Can The iPad Save Traditional Media

The iPad is the latest, and arguably, most compelling reason for marketers to back further away from traditional media companies and engage consumers directly. Brands are more capable and empowered than ever to go at it alone when it comes to creating and disseminating content. As such, marketers who think like media executives stand to gain share and improve loyalty for the brands they serve.

The iPad is the latest, and arguably most compelling reason for marketers to back further away from traditional media companies and engage consumers directly. Previously, brands needed print and broadcast media to reach their consumers efficiently and effectively. This is no longer the case. That’s because with technologies like the Apple iPad, brands are more capable and empowered than ever to go it alone when it comes to creating and disseminating content. As such, marketers who think like media executives stand to gain share and improve loyalty for the brands they serve. In this exclusive Proximity white paper, we examine the tremendous opportunities and upside of the “marketer as content provider” model.

Link To The WHITEPAPER

Taking A Page From Farmville

Consider this: Farmville has three times as many active users as Twitter. We brought social gaming to your attention in past bulletins and this month we’d like to share some insights on social gaming provided by Zynga, the leading social gaming developer and creator of Farmville. Be sure to water your crops and check out this article. Oh, did we mention Zynga made over $100MM last year?!

Earlier this week John Doerr, an investor in Google, Amazon, and Intuit, said Zynga is the fastest growing venture he’s ever been a part of. Zynga’s flagship game, FarmVille, has 3 times the reach of Twitter. FarmVille has 71 million active users while Twitter has around 22 million active users (Twitter has 110 million registered users, of which an estimated 20% are likely active). Perhaps more impressively, Zynga is estimated to generate $50 million in revenue from the most engaged members who buy virtual goods and keep up a toolbar.

Every web experience designer can learn from the tactics deployed in FarmVille to engage members over the long term. Here are 8 tactics you should include:

1. Reward users for returning in a short time period. Every website visitor is going to leave at some point. But why will they return in 24 hours? FarmVille is centered around planting and harvesting crops. The shortest time a new user can harvest a crop in is 4 hours. So on the first experience, FarmVille says: “Go away and come back in 4 hours”. How bold! In order to make progress in FarmVille, you need to go and come back. The site also has functionality that you can only use once per day (e.g., giving gifts to friends), further encouraging you to go and come back.

2. Reward users for helping friends every day. When you give a gift to a friend on FarmVille, it actually benefits you. Fertilizing a friends’ crops does not cost you cash. Instead, it raises your experience level. So, you can feel good about both helping someone else and gaining points at the same time. Dropbox.com does something similar with their program for inviting friends that gives both the inviter and recipient extra space. But on FarmVille, you can earn coins and give gifts every day you visit a friends’ farm.

3. Allow users to create without typing. FarmVille is incredibly easy to play–you just point and click. Click to till soil. Click to plant seeds. Click to harvest. It can be played by 5 year olds, drunk college kids, or tired parents. You never need to think about what to say, how to spell, or what key does what. Perhaps most importantly, it can be played by the user whether they have 5 minutes free (i.e., to harvest crops) or 30 minutes free (i.e, to redecorate their farm).

4. Show progress…everywhere…on everything. It seems like everywhere I look in FarmVille there are progress bars implying future levels of achievement can be obtained. If it’s an activity you can do on FarmVille, it’s measured somehow with coins, cash, points, levels, ribbons, and more. This make’s users aware of the value of their past actions. It also suggests what the next step can be.

5. Make users feel lonely without friends–because if they get friends on, they’ll stay longer. After spending a few minutes clicking around FarmVille, you quickly see the game is designed for you to have friends. The main screen has at least 10 reminders of where your friends should be. These serve as a call to action to add friends. And you’re more likely to stay engaged if you have friends involved. FriendFeed claimed that, for their service, a new user is much more likely to stay active if they have 5 friends.

6. Enable self expression. FarmVille immediately lets you customize your avatar and start to customize your farm. You can represent yourself with just a few clicks of the mouse. And by making a representation of yourself, it’s likely you’ll care about it. Do you want to be the person who has withered crops or a small farm?

7. Offer increasing levels of complexity for mastery. After playing FarmVille for a bit, they started to unlock new things that cluttered my display. For example, after a week of play did I get a “gas meter” for a “Tractor”. I expect that if I keep playing they’ll be more and more things to unlock that can be mastered. [Editors note: I've now heard that "horse trading" is something veterans can do]

8. Have surprises & limited time events. Sometimes when you plow a plot of land, you find coins. Sometimes when you log in, there will be a special promotion for a limited time stuff to buy. These surprises make it fun and encourage repeat visits. Even Google changes up it’s logo every now and then just to keep things fresh. I’m so curious about what FarmVille will think of next that I’m sure I’ll regularly stop by in the coming year.

In summary, FarmVille is designed to retain users over the long run. There is a lot that designers of websites can learn from the tactics deployed. To hear about follow up posts on how FarmVille acquires users and monetizes, follow me on Twitter.

Source - Making Sense Of Good & Bad Content

Three Key Location Trends For Moms

Moms are always on the go and location based services (LBS) on mobile phones are an excellent opportunity for marketers to connect with this important segment. Although LBS has yet to penetrate on a mass scale, it is predicted to have a huge impact by 2014 (which is disturbingly close). Here are a few tips to get you ahead of the game and remember it’s all about value.

Location-based services (LBS) on mobile phones are engaging a growing market — one that is expected to generate revenues of over $12.7 billion by 2014. With a significant percentage of moms using smartphones, location services offer a rare opportunity to interact with moms while they’re on the go.

Below are some innovative ways that companies are applying location-based technologies to target moms.

1. Discounts & Coupons

Discounts for “checkins” reward users for their brand loyalty. Women have shown a particular interest in mobile coupons, with more than two-thirds expressing their interest in getting coupons on their mobile device. In another study, 88% of female Internet () users said they would like to see more targeted offers from trusted brands. Discounts are a common incentive for moms to use location-based services. “I don’t care about being “mayor” of a location unless that means I will get a special offer from the business in return,” says blogger and Nielsen Power Mom Beth Blecherman.

However, privacy is a concern raised by many moms. “Location-based services are like two sides to a coin … they humanize and personalize, and conversely … they dehumanize and quantify us as data points. It can be hard to balance,” says Ciaran Blumenfeld, founder of Momfluential.

The balance seems to be in letting moms determine who can see their checkins. “It would also be great to allow people to check in ‘privately’ … so the store knows who checked in but it does not display to the whole world. I would probably use the location based services for everyday shopping more if I could choose when I only want the business to know I am checking in or make that public,” says Blecherman.

2. Utility Applications

Utility applications provide information and tools that make life easier for moms when they’re on the go. Applications such as Yelp (), Qype, and AroundMe () offer information about nearby restaurants and places to shop.

Sit or Squat enables users to locate nearby public restrooms and rates each one on a five-star scale based on whether or not they are a “sit” or a “squat.” Many of the restrooms include photos and information about special features, such as changing tables and handicap accessibility.

Rocket Taxi is an iPhone app that locates a user via GPS or Wi-Fi and finds nearby taxi companies. Users can select a company based on their rating, bookmark their favorite cab companies, and get an estimate of how much their fare will cost. These applications provide information for moms when they need it, and “locations make all of these interactions more relevant,” says Kate Imbach, VP of Marketing for Skyhook Wireless.

3. On The Go Sharing

Checkins enable users to fold the location-based element into a larger story, generally through photos, notes, and other social features. These applications appeal to many moms because they provide a context for checkins.

One application, Whrrl, enables users to add photos and notes to their checkins, as well as tag friends, who can also add their photos. “I am a fan of Whrrl in particular because it goes beyond the checkin and allows users to tell their story and recommend experiences to other users. Furthermore the stories I create are a visual history of my life and an easy way to make and share meaningful albums with friends and family. I can even post them on my blog. All of this makes it worth my while, and worth sharing my data” says Blumenfeld.

Babymate, an application that helps parents keep track of their babies’ development, is incorporating location-based elements into their existing application. Babymate is currently adding the ability to favorite locations, and incorporate that information into events, measurements and milestones. Users can integrate that information with images and articles

According to Babymate’s developer Mariano Capezzani, “The idea behind integrating Babymate with a location-based framework is to make the experience of using the app even more relevant and useful for users. For example, a mom whose baby has just been given the BCG vaccine will be able to comment on how her baby reacted and [how] good a job the clinic did. Another mom can share with the community the date when her baby started walking and what tips she found were useful to help him in the process. The community can share with each other and follow any activity, place, class, show, product and tip they find interesting, right through the app.”

Looking Ahead

Whether they provide discounts, utility, or on-the-go storytelling, successful applications are those that use location-based information to add value. As location-based services become more mainstream, developers will create even more innovative applications that appeal to moms. Marketers should look to location-based tools as a unique opportunity to add value and engage with moms while they are on the go.

Source - Mashable

Engaging The Like Minded

Traditional commercial content deems the audience to be passive participants. As we all know, the tables have turned and audiences are now active players in commercial content. Examples include crowdsourcing, user generated content, social media and a whole lot more. The following article explores the groundwork for audience engagement and the reasons why people get involved in the first place.

In order to get any group of people to work together towards a common goal, you need to find the answers to these questions:

• What do you want people to do?
• How will they do it?
• Who do you want to participate?
• Why will these people participate?

This should be the starting mindset for any brand or anyone designing experiences that are intended to engage a community of likeminded people.

When brands attempt to work with groups of individuals outside the brand, i.e. consumers – or as I prefer to call them: people – things start to get a little bit more complicated.

Too often, what brands set out to accomplish is out of whack with what any group of people outside the brand would be interested in.

Brands need a method for aligning what’s important to the brand with what’s important to the community of potential participants.

This approach has four parts, which synch with our guiding questions of Who, What, How, and Why.

Community
What is the shared interest that brings these people together and defines their collective identity? (Hint: the answer is not “our brand”)

Vision
What is an aspect of our world that this community would be inspired to help change? (Hint: it can be big or small, as long as it’s a specific outcome that is inspiring to the community)

Values
What are the beliefs that guide this community’s decisions? (Hint: look at the kinds of information that strengthen bonds between members and gives members status within the group)

Behaviors
What are the common modes of interaction and communication within the community? (Hint: pay closer attention to what people do, than to the platforms that enable it)

Once you’ve developed a deep and comprehensive understanding of the network of people you want to work with, you’re ready to begin building the experience.

At MIT’s Center for Collective Intelligence, researchers Thomas W. Malone, Robert Laubacher, Chrysanthos Dellarocas, and Greg Little, have spent the last four years analyzing examples of collective intelligence enabled by the internet, and have developed a model they call The Collective Intelligence Genome (I highly recommend that you download and read the full paper available here.)

I’ve adapted their model slightly to be a bit more suited to marketing. I’ve renamed the four pillars: Goal, Participants, Tools/Methods, and Motivations. And I’ve expanded their list of Why genes beyond just Money, Love, and Glory in order to encourage a more holistic approach to thinking about what a community will find compelling. The Motivation genes I list were adapted from Jane McGonigal’s research on why people play games, and Daren C. Brabham’s research on the Threadless community.

Goal: What specific collective action is the group contributing to?

• Create – the group needs to create something new
• Decide – the group needs to choose

Participants: Who is the group of people who will be working together?

• Crowd – a loosely organized, widely distributed group of people, typically unrestrained by place or time
• Hierarchy – a group organized by a management structure, with specific roles and responsibilities for each participant

Motivations: Why will each person within this network be compelled to participate?

• Money – in exchange for a monetary reward
• Glory – for the opportunity to gain public recognition
• Expertise – to hone their skills and get better at what they do
• Social – to spend time with people they like
• Satisfying work – the feeling of accomplishing meaningful tasks
• Be part of something bigger – the sense that they are contributing to something bigger than themselves
• Personal passion – because this is something that they love to do

Tools/Methods: How will the group be enabled to participate?

(Tools/Methods: Create)

• Collection – each participant contributes in small pieces on their own
• Contest – used when there is a limit on how much needs to be created
• Collaboration – used when individual contributions necessarily affect each other

(Tools/Methods: Decide – Group Decisions)

• Voting – each participant votes for their favorite choice, most votes wins
• Averaging – each participant rates independently, and the aggregate ratings are averaged for a final rating
• Consensus – participants engage in direct dialogue with each other to agree on a precise outcome
• Prediction Market – participants place bets on what they expect to happen

(Tools/Methods: Decide – Individual Decisions)

• Market – participants spend money to express their choices
• Social Network – participants trade in social currency to guide and express their choices

These elements, or genes, can be thought of as ingredients to be mixed and matched in endless combinations to create experiences suited to different needs and project exigencies.

Our powers combined… we end up with an actionable framework for designing experiences to catalyze collective action among a network of individuals connected by a common interest, aligned with the interest of the brand, that looks something like this:

Thank you for making it to the end. You’ve just earned 1,000 Bonus points for determination!

This is still a work in progress. Comments are very welcome. What are example of this that you’ve seen or built yourself? What questions arise as you attempt to put this into action? What other thoughts can you share?

Source - Mike Arauz Blog

The Good Ol' Days?

Culturally, we embrace youth and the “good old days” when life was a breeze and we were void of responsibility. Contrary to cultural belief, recent research suggests that youth is overrated and people actually get happier as they get older. This is an interesting insight and a great opportunity for brands targeting older demographics.

It is inevitable. The muscles weaken. Hearing and vision fade. We get wrinkled and stooped. We can’t run, or even walk, as fast as we used to. We have aches and pains in parts of our bodies we never even noticed before. We get old.

It sounds miserable, but apparently it is not. A large Gallup poll has found that by almost any measure, people get happier as they get older, and researchers are not sure why.

“It could be that there are environmental changes,” said Arthur A. Stone, the lead author of a new study based on the survey, “or it could be psychological changes about the way we view the world, or it could even be biological — for example brain chemistry or endocrine changes.”

The telephone survey, carried out in 2008, covered more than 340,000 people nationwide, ages 18 to 85, asking various questions about age and sex, current events, personal finances, health and other matters.

The survey also asked about “global well-being” by having each person rank overall life satisfaction on a 10-point scale, an assessment many people may make from time to time, if not in a strictly formalized way.

Finally, there were six yes-or-no questions: Did you experience the following feelings during a large part of the day yesterday: enjoyment, happiness, stress, worry, anger, sadness. The answers, the researchers say, reveal “hedonic well-being,” a person’s immediate experience of those psychological states, unencumbered by revised memories or subjective judgments that the query about general life satisfaction might have evoked.

The results, published online May 17 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, were good news for old people, and for those who are getting old. On the global measure, people start out at age 18 feeling pretty good about themselves, and then, apparently, life begins to throw curve balls. They feel worse and worse until they hit 50. At that point, there is a sharp reversal, and people keep getting happier as they age. By the time they are 85, they are even more satisfied with themselves than they were at 18.

In measuring immediate well-being — yesterday’s emotional state — the researchers found that stress declines from age 22 onward, reaching its lowest point at 85. Worry stays fairly steady until 50, then sharply drops off. Anger decreases steadily from 18 on, and sadness rises to a peak at 50, declines to 73, then rises slightly again to 85. Enjoyment and happiness have similar curves: they both decrease gradually until we hit 50, rise steadily for the next 25 years, and then decline very slightly at the end, but they never again reach the low point of our early 50s.

Other experts were impressed with the work. Andrew J. Oswald, a professor of psychology at Warwick Business School in England, who has published several studies on human happiness, called the findings important and, in some ways, heartening. “It’s a very encouraging fact that we can expect to be happier in our early 80s than we were in our 20s,” he said. “And it’s not being driven predominantly by things that happen in life. It’s something very deep and quite human that seems to be driving this.”

Dr. Stone, who is a professor of psychology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, said that the findings raised questions that needed more study. “These results say there are distinctive patterns here,” he said, “and it’s worth some research effort to try to figure out what’s going on. Why at age 50 does something seem to start to change?”

The study was not designed to figure out which factors make people happy, and the poll’s health questions were not specific enough to draw any conclusions about the effect of disease or disability on happiness in old age. But the researchers did look at four possibilities: the sex of the interviewee, whether the person had a partner, whether there were children at home and employment status. “These are four reasonable candidates,” Dr. Stone said, “but they don’t make much difference.”

For people under 50 who may sometimes feel gloomy, there may be consolation here. The view seems a bit bleak right now, but look at the bright side: you are getting old.

Source - The New York Times

Go Back...Way Back

There’s so much discussion about social media that it can be difficult to remember the best practices. The solution is simple: go back to your roots and it’s easy. This article takes you back to the lessons you learned in kindergarten and applies them to brand behaviour in social media. The fifteen tips may seem obvious but it is amazing how much impact they can have on your brand.

Ok, I admit it. I spent eight years in kindergarten.

No, I didn’t fail and need to repeat it seven more times. I passed kindergarten the first time.

Right out of college, I started my adult career teaching full day kindergarten for several years. There’s nothing like being responsible for twenty-five five-year olds for eight hours a day. Go ahead and try it. I dare you!

Actually, I loved it and would do it again in a heartbeat if it paid more money. Every Fall, I yearn for the sights, smells and sounds of the beginning school year.

Then I remind myself that I needed two additional jobs to make ends meet. I taught kindergarten in the day, drop-out high school students at night, and held various weekend and summer jobs.

After nearly a decade of teaching, I took a salary increase and moved to the nonprofit world planning education, events and meetings. It’s also when I worked on my master’s degree in adult education.

Here are 15 tips I learned about social media while in kindergarten.

1. Sharing with each other is a good thing.
Playing with a new toy or game alone is boring. Sharing that toy with others is more fun.

Likewise, sharing great blog posts, meeting experiences, recipes for success, tips, videos and other content via social networks is a good thing.

2. Storytelling captures our attention.
What a great feeling of excitement, awe and contentment sitting on the floor listening to the teacher read a good book. Stories captivate us. We identify with the characters. We feel their emotions. We get lost in the plot.

In social media, storytelling captures more attention than crafting the right message.

3. Look, one of the first words we learned in Dick and Jane books, is critical to learning.
If you didn’t read the Dick and Jane books, you still learned to look at something and explore it. In kindergarten, I often brought in objects and asked students to look at them from many angles. I asked them to describe an object using as many, different, unusual words as possible. Looking with all the senses is important. It is how we learn.

Look and watch other successful social media users. Observe what they do. Watch how they blog, communicate, comment, share, Tweet and connect with others. Then mimic it. Don’t copy everything they say or write, but mimic their methods.

4. Listen.
As five-year olds we were taught to listen. We listened to the sounds around us, to our parents, elders, teachers, siblings and each other. If we didn’t listen to our kindergarten teacher, we might miss important instructions or a surprise.

In social media, learn to listen first. Then respond. Listen to your customers and potential customers before broadcasting messages. Listening means sometimes asking questions and listening to replies.

5. Talking with each other is fun.
As kindergarteners, we loved to talk with each other. We would talk about our clothes, TV shows, lunch, games, our siblings and friends. Having to sit silently in a desk, in a row for eight hours a day was torture. Actually, it goes against the very nature of a five-year old–and an adult as well.

The really good kindergarten teachers gave their five-year olds something to talk about. They helped spark discussions about new things. They helped focus conversations on new learnings. Instead of shutting down the talk, they invited and led it.

In social media, conversations are critical to success. Don’t just be a monologue. Be a social media conversation sparker, engaging with others in important conversations.

6. Uniqueness is celebrated.
In kindergarten, we celebrated all the diverse holidays and cultures. We didn’t leave anyone out. We learned about each other’s special customs and traditions. We celebrated our differences.

In social media, uniqueness stands out. Repeating the same social media message over and over again gets lost in the noise. Be different and unique.

7. Travel in groups and hold hands.
In kindergarten when we went on a fieldtrip, we held hands and stuck together. We had buddies. We learned that we need each other.

Social media encourages community-building. Encourage community around your brand, your organization and your services. Help others find their community and niche groups in the social media networking platforms. Be a social media buddy.

8. Show-n-tell is a highlight.
Remember show-n-tell? When everyone was in awe of whatever you brought to class? Sure, sometimes someone said “I’ve got one of those?” Or,” I’ve done that.” Yet, good kindergarten teachers helped facilitate discussions so that even common everyday items brought in for show-n-tell had a new sense of awe.

In social media, make old, common things seem fresh and new again. Show-n-tell on your blog. Share your perspectives and views.

9. Change is the constant.
In kindergarten we learned that the sun comes up every morning and how to say Goodnight Moon. We learned that each day was new and never repeated itself. We discussed how the weather changes each day and some of the patterns that occur. We learned that people come and go. Some friends move away and new ones move to the neighborhood.

In social media, change is the constant. It’s not about the social media tools as they come and go. It’s about the communication and engagement patterns with others.

10. Opinions count.
Five years olds often learn to respect and listen to other people’s opinions. And while they may make a quick judgment about something, they usually don’t make fun of others who disagree with them…unless they are bullies. They will say ooo, yea or yuck out loud quickly. They don’t mean any harm. They just speak their mind at the moment.

In social media, invite others to share their opinions, even when you disagree with them. Learn to disagree without being disagreeable.

11. Sticks and stones may break my bones and words can bruise my soul.

Choose your words with care and respect. ‘Nough said.

12. Some games have a set of accepted practices and rules.
Unless everyone agrees, you can’t change the rules of dodge ball or hide-n-seek. Sure you can make up games and create your own rules. But not everyone likes to play by those rules.

Yes, there is a set of accepted practices and social norms to follow in social media. For example, being self-promotional all of the time is frowned upon. Learn a good balance of sales and self-promotion with being seen as a resource and helpful.

3. Wonder is, well, wonderful.
Curiosity as a child is welcomed, expected and encouraged.

In social media, reclaim that childhood curiosity and explore different social media tools and platforms. Experiment and try new things for yourself.

14. Be a good sport!
Learn to play fair. Own up to mistakes and say “I’m sorry.”

In social media, if you say something in that is interpreted differently than you intended, own up to your mistake and apologize. You’ll get more respect.

15. Take a nap every day.
Yawn, is it time to unroll my mat yet?

Take intentional breaks from the 24-7 social media stream each day. Step back, reflect and enjoy the quiet. Balance is key. Remember, your friends are in your pocket on your mobile device just a click away.

Source - Midcourse Corrections

Create or Aggregate?

Here’s how a content strategy works: “I (the brand) provide you (the audience) with engaging and relevant content in the hope of building affinity by establishing a reason for an ongoing relationship.” Some brands are in a position to create their own content; others aggregate existing content. There’s a ton of content out there to herd, here’s one example of a form of content aggregation. It’s also a nice way to see what videos are buzzing in real time.

Click to get to Zoofs