't they trickling down to the masses? We're overloaded down here in the trenches, too, people. We need some tools.
Speaking of tools, why do you think the cloud task manager IFTTT is so popular? It filled a burning need for automation between services. If I do x, I want y to happen automatically. It's frankly one of the most innovative services to have sprung up lately, and all the more impressive for being bootstrapped into existence. But IFTTT is still too simple because you have to teach it what to do. You configure it with rules. We need better tools that learn what we need and then prompt us to accept their intervention.
We need tools that require less time, less training and, let's get real here – less typing. The genius that is Siri's potential (not the actual product – it's so beta, it's alpha), is that you simply talk the computer instead typing in information into it. But it's still a computer that needs your data input, it's just a different format (voice, not text). Hooray for innovation, and for OK-ish speech recognition and for a safer way to text while driving, but I'm ready for a computer you don't have to input much into at all. A truly useful system will see what you're doing, learn from your activities, then begin to automate tasks for you. Not just in email, but everywhere. In everything. And all the time.
Here's the starting point of that dream:
Computer: OK, every time she responds to Mr. Smith's email, she says sorry, I'm not interested. Let's compose a draft and prompt her to send it. Every time she gets an email from X, she tags it "FYI" and archives it without responding. Let's do that, too, automatically. Oh look, her boss emailed, let's text her about that. Oh, her friend emailed/Facebook/tweeted wanting to know if she's free at 2 PM on Thursday, let's check her calendar and find out. Nope, there's a meeting then we just auto-scheduled. Let's respond to the friend with some other suggestions. Oh look, every time she plugs in her phone, she syncs with iPhoto, then uploads to Flickr and Facebook. Let's do that now too, but, hmm, let's do it while she's sleeping so as not to be a bother. Hey, I know, we could use read receipts so that we can auto-archive anyone who responds "just circling back – did you see this?” after getting theirs. Let's introduce yes/no/maybe buttons that send out fast email responses. Let's fill up the calendar with some suggested appointments. Hey, let's call her dad and tell him how she's doing. Let's do the laundry! Let's clean the house! Let's walk the dogs!
Movilway, the company pioneering prepaid mobile payments in Central and South America, recently updated their arsenal of tools to include a new custom Android tablet Point Of Sale (POS) terminal as well as a new MoviPIN system for online purchases. Both systems — available at select locations — bring digital purchasing power to those without bank accounts or credit cards. "It's a common problem in rural and remote areas of the world, where many people simply do not have access to bank accounts," said Movilway strategist Daniela Morgenstern. "How do you order and pay for online goods when you don't have a credit card or a bank card?"
To solve this problem, Movilway created their mobile wallet system last year and this year have added the tablet POS terminal so that rural shopkeepers have more tools at their fingertips. The new tablet, custom built at Foxconn, allows shop keepers to manage inventory, manage Movilway account “top ups” as well as run other Android apps that may be useful.
In addition to the tablets, the MoviPIN system for pre-paid accounts lets customers purchase items online, buy digital content or games or even make purchases at participating vending machines (see the video below). It works like this: If you are in a remote section of the world and do not have a bank account or credit card but want to make an online purchase, you go to a participating Movilway location, create an account, deposit your money into the account (by giving cash to the clerk).
The clerk then enters the information into their Movilway tablet (or wallet device, complete with a receipt printer) and then prints out a receipt with a customer's MoviPIN number on it.
The customer can then enter that MoviPIN into payment screens at participating websites (along with authentication credentials) to enable purchase of goods.
There are similar systems in other parts of the world like M-Pesa or Obopay, but Movilway's system seems to be addressing the more formal and traditional shopkeeper/customer scenario.
Editor’s Note:This guest post is written by Ruslan Kogan, the founder and CEO of Kogan.com, a manufacturer and direct retailer of consumer electronics. He is a serial entrepreneur, a controversial figure, one of the pioneers of online retail in Australia, and has become Australia’s wealthiest self-made person under the age of 30.
2012 needs to be the year sports teams around the world wake up and start realizing that their multi-billion dollar licensing deals with networks are about to become worthless. My company designs and manufactures TVs, and we see a gigantic spike in sales any time there is a big sporting event — the Soccer World Cup, the Olympics, etc. It’s clear that loving sport is an almost universal trait, which helps bring us together (or sometimes cause a bit of animosity).
Let me explain: One of my favourite sports is tennis. A couple of years ago there was nothing better than a Federer versus Nadal encounter. I flew myself all over the world to watch this. I was in London for the 2008 Wimbledon 5-setter Final. I was also sitting front row for the epic 5 set battle that went on until the early hours at the 2009 Australian Open Final.
This was some of the best entertainment I had ever seen, and it got me thinking about how we could better showcase more of what I just witnessed to the world. Most people were beginning to accept that the future of TV and content was heading online, and at the time, I was chatting with Google about YouTube Live, and their ability to broadcast live events to the world.
And then it clicked: The ultimate showcase of sporting talent. I wanted Roger Federer to play Rafael Nadal in a best of three encounter. One match in New York. One match in Paris. One match in London. I put up US$20 million prize money to the winner. $0 to the loser. The event would be broadcast purely online. Passionate sports followers from all around the world would be able to tune in live or would also be able to watch the game at whatever time suits them.
I thought $20 million would be enough to convince Federer and Nadal to create Internet history, while also showcasing the true business potential of the format. My talks with Roger Federer’s management broke down and the deal didn’t go ahead. I don’t blame him — at the time he was trying to become the first player since Rod Laver in 1969 to win the Grand Slam.
Fast forward a few years and we’re slowly starting to see certain sports slowly realize what is about to happen to their industry (see the 2012 Super Bowl for an example). What’s it going to take for sports broadcasting over the Internet to become ubiquitous? Rip is right: We shouldn’t be saying “wow” when top-level sports is shown live on the Internet in 2012. Hyper-targeted advertising
My Federer-Nadal proposal would’ve allowed for the $20 million prize money to be recouped through the targeted advertising that online enables, rather than the shouting-at-the-masses approach that current broadcast advertising offers.
By broadcasting a major sporting event live online, franchises could gain a huge worldwide audience. Using remarketing technologies available to today's online marketers, they can also know a lot more about your viewers than one would with the current TV broadcast scatter gun approach. Plus, there would be a more accurate sense of the viewers location, their gender, their age, their interests and what other websites they like (both the Google and Yahoo advertising network can let you target based on these characteristics) – you would then be able to very accurately market with extreme precision to your worldwide audience of millions.
One would be able to advertise the tennis training, for example, at the local tennis center that's just down the road, or the racquet that Federer just used to hit an amazing cross-court winner, or the energy drink Nadal just sipped on to give him a huge boost in the fifth set. The possibilities are endless. The move towards precision targeting with this sort of marketing approach would mean that conversion rates on the advertising would be tremendous.
And higher conversion rates, in turn, means a higher return on investment to marketers, which could result in marketers being willing to spend more. And when marketers are willing to spend more, you can sell the same advertising space you previously had for more money. In this instance, not only would you sell existing advertising space for more money, you would also be creating billions of impressions of advertising space that never existed. What the sporting bodies can learn from record labels
The sports broadcast industry has been one of the slowest to move in this regard. For instance, the music industry was forced to come to terms with the fact that their major asset is not only the intellectual property rights they hold over the music, but the cult following that the artists have. Knowing this, they started to do product placement more and more successfully.
It's nearly impossible these days to listen to a song without hearing about a few Vodka and Tequila brands followed by a few upmarket watch brands. Almost every popular artist also has a clothing label or cologne or headphones named after them. The music industry should be applauded for accepting reality and working out how to turn the cult following that their artists have into a sustainable business during the peet-to-peer file sharing revolution. Why online sports broadcasting isn’t quite there yet
The governing body of tennis, the ATP, simply provided too big an obstacle to my proposal. Many sports are run by bodies that are only looking to the next couple of year’s revenue figures. One of their most important functions (in their eyes) is to squeeze as many dollars out of the networks as possible for exclusive broadcasting rights. The bottom line is that "what is not sustainable cannot be sustained" and the way tennis and other sports are broadcast and commercialized will need to keep up with innovations in the media space. Hardware needs to play catchup
It’s clear that watching a fast-paced, professional level sporting encounter on a 13″ screen in a browser window isn’t ideal, particularly when big screen TVs continue to become cheaper and cheaper. The hardware industry needs to pull its weight here as well. There are a few solutions floating around in the Smart/Internet/IPTV space, but nothing that “just works.” There is no one piece of technology that you can show to your grandparents and say: “This is how you’re going to watch the Olympics. Enjoy!”
There’s Apple TV, Google/Android TV, Boxee, Linux-based options, add-on boxes, and more. But as an industry we haven’t quite nailed it yet. We need to make some moves, and fast, to help enable this next era in live entertainment delivered through the Internet. Industry inertia
The world of media and advertising is changing at a rapid pace, but the people up top who run the show are almost always scared of change. Nobody wants to be the one implementing the change, because that’s risky. Nobody gets fired for doing things the same way that everyone has done them in the past — but you could lose your job if you implement drastic changes that don't produce immediate results. All of this could explain the battle that Steve Jobs had with all the recording studios over a number of years trying to convince them that they should be selling their music online — nobody wanted to be the one pulling the trigger on the innovation in case it didn't work. You can’t fight it
The world of sport has a similar challenge but they are not willing to accept reality and make appropriate changes – at least not when I approached them with a solution to the situation. You can always hear the rights owners of major sports around the world whining that their pay-per-view broadcasts are always ripped and re-broadcast online through free video sharing websites. The UFC even commented that they are dedicating millions of dollars to shutting it all down, but the moment they shut down 5 streams, 20 new ones pop up. You can’t fight the change the Internet is making to entertainment broadcasting, so it’s time to get on board. What the short-term future looks like
As you know, YouTube recently announced the introduction of dedicated channels and premium content. I believe this is the precursor to YouTube disrupting every single existing broadcast network around the world, including the live sports industry. The hardware industry needs to make some profession — fast. Watching live entertainment needs to be simple and seamless.
Governing bodies of sporting codes need to look beyond their multi-billion exclusivity deals and start accepting the reality of change. In doing so, they’ll quickly discover the technical precision this new format allows them, and soon start making more money than ever before, while giving consumers and sports lovers around the world an even better viewing experience.
…
What do you think? Should have Federer accepted my offer and made Internet history? How long before we stop being surprised that a big sporting event is broadcast live online?
Facebook has a grand scheme is to make advertising on its properties less risky and less guess-work than buying ads anywhere else on the internet. Facebook wants ads to be content, and now its Reach Generator allows advertisers to pay a fixed fee to guarantee that their content is seen by 75% of their fans. Of all the announcements made at the Facebook Marketing Conference on Wednesday, Reach Generator is the most innovative because it offers a powerful alternative to CPC and CPM for the world’s richest brands, and a way for Facebook make more efficient use of its inventory.
Here’s a breakdown of Reach Generator and the other big news from the Facebook Marketing Conference, and how it changed the marketing industry landscape. Reach Generator – Rather than pay on a per click or per thousand impressions basis, Reach Generator lets advertisers pay a fixed fee based on their Page’s fan count. In return, Facebook guarantees exposure of a Page’s posts to 75% of their fans a month, and roughly 50% a week, by showing them as ads in the ads sidebar, news feed, and logout page. Typically a Page post only reaches 16% of a Page’s fans, so this creates a simple way to pay for added distribution.
It will be relatively expensive, though, and therefore only suited for the world’s richest brands. Facebook says the product has delivered up to 3x ROI and reach as high as 98% of fans for clients such as Ben & Jerry’s. It allows brands to leverage their existing investment in building a fan base for their Pages, but won’t address reaching new customers.
Since Reach Generator is only offered through Facebook’s premium managed spend ad account teams, it could shift some spend away from Ads API, or just increase the size of the pie. Facebook will be able to show Reach Generator-bought ads in whatever inventory is available, allowing it to earn revenue on ad placements that didn’t sell for much or even exist before.
Reach Generator will shift the burden of ad targeting and measurement from brands to Facebook, and prevent advertisers from accidentally showing a single fan multiple ads while missing others. By allowing brands to blanket their fans with a specific message, Reach Generator could become an important component of giant nation- or worldwide ad campaigns where brands typically buy tons of TV commercials. Timeline For Brand Pages – Timeline and its cover image lets brands tells their story more expressively. Pinned posts let campaigns escape the reverse chronological feed, and brands can now host custom Open Graph Timeline apps. Direct fan-to-Page messages opens a new customer service channel, but Pages can no longer use a default landing tab to solicit Likes and app engagement. By increasing the complexity and potential of its Pages product, Facebook has strengthened the value proposition of third-party brand Page management solutions. New Ad Units – Page posts can now be turned into ads that can appear in the mobile news feed and and on a large space on the Facebook logout page, in addition to the web news feed and web sidebars. Facebook’s goal is to turn ads into content and interactive experiences users don’t mind seeing, and then place them in empty space around the site or blend them in with organic content so they seem less obtrusive. New ad inventory could boost Facebook’s advertising revenues, and open creative new ad campaign strategies. Still, some users may not want to see ads everywhere they turn. Real-Time Insights – Data on impressions, reach, people talking about this, clicks, video views, negative feedback and more will soon be available just 5-10 minutes after a post is published rather than two whole days later. This will teach marketers what content resonates most with their audiences, and give them the chance to immediately amplify the reach of a popular post by paying to also show it as a Sponsored Story ad. Real-time Insights could therefore improve the quality of branded content on Facebook while simultaneously getting advertisers to spend more.
Facebook has a grand scheme to make advertising on its properties less risky and less guess-work than buying ads anywhere else on the internet. Facebook wants ads to be content, and now its Reach Generator allows advertisers to pay a fixed fee to guarantee that their content is seen by 75% of their fans. Of all the announcements made at the Facebook Marketing Conference on Wednesday, Reach Generator is the most innovative because it provides a powerful alternative to CPC and CPM for the world’s richest brands, and a way for Facebook make more efficient use of its inventory.
Here’s a breakdown of Reach Generator and the other big news from the Facebook Marketing Conference, and how it changed the marketing industry landscape. Reach Generator – Rather than pay on a per click or per thousand impressions basis, Reach Generator lets advertisers pay a fixed fee based on their Page’s fan count. In return, Facebook guarantees exposure of a Page’s posts to 75% of their fans a month, and roughly 50% a week, by showing them as ads in the ads sidebar, news feed, and logout page. Typically a Page post only reaches 16% of a Page’s fans, so this creates a simple way to pay for added distribution.
It will be relatively expensive, though, and therefore only suited for the world’s richest brands. Facebook says the product has delivered up to 3x ROI and reach as high as 98% of fans for clients such as Ben & Jerry’s. It allows brands to leverage their existing investment in building a fan base for their Pages, but won’t address reaching new customers.
Since Reach Generator is only offered through Facebook’s premium managed spend ad account teams, it could shift some spend away from Ads API, or just increase the size of the pie. Facebook will be able to show Reach Generator-bought ads in whatever inventory is available, allowing it to earn revenue on ad placements that didn’t sell for much or even exist before.
Reach Generator will shift the burden of ad targeting and measurement from brands to Facebook, and prevent advertisers from accidentally showing a single fan multiple ads while missing others. By allowing brands to blanket their fans with a specific message, Reach Generator could become an important component of giant nation- or worldwide ad campaigns where brands typically buy tons of TV commercials. Timeline For Brand Pages – Timeline and its cover image lets brands tells their story more expressively. Pinned posts let campaigns escape the reverse chronological feed, and brands can now host custom Open Graph Timeline apps. Direct fan-to-Page messages opens a new customer service channel, but Pages can no longer use a default landing tab to solicit Likes and app engagement. By increasing the complexity and potential of its Pages product, Facebook has strengthened the value proposition of third-party brand Page management solutions. New Ad Units – Page posts can now be turned into ads that can appear in the mobile news feed and and on a large space on the Facebook logout page, in addition to the web news feed and web sidebars. Facebook’s goal is to turn ads into content and interactive experiences users don’t mind seeing, and then place them in empty space around the site or blend them in with organic content so they seem less obtrusive.
New ad inventory could boost Facebook’s advertising revenues, and open creative new ad campaign strategies. Still, some users may not want to see ads everywhere they turn. Facebook also officially launched its Offers news feed post and ad format for distributing free coupons which has been in testing for several months. Real-Time Insights – Data on impressions, reach, people talking about this, clicks, video views, negative feedback and more will soon be available just 5-10 minutes after a post is published rather than two whole days later. This will teach marketers what content resonates most with their audiences, and give them the chance to immediately amplify the reach of a popular post by paying to also show it as a Sponsored Story ad. Real-time Insights could therefore improve the quality of branded content on Facebook while simultaneously getting advertisers to spend more.
Spark Capital isn’t the only existing investor buying up Foursquare employee stock in an up round, I’ve learned. Legendary investor SV Angel is, too. That’s an unusual move considering that the firm typically focuses on early-stage deals. Why?
Yes, there’s the promise of Foursquare becoming the way that you find interesting people and locations around you, the source of data for deals, discovery and yield management. But there’s a more human reason why these investors are going out of their way to get more stock at a higher price, too. And its name is Dennis Crowley, chief executive officer.
When Foursquare was younger, he would make investors wince by talking about how much he loved working with a small team. One needs a big team, after all, to become the multi-billion dollar business that gets returns on big investments.
That has changed. Foursquare has over 100 employees now, and is successfully recruiting top engineers from industry leaders like Google, and from top technical universities like Stanford, Berkeley and Carnegie Mellon. You can get a sense for this from LinkedIn data, which technical hires surging in recent months.
Investors love having a founder CEO, the person with the vision, the moral authority and the drive to make it all happen. SV Angel, who didn’t comment for this story, publicly says that this is what they always look for.
But Crowley’s evolution as a chief executive, and the growth of the company overall, could also be related to the departure of Naveen Selvadurai. Om got the scoop today and Foursquare has since confirmed the news with us. As a company goes from startup to billions, new executives come in, the problems change… and sometimes cofounders come to feel that they’ve done all that they can. That’s what Naveen says today in his blog post on the move: ….i've worn a ton of hats: from product to engineering, from funding rounds to roadshows, from recruiting to evangelizing. but, after three years, i feel i've done all i can do and i'm moving on. dennis and i have been discussing timing for a while, and we decided that now, on this anniversary, it feels right to begin the transition. so this will be my last month working at foursquare. over the course of the next few weeks, i'm going to be taking a step back as my final projects near their release.
He’ll continue on as a board member and adviser, but otherwise move on to new projects. The transition feels reminiscent of the evolution of another huge new company. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg saw a number of cofounders and early employees leave left years ago, but he steadily grew into the CEO role and today is leading the company towards a blockbuster IPO.
A few other notes on the new investment. I’m hearing that the amount Spark put in was large, but under $50 million, that the SV Angel funding is a small portion of it all, and that other investors may be buying up stock, too.
Spark Capital isn’t the only existing investor buying Foursquare employee stock in an up round, I’ve learned. Legendary investor SV Angel is, too. That’s an unusual move considering that the firm typically focuses on early-stage deals. Why?
Yes, there’s the promise of Foursquare becoming the way that you find interesting people and locations around you, the source of data for deals, discovery and yield management. But there’s a more human reason why these investors are going out of their way to get more stock at a higher price, too. And its name is Dennis Crowley, chief executive officer.
When Foursquare was younger, he would make investors wince by talking about how much he loved working with a small team. One needs a big team, after all, to become the multi-billion dollar business that gets returns on big investments.
That has changed. Foursquare has over 100 employees now, and is successfully recruiting top engineers from industry leaders like Google, and from top technical universities like Stanford, Berkeley and Carnegie Mellon. You can get a sense for this from LinkedIn data, which shows technical hires surging in recent months.
Investors love having a founder CEO, the person with the vision, the moral authority and the drive to make it all happen. SV Angel, who didn’t comment for this story, publicly says that this is what they always look for.
But Crowley’s evolution as a chief executive, and the growth of the company overall, could also be related to the departure of Naveen Selvadurai. Om got the scoop today and Foursquare has since confirmed the news with us. As a company goes from startup to billions, new executives come in, the problems change… and sometimes cofounders come to feel that they’ve done all that they can. That’s what Naveen says today in his blog post on the move: ….i've worn a ton of hats: from product to engineering, from funding rounds to roadshows, from recruiting to evangelizing. but, after three years, i feel i've done all i can do and i'm moving on. dennis and i have been discussing timing for a while, and we decided that now, on this anniversary, it feels right to begin the transition. so this will be my last month working at foursquare. over the course of the next few weeks, i'm going to be taking a step back as my final projects near their release.
He’ll continue on as a board member and adviser, but otherwise move on to new projects. The transition feels reminiscent of the evolution of another huge new company. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg saw a number of cofounders and early employees leave left years ago, but he steadily grew into the CEO role and today is now leading the company towards a blockbuster IPO.
A few other notes on the new investment. I’m hearing that the amount Spark put in was large, but under $50 million, that the SV Angel funding is a small portion of it all, and that other investors may be buying up stock, too.
Editor’s Note:This guest post is written by Jesse Stay, the author of Google+ For Dummies, Facebook Application Development For Dummies, and the currently in-progress book, Google+ Marketing For Dummies. Jesse consults with organizations big and small on social media technologies, marketing, and design philosophies.
O wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world!
That has such people in it!
This quote, from Shakespeare’s “The Tempest”, embodies a perspective I think many fathers such as myself are experiencing as our children enter this amazing world of technology we now live in. In the play, Miranda, raised most of her life on an isolated island, comes upon a group of drunk sailors straggling off a ship. Miranda, oblivious to any sort of “morals”, or “culture”, was fascinated by this “Brave New World” she had come in contact with.
Aldous Huxley also reiterated this idea in his satirical book, “Brave New World” back in 1932. Huxley was fascinated with the Industrial Revolution and with the Utopian visions of Wells and other authors he thought to parody these books with a negative view on what might happen to society as a result of technology. Little did we know that Huxley’s “science fiction” of a world where technology would replace the natural capabilities of man would actually become the “science reality” of today.
As a Father of 5 kids, I sought to start this column on Techcrunch in order to share my challenges and struggles as a Dad in this continually changing world of technology. The truth is, as my kids get older, I begin to realize what little I know about how to lead them and guide them through safety and security in our current “Brave New World”, so they are able to make the greatest contribution on society.
To me, it’s not even a moral issue, but an issue of how do I provide the best, and most optimal life for them where they are free and capable of getting the most out of life without any roadblocks, especially at a young age as their minds are still developing and they don’t have the capability to understand the world around them. Each week you’ll see new topics from me about the struggles I’m trying to comprehend as I open this world of technology up to my family.
As I was contemplating my topic for this week’s column, my attention was brought to this video by Dawn Hawkins, Executive Director of the anti-pornography group, “Porn Harms” (which is down right now as I’ll explain why later). To tell you the truth, I kind of blew it off the first time I saw it. It seemed like the typical video or article you see that gets discredited by Snopes. It wasn’t until last week when I was at a banquet I was invited to, and she happened to be at my table, that I realized she was really serious, and these things actually happened to her.
In the video Hawkins talks about how on a Delta flight, a man in front of her viewed porn on an iPad, in plain view of other passengers. According to an email I got from Hawkins, she confirmed to me that “The pornography was completely nude. I’m 90% certain the girls were no older than 14. One of the images showed one girl whipping another.” You can see the video below:
http://www.youtube.com/embed/NjuWn32pzLM
To add to that, in my research of this I learned that this is not the first case of passengers openly viewing child porn on Delta flights. Another man, a University of Utah professor, on a Delta flight from Utah was recently accused of viewing child porn in front of other passengers. As opposed to Hawkins’ case, this man was actually prosecuted, and is facing jail time. It seems Delta has some answering to do (to Delta’s credit, Hawkins says Delta is working to train their staff now to know how to deal with these situations in the future).
On top of all of this, I’ve come to find out that, since Hawkins’ video talking about her experience on this flight, Anonymous has been attacking the websites and email of Porn Harms, and making harassing phone calls to Hawkins and her family. The website, “Adult Video News”, also attacked Hawkins for her reaction on the flight. Both groups seem to be trying to advocate porn being allowed during air flight with their crusades. Yes – in front of your kids.
As a Dad, this type of stuff has me scared to death. Kids are being exposed, and even addicted, to porn younger and younger in today’s world (some suggest as young as 6!). We’re in a world where it’s okay for my kids to get exposed to porn at every angle with no retribution. In fact, retribution goes against those that are against it, as I’m sure I’ll see in the comments of this article. There is absolutely no protection for our kids in this effort, or very little if any. Flight attendants receive little training on what to do in situations like Hawkins’. Porn sites, in a world where it’s completely possible to ensure the age of an individual with technology, are doing little to keep out the kids. As a business person I don’t blame them – as long as government doesn’t crack down on it, why not get my kids addicted to their industry while they’re young? Society seems to have put laws out there, but no one seems to care that the laws are there. Maybe, in this Brave New World my perspective is just wrong. Maybe it’s okay for me to be encouraging my kids to look at porn openly to expand their horizons. Does that seem wrong to anyone else but me?
As a Dad, adults watching porn and kids watching porn are two different things. Moral issues aside, I want to protect my kids from these things. My kids should be able to make free and clear decisions when they turn 18, free from addiction to hamper those decisions. Technology is not doing enough to help them. Why aren’t porn sites making it harder for my kids to view porn? Why aren’t more people doing something about allowing me, as a parent, to decide how I want to protect my children? Turning the internet off isn’t the answer. Nor is comprehensive internet filters – those rarely work and in my opinion are just a bandaid, especially in a world where our kids are getting more and more mobile.
I’m afraid my only option is to stay involved with my kids (and maybe I shouldn’t be afraid of that). Watch them and be there for them as they are exposed to this Brave New World of technology. But what do I do as they’re around others that think this is okay to view in public settings around other children? Perhaps in the end the fix to our society is family, and the nurturing of our children through parents who care for them. People say it’s the ability to discern authentic relationships that goes first when kids are exposed to porn and become addicted at a young age. Maybe it’s just that – relationships, that will protect them, as they grow old enough to make those decisions on their own.
Image credit: First Edition, cover artist Leslie Holland.
Another Augmented Reality update from Total Immersion popped up on my radar at this year's Mobile World Congress. This nifty app, demoed at the Texas Instruments booth, is loaded with retail potential for e-commerce situations. This is not the first AR tool we've seen to assist with retail apparel purchases, however it is one of the best. Excellent AR tracking.
This is an updated concept from Total Immersion that I had witnessed previously at last year's MWC, however it is now benefitting from the increased processing power available from chips like the OMAP 4 and OMAP 5 as well as from the increased real estate a tablet provides (previous versions of this demo ran on phones).
I think the demo speaks for itself.
Editor’s Note:This guest post was written by Sarah Paiji, co-founder and CEO of Snapette, a mobile fashion shopping startup that drives users to nearby stores. She is an alumni of 500 Startups accelerator and dropped out of Harvard Business School to work on Snapette full-time with her co-founder Jinhee Ahn Kim. Snapette Director of Marketing Sanby Lee also contributed to the post.
When it comes to fashion, women have embraced products that were originally designed for men. Flip through any J.Crew catalog and you'll encounter the Boyfriend Jean, Boyfriend Blazer, unisex ankle boots, and of course the classic men's shirt paired with skinny jeans.
When it comes to tech? Not so much. In the predominantly male tech world, products are usually, by default, designed by men — for men. However, women have different design preferences and needs, with research showing that men and women do indeed use the Web and social media in different ways.
Designers and developers may be missing out on a huge opportunity by overlooking the gender of users when creating products. Women control 80 percent of consumer spending and drive the majority of user activity on many of the largest social networks. The recent success of startups driven by female users such as Gilt Groupe, Learnvest, InDinero, OneKingsLane, and countless social gaming apps show that there is value in focusing specifically on the female consumer.
So if a large portion of your customer base is women (or you'd like it to be) how do you design for them? As women who are developing products for other women, here's what we've learned from our experience:
1. Don't Be Afraid To Go Pink.
We don't mean that your product literally has to be pink. However, you shouldn't be afraid to make a product that is only for women, and to signal this through your aesthetic and branding. For our mobile shopping app, we chose a name and color scheme that was decidedly feminine. We had men complain that they didn't feel comfortable using the app, or posting in a community dominated by women.
But that's the point — we didn't want men as our initial audience. Given that our product is a social shopping app that relies on crowdsourcing and strong community, our focus on “just women” has helped us create a targeted and streamlined user experience. Women see photos posted by users similar to them, thus increasing the likelihood they find products they enjoy and that are relevant.
2. Resist Feature Overload.
Keeping it simple is a cornerstone of good design for any gender, but it's even more crucial when it comes to products targeting women. Women are less likely to spend time hunting around or exploring new features because they may be juggling other tasks that require their time and attention. For example, we have found that many of our users are moms who would browse the app while running errands, waiting in line at the grocery store, or watching their kids play softball.
Working women still do twice the amount of chores and three times the amount of childcare in their households than working men. For these women, adding new features may go unnoticed, and may actually turn them off by taking up more of their time.
3. Find The Key Influencers.
For marketing to women, social sharing is even more important than for men. For example, loyalty platform Endorse acquired 15,000 beta users, almost 90 percent of which were women, by recruiting just five women initially to spread the word among their friends.
Jewelry startup Stella & Dot has built its business by having their existing customer base hold private parties during which women encourage their friends to buy products, reminiscent of Avon women and similar to Tupperware parties of the past. Don't underestimate the power of female social networks, especially offline ones — with 92 percent of women sharing information about shopping deals to their friends.
4. Enable Discovery.
Women are valuable consumers because they are more open to trying new things, whereas men tend to find one thing they like and stick with it. Research from Wharton Business School backs this up with data: Women view the shopping experience itself as a form of entertainment and an enjoyable way to find new products, whereas men are focused on getting what they need, then getting out.
Startups like Birchbox and Rent the Runway have become popular among women by allowing them to experience a large variety of merchandise at minimal cost, replicating the offline experience of wandering through a department store and trying on clothes or getting perfume samples.
5. Have Women On Your Team.
We're not saying that men can't design for women, especially with help from interviewing women, doing surveys, and learning their needs. However, if your company is a startup, your time and resources are always limited, and you don't always have the ability to do extensive user research.
It helps to start with yourself as the target user, and the easiest way to think like a woman is to be one. In designing Snapette, it's been incredibly useful and efficient to be able to draw on our own personal experiences — anything from deciding which shoe to feature in a marketing campaign to deciding whether a new feature is useful.
What do you think? Have you seen great examples of tech designed for women? Would you be turned off by anything pink no matter how well it was designed? Tell us your thoughts.
Image credit: Ruth Graham/TheGrindStone
Editor’s Note:This guest post was written by Gary Swart, the CEO of oDesk, the fast-growing online workplace where eContractors are currently earning more than $300 million a year.
With the economy still struggling to recover, key indicators of economic performance are largely focused on traditional employment — we are fixated on how many people have managed to find on-site, single-employer jobs. But is this an outdated perspective?
Columbia Business School professor Rita McGrath would say so. In a recent blog post for Harvard Business Review, McGrath questions the pervasive assumption that "regular" employment is always the most stable and desirable. She writes, "Many of the assumptions about society that we take for granted are based on the notion that relatively stable employment relationships are the norm. When will our thinking catch up with the new reality?"
Anyone looking for a job or tasked with hiring must wonder what this means for them.
The reality is that the traditional employment model has dramatically shifted and evolved. The "regular" job market may never make the comeback that so many job seekers hope to see, and this makes people anxious. The uncertainty associated with adopting a new model is often uncomfortable, but, in this case, it doesn't have to be — never before has global talent been accessible in such a quick, lean, and scalable way.
Boundless Opportunities
The new employment model is here: Work 3.0. In it, work is on demand, virtual and remote — and it is just getting started.
Take Thumbtack.com for example. This marketplace for local services is a small shop with just a handful of full-time employees. Based in San Francisco, Thumbtack competes against all of Silicon Valley for talent; from Google, Facebook and Zynga to the next hot venture-backed startup, they're all gunning for the same top-tier talent. Instead of spending all of Thumbtack's recent funding on the high salaries and plentiful perks that top local talent demands, they opted to keep their in-house staff light, expanding instead by adding 120 online team members scattered around the world. The business has since experienced 150X growth, while keeping its costs remarkably low.
The tremendous growth of online work has changed the way businesses hire talent and structure their workforces, allowing them to build teams that cross borders, time zones and skill sets. But it also yields opportunity for people around the world to tap into global demand that far outpaces the needs of local or even national markets.
In the Work 3.0 model, people are no longer limited to the jobs available within commuting distance. Graphic designers in rural Tennessee have the same access to jobs as graphic designers in New York or London. This elimination of geographic boundaries can refresh perspectives and development in new and interesting ways. It also means that individuals have the freedom to choose which projects interest them most, as well as when, where, and how often to work.
In addition, this shift actually leads to a happier and more productive global workforce. A recent survey from Harris Interactive found that U.S. workers would make serious sacrifices to be able to telecommute — 34% would give up social media, 25% would give up their smartphones, 17% would give up a raise and a remarkable 5% would even give up their spouses.
The Future of Work 3.0
Online work continues to grow by 70 percent year over year, and the technology that supports it continues to improve. In 2012, it is predicted that more than 6 million online jobs will be posted, representing more than $1 billion of work performed via the Web.
And while past improvements in broadband access and collaborative technology got us to where we are today, further enhancements to the mechanics behind online work — improved Internet access and speed, advanced algorithms that help match businesses and workers, and enhanced global payment systems, to name a few — will help further speed the adoption of online work and make even the late adopters comfortable with leveraging the Work 3.0 model.
At a certain point, after adoption has hit a critical mass, I believe technology will have improved so much that online work becomes a seamless, integrated part of everyday life — a life where hiring someone online for a task is as natural and intuitive as "Googling" information you wish to know.
Traditional jobs may never return to pre-recession levels. But it has become apparent that in the next few years, we will make up for those jobs — and exponentially more — through online work.
Work 3.0 has only just begun.
Editor's Note:This guest post is written by Nir Eyal, a founder of two startups and an advisor to several Bay Area companies and incubators. Nir blogs about technology and behavior engineering at nirandfar.com.
Type the name of almost any successful consumer web company into your search bar and add the word "addict" after it. Go ahead, I'll wait. Try "Facebook addict" or "Zynga addict" or even "Pinterest addict" and you'll soon get a slew of results from hooked users and observers deriding the narcotic-like properties of these web sites. How is it that these companies, producing little more than bits of code displayed on a screen, can seemingly control users' minds? Why are these sites so addictive and what does their power mean for the future of the web?
We're on the precipice of a new era of the web. As infinite distractions compete for our attention, companies are learning to master new tactics to stay relevant in users' minds and lives. Today, just amassing millions of users is no longer good enough. Companies increasingly find that their economic value is a function of the strength of the habits they create. But as some companies are just waking up to this new reality, others are already cashing in.
FIRST-TO-MIND WINS
A company that forms strong user habits enjoys several benefits to its bottom line. For one, this type of company creates "internal triggers" in users. That is to say, users come to the site without any external prompting. Instead of relying on expensive marketing or worrying about differentiation, habit-forming companies get users to "self trigger" by attaching their services to the users' daily routines and emotions. A cemented habit is when users subconsciously think, "I'm bored," and instantly Facebook comes to mind. They think, "I wonder what's going on in the world?" and before rationale thought occurs, Twitter is the answer. The first-to-mind solution wins.
MANUFACTURING DESIRE
But how do companies create the internal triggers needed to form habits? The answer: they manufacture desire. While fans of Mad Men are familiar with how the ad industry once created consumer desire during Madison Avenue's golden era, those days are long gone. A multi-screen world, with ad-wary consumers and a lack of ROI metrics, has rendered Don Draper's big budget brainwashing useless to all but the biggest brands. Instead, startups manufacture desire by guiding users through a series of experiences designed to create habits. I call these experiences "desire engines," and the more often users run through them, the more likely they are to self-trigger.
I created the desire engine in order to help others understand what is at the heart of habit-forming technology. It highlights common patterns I observed in my career in the video gaming and online advertising industries. While the desire engine is generic enough for a broad explanation of habit formation, I'll focus on applications in consumer Internet for this post.
TRIGGER
The trigger is the actuator of a behavior—the spark plug in the engine. Triggers come in two types: external and internal. Habit-forming technologies start by alerting users with external triggers like an email, a link on a web site, or the app icon on a phone. By cycling continuously through successive desire engines, users begin to form internal triggers, which become attached to existing behaviors and emotions. Soon users are internally triggered every time they feel a certain way. The internal trigger becomes part of their routine behavior and the habit is formed.
For example, suppose Barbra, a young lady in Pennsylvania, happens to see a photo in her Facebook newsfeed taken by a family member from a rural part of the State. It's a lovely photo and since she's planning a trip there with her brother Johnny, the trigger intrigues her.
ACTION
After the trigger comes the intended action. Here, companies leverage two pulleys of human behavior – motivation and ability. To increase the odds of a user taking the intended action, the behavior designer makes the action as easy as possible, while simultaneously boosting the user's motivation. This phase of the desire engine draws upon the art and science of usability design to ensure that the user acts the way the designer intends.
Using the example of Barbra, with a click on the interesting picture in her newsfeed she's taken to a website she's never been to before called Pinterest. Once she's done the intended action (in this case, clicking on the photo), she's dazzled by what she sees next.
VARIABLE REWARD
What separates the desire engine from a plain vanilla feedback loop is the engine's ability to create wanting in the user. Feedback loops are all around us, but predictable ones don't create desire. The predictable response of your fridge light turning on when you open the door doesn't drive you to keep opening it again and again. However, add some variability to the mix—say a different treat magically appears in your fridge every time you open it—and voila, desire is created. You'll be opening that door like a lab rat in a Skinner box.
Variable schedules of reward are one of the most powerful tools that companies use to hook users. Research shows that levels of dopamine surge when the brain is expecting a reward. Introducing variability multiplies the effect, creating a frenzied hunting state, which suppresses the areas of the brain associated with judgment and reason while activating the parts associated with wanting and desire. Although classic examples include slot machines and lotteries, variable rewards are prevalent in habit-forming technologies as well.
When Barbra lands on Pinterest, not only does she see the image she intended to find, but she's also served a multitude of other glittering objects. The images are associated with what she's generally interested in – namely things to see during a trip to rural Pennsylvania – but there are some others that catch her eye also. The exciting juxtaposition of relevant and irrelevant, tantalizing and plain, beautiful and common sets her brain's dopamine system aflutter with the promise of reward. Now she's spending more time on the site, hunting for the next wonderful thing to find. Before she knows it, she's spent 45 minutes scrolling in search of her next hit.
COMMITMENT
The last phase of the desire engine is where the user is asked to do bit of work. This phase has two goals, as far as the behavior engineer is concerned. The first is to increase the odds that the user will make another pass through the desire engine when presented with the next trigger. Second, now that the user's brain is swimming in dopamine from the anticipation of reward in the previous phase, it's time to pay some bills. The commitment generally comes in the form of asking the user to give some combination of time, data, effort, social capital or money.
But unlike a sales funnel, which has a set endpoint, the commitment phase isn't about consumers opening up their wallets and moving on with their day. The commitment implies an action that improves the service for the next go-around. Inviting friends, stating preferences, building virtual assets, and learning to use new features are all commitments that improve the service for the user. These commitments can be leveraged to make the trigger more engaging, the action easier, and the reward more exciting with every pass through the desire engine.
As Barbra enjoys endlessly scrolling the Pinterest cornucopia, she builds a desire to keep the things that delight her. By collecting items, she'll be giving the site data about her preferences. Soon she will follow, pin, re-pin, and make other commitments, which serve to increase her ties to the site and prime her for future loops through the desire engine.
SUPER POWER
A reader recently wrote to me, "If it can't be used for evil, it's not a super power." He's right. And under this definition, habit design is indeed a super power. If used for good, habit design can enhance people's lives with entertaining and even healthful routines. If used for evil, habits can quickly turn into wasteful addictions.
But, like it or not, habit-forming technology is already here. The fact that we have greater access to the web through our various devices also gives companies greater access to us. As companies combine this greater access with the ability to collect and process our data at higher speeds than ever before, we're faced with a future where everything becomes more addictive. This trinity of access, data, and speed creates new opportunities for habit-forming technologies to hook users. Companies need to know how to harness the power of the desire engine to improve peoples' lives, while consumers need to understand the mechanics of behavior engineering to protect themselves from manipulation.
What do you think? Desire engines are all around us. Where do you see them manufacturing desire in your life?
At many conferences, like the Mobile World Congress, it seems the best demos usually end up happening while waiting in line for lunch or for a cab. While rolling through the pile of video content I collected at the MWC this year, I ran back across this Augmented Reality demo by Aurasma. It is a perfect example of the "elevator demo" and in one way illustrates the portability of many AR concepts – they don't rely on a bunch of fixed assets or perfect lighting situations.
This is a pure marketing piece and really shows how effective AR can be a delivering unique, interactive video content.
At many conferences, like the Mobile World Congress, it seems the best demos usually end up happening while waiting in line for lunch or for a cab. While rolling through the pile of video content I collected at the MWC this year, I ran back across this Augmented Reality demo by Aurasma. It is a perfect example of the "elevator demo" and in one way illustrates the portability of many AR concepts – they don't rely on a bunch of fixed assets or perfect lighting situations.
This is a pure marketing piece and really shows how effective AR can be a delivering unique, interactive video content.
Check out the second post in the series from MWC here.
Editor’s Note:This guest post is written by Doron Simovitch, the co-founder & CEO of SortPrice.com, a shopping search engine and Facebook eCommerce solutions provider. Doron has more than 15 years of experience in managing technology and eCommerce and has been quoted in the New York Times, CNN, and other media outlet as an expert in all things online shopping and eTail.
Beware, the sky is falling! Or at least that's what we're hearing from some experts on F-commerce following announcements from a few big name retailers in recent weeks that they are shuttering their stores on Facebook.
Going as far as to suggest that the “F” in “F-commerce” now stands for “failure,” these critics are boldly asserting that F-commerce's days are numbered and that the entire concept is destined to soon be but a footnote in the pages of tech history.
Frankly, such claims are more than a little mind-boggling. Whenever a new medium like F-commerce emerges, companies are naturally uncertain on how to approach it and it always takes some time before strong and effective strategies emerge. Think back to when the internet first caught on – it was unchartered territory for everyone but now, just about every business has in-house employees that handle things like online reputation, SEO, SEM and more.
You'll forgive the rest of us if we don't necessarily agree that the end is nigh simply because a handful of companies (out of literally thousands that are actively engaged in F-commerce) are going in another direction. We work with hundreds of merchants on F-commerce and Facebook marketing every month and rest assured, many of them are finding success in the practice. So, no, F-commerce is not on its deathbed. Far from it, actually.
With that being said, however, the recent changes in strategy by some of the bigger names in retail do present an opportunity to re-examine what works and what doesn't in F-commerce.
If you're a retailer who isn't getting what you hoped for out of F-commerce thus far and you're wondering why, perhaps the following list holds the answer. 1. Your Social Media Director/Manager is a 20 year old college intern who only comes to work two or three days each week. The Lesson: Effective F-commerce requires time and an attention to detail. It is certainly not a part-time venture, so if you hand over the responsibility to someone who isn't consistently on top of things, you can't possibly expect solid results in return.
Hiring someone exclusively to handle F-commerce isn't necessarily a requirement but finding a way to make sure that your social media ducks are in a row every single day absolutely is a must. Spread those responsibilities around so everyone on your team gets to add their input and please, by all means, avoid letting an intern carry the load! 2. When the F-commerce craze started, you spent upwards of $50k on a so called feature-rich social commerce platform to make a big splash rather than shop around to find something more cost-effective that actually fits your particular needs. The Lesson: In other words, you overpaid. Look, F-commerce is not 'one size fits all' and what works for a big-name electronics retailer may not work for a niche merchant selling customized jewelry. Of course, if you've paid four or five figures to have your Facebook presence built, any disappointment in the results is going to seem that much worse because of the cost affiliated with it.
There are lots of social commerce providers out there that won't charge you an arm and a leg for a good, solid platform. If you still can, it might be a good idea to explore those options. 3. The last time you posted something, ANYTHING, on your Facebook fan page it was still 2011. The Lesson: It's early March, your most recent Wall post referenced something about holiday shopping and you're wondering why no one is paying any attention to you? Attention spans are short on Facebook and the one thing above all else that determines F- commerce success is engagement. If you're not regularly posting content, even if it isn't material that is necessarily tied to your company or products, users are going to forget about you. It's as simple as that.
Don't wait for your next big sale or promotion to put something up on Facebook. Scour the web for thought-provoking content such as jokes, riddles, trivia questions, funny videos and pictures and encourage your fans to chime in those posts. Chances are, they will enjoy the 'fun' content now and as a result, will be likely paying more attention when you do roll out something bigger. 4. Your Facebook fans are wondering, "Where's the love?" The Lesson: If there's one hard truth that we've learned in the past few years with regards to F-commerce, it's that Facebook users overwhelmingly tend to Like brands for one reason only: they want to get something out of it. The problem is, very few retailers are obliging them in that regard.
F-commerce is a two-way street and users have already satisfied their end of the bargain by liking you in the first place. Now it's your turn to provide something that is exclusive to your Facebook fans. Maybe it's a deal like free shipping. Maybe it's a promo code. Maybe it's a discount on larger orders or a 'Buy One Get One Free' offering. But give them something! Again, with shortened attention spans you're going to need every tool at your disposal to keep people around. Giving them an incentive or reward for their loyalty is one of the best ways you can do that. 5. There's no 'social' in your social media strategy The Lesson: This encompasses some of the things we've covered already but overall, it's amazing just how unsocial some brands are when it comes to social media. Far too often we see retailers building a Facebook store and then just expecting new sales and customers to appear out of thin air simply because they've now got a social media-based storefront. It doesn't work that way!
Remember engagement? Remember the idea of a two-way street? Remember incentives and rewards? All of these things are important components of successful social media strategies. Simply posting products on Facebook is never going to be enough. Make a connection with your fans and followers whenever possible because that is the very essence of what social media is about in the first place.
Critics will continue to say that F-commerce's day has come and gone but don't believe it for a second. Facebook's huge global user base and the potential that it holds for brands is more than enough to ensure F-commerce's viability well into the future. Your own F-commerce success, however, is wholly dependent on keeping these suggestions in mind as you move forward and try to separate yourself from the pack.
Editor’s Note:Iltifat Husain is the founder and Editor-in-chief of iMedicalApps.com, a physician-operated technology review publication and is currently an Emergency Medicine resident physician at Wake Forest University’s School of Medicine.
The significant adoption of smartphones among physicians has not only led to an explosion of medical apps aimed at healthcare providers, but it has also cultivated an emerging trend of health and wellness apps aimed at empowering patients.
While great innovation is happening in the health and wellness mobile ecosystem, it's difficult for patients and physicians to navigate through the large database of apps to
find ones they can actually use. My experience reviewing health and medical apps as a writer, combined with my experiences in a high volume Emergency Department that sees a diverse patient population, has allowed me to get a unique sense of this space.
Looking back, I’ve come to realize that there are three apps in particular that I routinely prescribe to my patients, as they are not only meaningful to physicians, but truly empower patients (and their families) and help them better understand their treatment and what’s going on with their bodies.
These three apps help patients and their family members get a better understanding of the cancer treatment process, help women in pregnancy understand their baby’s development, and help children and adults learn how to manage their diabetes.
All three apps are backed by venerable organizations already trusted by millions of patients worldwide. And just to make it clear up front: I have no relationships, financial or personal, with the developers or companies of the applications mentioned.
Cancer.net, an oncologist approved cancer information website from the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), released an iOS app last year that brought their website's functionality and much more to mobile form. When I reviewed the app last year, I was impressed with the unique mobile-specific features.
My favorite area of the app is the “questions and answers” section, which enables patients to store questions they can ask their oncologist and other physicians later. However, the most impressive part of the app an area that suggests questions that cancer patients and family members should consider asking — empowering patients and family members to ask relevant questions.
The functionality is extended by enabling patients to store questions in voice format. This is a critical feature for cancer patients as many of them are undergoing chemotherapy that can make typing or finger manipulation difficult due to neuropathy in their fingers. Furthermore, it helps patients record their physicians response accurately — so when patients are asked by family members "What did the doctor think?" — they can easily share the recording. Study after study shows patient recall after a physician visit is not optimal, and there is good evidence to suggest audio recordings, especially of oncology visits, are beneficiary to patients and their family members.
Other features that empower patients is an area where side effects of their medications can be meticulously stored and an area where patients can see various videos suggested by ASCO.
Available for iOS and Android is pending.
Carb Counting with Lenny is made by Medtronic, the goliath medical device company. The app is designed to help children learn about diabetes and to get a better understanding of carb counting. Those with diabetes or those with family members with diabetes know how crucial carbohydrate counting is. It is crucial for diabetics to be able to approximate how many carbohydrates they are consuming so they can titrate their medications effectively.
The app incorporates gamification into teaching, making the app playful and fun to use. The games show you all the basic food groups and enables patients to easily understand how various carbs can affect their blood sugar adversely.
Although this app is aimed at children, I have suggested it to adults patients as well. The app does a great job of getting patients to understand how many carbohydrates they are consuming, and how it can affect their blood sugar.
You can find it on iOS here.
Hello Baby Pregnancy Calendar is produced by Pampers, and was released just a few months after the introduction of the first iPad. The app allows expecting mothers to get a better idea of the various stages of their pregnancy and their baby's development.
The app shows expectant mothers the different stages of their baby's anatomy week by week. One of my favorite parts of this app is the great medical education delivered — such as explaining to patients when and why physicians would want to do an amniocentesis. These types of tips enable patients to be better prepared when they go for their prenatal check ups.
The app also included a parenthood video series, and even a quirky "Womb Translator" portion that enables you to hear what your baby is hearing while in your Womb. Frankly, I don't know how scientifically accurate this portion is as various variables such as amount of amniotic fluid surrounding the baby would impact this, but it’s endearing and if it gets expectant mothers to learn more and be better prepared during pregnancy I'm all for it.
As smartphones become more ubiquitous, it's critical that health care providers, as well as patients, get a better understanding of how to utilize these devices for improving overall patient care.
You can find it on the App Store here. Personal Disclosure: I have no conflicts of interest to disclose. I have no relationships, financial or personal,
with the developers or companies of the applications mentioned. Medical Disclaimer: This post does not establish, nor is it intended to establish, a patient physician relationship with anyone. It does not substitute for professional advice, and does not substitute for an in-person evaluation with your health care provider. It does not provide the definitive statement on the subject addressed. Before using these apps please consult with your physician or health care provider as to the apps validity and accuracy as this post is not intended to affirm the validity or accuracy of the apps in question.
Ambient location app Highlight is a big deal. Eldon likes it, Scoble likes it, MG and Mike like it and Grindr fan Charlie Cheever likes it. More importantly, I like it.
Before you call me out for being slightly narcissist with the above statement (which wouldn’t make me at all unique in my field), here’s why the fact that I like it is important; In case you haven’t noticed, I am a female, which means I am an indicative use case for an app that forces you to constantly broadcast your location.
The premise behind services like Highlight and Glancee is that humans are desperate to connect with one another on a multitude of levels. Why not make it easier for them if we have the technology? As one of my VC friends rudely put it, when I expressed my love for the app, “Seems like a fad, but if it gets people laid then it’s huge.”
I’m pretty sure this is going to need females on it to go beyond Grindr and get a critical mass of people laid.
The issue with females is that we’re sensitive with regards to dudes contacting us about getting laid, hence being cautious about letting people know where we are at any given moment (I’m coming to this conclusion based on anecdotal information). Because there are serious, real world implications to being carelessly open with that sort of stuff.
Highlight had 20K users when I last spoke to founder Paul Davison a couple of weeks ago. In about a week, that number will likely exponentially increase, as people in Austin download what we’ve already touted as THE BIGGEST APP AT SXSW.
As I prepare for the coming week, I realize if Highlight doesn’t create some sort of “Only Friends” filter, and thus blocking “Friends of Friends” as well as people you have Likes in common with from seeing your location, Texas is going to be a shitshow. For example, thanks to Highlight I now know that Evan Williams and MG Siegler are both a block away from me for some reason. Imagine if I were a crazy startup founder
weren’t “so over” talking to tech celebrities
… I would totally change out of my pajamas and try to intercept them somehow.
I’m willing to bet that the above hypothetical is going to play out a thousand times in Austin unless Highlight fixes it so I can only see MG (who is my friend on Facebook and in real life) and not Ev.
Judging from the reactions I’m getting when I try to explain to Normals what Highlight does (“”Omg IT LETS PEOPLE KNOW WHERE YOU ARE?!?!?”), mainstream society isn’t ready for it as it stands now. If things work out as founder Paul Davison envisions, one day Moms will be cool with lightweight actions like letting their friends know if they were both at the same party, but for now many are apprehensive.
“Privacy is so critical,” Davison told me in an interview, “Having people’s trust is so critical for this sort of thing. We want to build something women can use and feel safe on. If you build this product the right way you can build something that will be really useful.”
In my opinion, the “right sort of way” means allowing users to limit the app to “Friends.” Highlight is winning because unlike services like Sonar you don’t have to check in, but if its default inclusivity isn’t tempered in the next week, it will serve as a fatal flaw when we all get to early adopter Austin.
I can just imagine the stacks of Highlight messages from PR People now …
“We’re still working on basic throttling,” Davison tells me. “Tiny changes in the product have a profound impact [no kidding!] … If you do this the right way it just makes people better. It’s really hard to get it right, but if you get it right, it’s hard for me to think of something more important to be building. You’re literally giving the world a sixth sense.”
Good luck Paul.
Ambient location app Highlight is a big deal. Eldon likes it, Scoble likes it, MG and Mike like it and Grindr fan Charlie Cheever likes it. More importantly, I like it.
Before you call me out for being slightly narcissist with the above statement (which wouldn’t make me at all unique in my field), here’s why the fact that I like it is important; In case you haven’t noticed, I am a female, which means I am an indicative use case for an app that forces you to constantly broadcast your location.
The premise behind services like Highlight and Glancee is that humans are desperate to connect with one another on a multitude of levels. Why not make it easier for them if we have the technology? As one of my VC friends rudely put it, when I expressed my love for the app, “Seems like a fad, but if it gets people laid then it’s huge.”
I’m pretty sure this is going to need females on it to go beyond Grindr and get a critical mass of people laid.
The issue with females is that we’re sensitive with regards to dudes contacting us about getting laid, hence being cautious about letting people know where we are at any given moment (I’m coming to this conclusion based on anecdotal information). Because there are serious, real world implications to being carelessly open with that sort of stuff.
Highlight had 20K users when I last spoke to founder Paul Davison a couple of weeks ago. In about a week, that number will likely exponentially increase, as people in Austin download what we’ve already touted as THE BIGGEST APP AT SXSW.
As I prepare for the coming week, I realize if Highlight doesn’t create some sort of “Only Friends” filter, and thus blocking “Friends of Friends” as well as people you have Likes in common with from seeing your location, Texas is going to be a shitshow. For example, thanks to Highlight I now know that Evan Williams and MG Siegler are both a block away from me for some reason. Imagine if I were a crazy startup founder
weren’t “so over” talking to tech celebrities
… I would totally change out of my pajamas and try to intercept them somehow.
I’m willing to bet that the above hypothetical is going to play out a thousand times in Austin unless Highlight fixes it so I can only see MG (who is my friend on Facebook and in real life) and not Ev.
Judging from the reactions I’m getting when I try to explain to Normals what Highlight does (“”Omg IT LETS PEOPLE KNOW WHERE YOU ARE?!?!?”), mainstream society isn’t ready for it as it stands now. If things work out as founder Paul Davison envisions, one day Moms will be cool with lightweight actions like letting their friends know if they were both at the same party, but for now many are apprehensive.
“Privacy is so critical,” Davison told me in an interview, “Having people’s trust is so critical for this sort of thing. We want to build something women can use and feel safe on. If you build this product the right way you can build something that will be really useful.”
In my opinion, the “right sort of way” means allowing users to limit the app to “Friends.” Highlight is winning because unlike services like Sonar you don’t have to check in, but if its default inclusivity isn’t tempered in the next week, it will serve as a fatal flaw when we all get to early adopter Austin.
I can just imagine the stacks of Highlight messages from PR People now …
“We’re still working on basic throttling,” Davison tells me. “Tiny changes in the product have a profound impact [no kidding] … If you do this the right way it just makes people better. It’s really hard to get it right, but if you get it right, it’s hard for me to think of something more important to be building. You’re literally giving the world a sixth sense.”
Good luck Paul.
