I Know Where You Are
Ever since I purchased my 3G iPhone, I have been amazed at just how handy the location-based service applications are. Being lost in Bodega Bay a few weeks ago, I was happy to find a crab shack using Yelp and being swayed away from the many little 2-star rated restaurants on the main Highway 1 stretch.
Suddenly, I found myself being thrown into a whole new generation of “tracking.” In college, it was all about checking friends’ away messages on AIM. Then came Facebook with its News Feed. Now, services such as Loopt allow users to know exactly where friends in their network are. So you know, you can randomly show up at a bar where you know your friends are at. Creepy? Maybe slightly. Way too intrusive? Perhaps.
Recently, another company called Pelago, has created a new social network allowing users to “share real world adventures and discover places.” They’ve forged a partnership between this new service, Whrrl, and HBO to let devoted fans of the popular show “Entourage” track where their favorite stars hang out. Correction – not the stars – rather, the characters. The relationship will allow users to share opinions and recommendations. Interestingly, Vincent Chase, the lead character in “Entourage,” actually writes reviews. Seems like now, we’re not only interested in friends in our network and reality television star tracking – we’re now becoming active players in the fictional lives of our favorite TV personalities.
It’s clear that as mobile devices becoming more ubiquitous, software companies will continue to find new ways to make location-based offerings more intuitive and creative. Advertisers, it seems, are not too far behind.
Managing Your Personal Brand Online - Or at Least Your Rep
The recent and frantic digging into the lives of Sarah Palin and her ilk has made me ponder the importance of managing one’s online persona - especially given how easy search engines and social networks have made it for complete strangers to get information about each other.
Although most of us don’t have the vice-presidency hanging in the balance of our online dirty laundry, almost all of us will have relied on our Web persona for a job sometime in our professional lives. Those jobs will almost certainly be worth more than “a warm bucket of spit” as well.
Long ago, when I graduated from college and was looking for a job in the real world, I began to seriously consider how my online presence may help or hinder my attempts to secure gainful employment. At the time, this simply entailed cleaning up a few areas of my Facebook account.
According to the results of a recent survey conducted by Careerbuilder, this was a good move on my part. The report found:
“Of those hiring managers who have screened job candidates via social networking profiles ([22 percent of all hiring managers surveyed]), one-third (34 percent) reported they found content that caused them to dismiss the candidate from consideration.”
This content included the following:
- 41% - candidate posted information about them drinking or using drugs
- 40% - candidate posted provocative or inappropriate photographs or information
- 28% - candidate bad-mouthed their previous company or fellow employee
- 27% - candidate lied about qualifications
- 22% - candidate used discriminatory remarks related to race, gender, religion, etc.
- 22% - candidate’s screen name was unprofessional
- 21% - candidate was linked to criminal behavior
- 19% - candidate shared confidential information from previous employers
These are all fairly simple - not to mention obvious - mistakes to avoid when it comes to your web-presence. This is especially true with social networks where the user is the one who controls what content appears on his or her profile. Facebook’s granular security controls put the onus squarely on the user to ensure that their profile reflects well of them.
It’s a slightly different game when the content isn’t so directly controllable, as is the case with much - if not most - information online. I found some good tips for managing this kind of content/information:
- Ask the owners of the site to remove or amend the questionable content. A friend of mine was mortified to discover the first hit for his name on Google was the results from a less-than-reputable athletic competition from his college days. He simply asked the site owners to remove it and offered a brief explanation why and the site was happy to comply.
- Crowd out the bad results by posting comments in blogs or forums using your full name. This is most effective with popular sites that are likely to have a good online ranking themselves. *hint* Make sure the site doesn’t require a login.
- Make online profiles on LinkedIn, Facebook and other networking sites. Not only will these help to drive the less-glowing elements of your online persona lower in the search rankings, but a prospective employer is likely to start their information-gathering campaigns on these sites. While crowding out negative content doesn’t eliminate it, for Internet searches, out of sight truly is out of mind. Think about it: when was the last time you went beyond the second or third page of results for a query? Instead of worrying about expunging all negative content, just try to push it onto that fourth page.
- Set up Google alerts for your name. This may sound megalomaniacal (and it is) but you’d be amazed at the variety of old content that gets crawled and dredged up every day. If you see it, it means others can too. At least this way you can be prepared.
This all may be moot if more countries follow Finland’s lead. Finland has dealt with this issue with the simple - if draconian - approach of banning employers from conducting Google searches on potential employees.
The best advice is simply to exercise prudence online - and in real-life situations that may be documented online. Either that or regularly change your name…
Social Networking with Mario Batali? Yum.
I have to admit I thought I was pretty done with newfangled social networks.
Having at one point or another joined every network that seemed even marginally relevant, I had decided to commit to a select few in an effort to control what was a growing addiction. Despite my best intentions, however, my inner foodie was unable to resist the recipe lust inspired by CookEatShare.
A social network for chefs (be they of the professional or very unprofessional variety), CookEatShare aims to create connections between people based on a mutual love of food. Launched in June, the site bills itself as “the world’s largest kitchen” and already boasts chefs such as the eminent Jeremy Fox and Nate Appleman as members.
Whether you sign up or prefer to remain an outside observer, CookEatShare allows users to become “friends”, create, share and review recipes, form groups and start discussions. Truffle-crusted beef tenderloin anyone? I’m partial to the banana split pop.
Intriguing recipes aside, what makes the site unique from the multitude of food blogs and discussion sites out there is the close involvement of professional chefs. CookEatShare creates a valuable link between amateurs stumbling along with their dry pastry crusts at home and the chefs serving dark chocolate tortes to discerning diners. Chefs are able to drum up PR for their restaurants and interact with their fan base while aspiring cooks like myself have the opportunity to try our hands at recipes and actually interact with the pros that painstakingly developed them.
So while I won’t be going to Babbo anytime soon, here’s to hoping Mario Batali joins the site’s ranks and hands over the recipe to his famous papardelle bolognese. It’s unlikely that my attempts will compare to his much lusted after version, but no doubt that disappointment will be tempered by our new online “friendship”.
NHL Goes Interactive, and Social
For those who don’t know me from Adam, I’m a bit of a hockey fanatic. Over the past few years, it’s been exciting to see the National Hockey League undergo some pretty significant changes and growth, especially in the wake of the heartbreaking loss of the ‘04-05 season due to a labor dispute. I recently had an interesting conversation with old friend/colleague Mike Dilorenzo, who works in the NHL communications deptartment, and discussed some things the league is working on as they prepare for the ‘08-09 campaign.
The NHL is in a unique situation among the major team sports. On one hand it has perhaps the most loyal and energetic fan base of any sport; the league played to over 93% capacity last season despite very high ticket prices, and more than 260 million watched their hometown teams on local TV. However, hockey remains a largely regionalized sport that has failed to capture the imagination of the casual American sports fan.
Another huge factor the league faces is the displacement of a large percentage of its fans. According to Dilorenzo, between 40-60% of a given team’s fans no longer live in the market their team plays. “For example, Hartford Whalers fans living in San Francisco,” Mike says, a little dig at yours truly. “If we are only reaching the fans on a local level, we are missing out on half the audience. So it’s important to take a more national approach where the league is the overarching brand and we are building off the local passion we have.”
The league has a very deliberate strategy to increase exposure and revenues that is focused on getting their loyal fans to interact more with its various properties and products, especially those on the web. “We’re focused on building incremental behavior off of the behavior that’s already shown to be quite strong,” says Dilorenzo, a former prep hockey player and high school coach. The league is developing new platforms and refreshing or enhancing old ones, such as last season’s launch of the NHL Network in the U.S., a 24/7 cable television network that now reaches 80 million households and broadcasts a nightly wrap-up show during the season, documentaries and classic games.
The wrap-up show was desperately needed in my opinion; coming out of the lockout the league switched from ESPN as its primary TV rights holder to upstart Versus (then known as Outdoor Life Network/OLN). While Versus has gradually improved its exposure and broadcast quality, one huge negative impact was a loss of attention from the world’s top sports media property (remember NHL2night?), especially from its flagship SportsCenter program. Despite outrageous claims by ESPN to the contrary, SportsCenter has sadly evolved into a marketing vehicle for its (and its sister networks) other content. In the last few years, the amount of time spent on NHL highlights and news has fallen drastically, while exposure for its newer properties such as the NFL, NBA and NASCAR has skyrocketed. Hmmm, very curious. In any case, the NHL is looking to provide direct access to its fans and ratchet up the engagement through its own network where it has control over content and distribution. Smart move: hockey goals, saves and hits provide some of the most exciting highlight footage and I really missed seeing it on SportsCenter.
NHL.com is also in the midst of a significant overhaul that will be launched in conjunction with the upcoming season. Two specific programs are the launch of what Dilorenzo calls “the Holy Grail of fantasy games,” as well as some significantly expanded social networking features that will make it easier for fans to interact with each other and enable popular content to bubble up to the surface. A new live streaming game product will also be unveiled.
Ok, so what’s the NHL trying to do to win over new fans – a constant challenge given the fact that hockey is just not ingrained into most Americans lives, which makes it difficult to follow the flow of play (esp on TV) and appreciate the incredible athleticism required to excel at the game? The main approach is to develop new programs such as the immensely successful New Year’s Day Winter Classic (v2 of which will take place at Wrigley Field between the Hawks and Wings), and a first-of-its-kind kick-off event to take place in a to-be-named Original Six city this fall when the season opens.
“As we build out additional products, there is a novelty factor that we think can also pull in casual or new fans,” says Dilorenzo. “We also want to develop more pervasiveness with our messages, online through all of our inventory, through broadcast rights holders, and also through corporate marketing sponsors.” One example to look for is a national hockey-themed crossover promotion from Bud Light, one of the league’s top sponsors (hopefully this does not include that new lime-infused “beer”).
Of course as with virtually any modern business these days, technology is at the heart of the NHL’s growth strategy. The league has deployed an industrial strength customer/fan database, analytics from Omniture and commerce capabilities from GSI Commerce to become much smarter about how to engage with its fans and create those always-elusive one-to-one relationships.
Says Dilorenzo, “One of the most important things we’ve done is the formation of NHL Direct [the direct marketing group] and the creation of our relational database under one roof. Our fan database grew by 30% last year, and the quality of the information is also growing. More people are giving us their email, postal address, favorite team. Even for casual fans when we can get that from them and apply some analytics then we can serve them more relevant messaging.”
The NHL sure has come a long way since the pre-Gary Bettman era when marketing meant throwing free pucks in the stands after the pre-game skate.
Why Facebook Is Such a Big Deal
The way I see it, there are four types of people when it comes to Facebook:
1) Those that use it for fun and to stay connected to friends (”The Kids”).
2) Those that use it for both fun and practical purposes (”The Pros”).
3) Those that try to use it in a half-hearted way and just don’t get it (”The Cynics”).
4) People who will just never use it (”The Naysayers”).
I’m in the Pros group, and way off to the practical side of things (please please don’t SuperPoke me, send me flair or buy me a gift that I can do nothing with, although thanks for thinking of me). When I started getting into it last year, I quickly got excited about the long-term implications that everyone being on Facebook would enable. It seems that barring some huge disaster (like one 10 times worse than the Beacon fiasco) Facebook is going to become a central portal - for virtually everyone that uses a computer and has an email address anyway - for connecting and communicating with the people you know. Nonetheless, I still struggle to successfully explain this to The Cynics and The Naysayers, of which there are still many tens of millions.
So the other day, I had a very simple Facebook experience that really highlighted to me how powerful this social networking thing is. I was getting ready for the day, turned on my iPhone and went to my Facebook app after checking email. I have some problems with what Facebook has made available on the iPhone app, and how they have formatted things, but that’s another story. In any case, the home page basically lists the recent status updates (or Tweets) of folks I’m connected to. While it’s fun and oftentimes amusing to read through what people are up to or thinking about that day, I was amazed at how much useful information I got in a matter of just a minute or two. For example, I learned:
- A client was on vacation.
- A friend was about to have a second child (ok, so not a great friend) and he set up a Twitter account to use from the delivery room. Great idea.
- A high school pal runs a fantasy hockey league and is looking for new managers. Sign me up!
- I missed my friend’s birthday. Whoops.
- I was reminded that I needed to get in touch with a potential client.
- Apparently my cousin has a Harley. Who knew? Need to catch a ride next time I’m in Connecticut.
- Brussel sprouts and pancetta is a great dish. Should try that out sometime.
Facebook may never find a profitable way to monetize that huge user base, at least not to the tune of a $15 billion valuation, but man is it a great everyday tool. The imminent ubiquity of social networking (and I think perhaps even just Facebook) will have as profound an impact on behavior as email and web commerce did.
The Return of Scrabulous? Introducing Wordscraper
When one of Facebook’s most popular applications is mysteriously taken down, the crowds react. And they react fast.
Tuesday, the Calcutta-based brothers who started the instantly popular Facebook application, Scrabulous, finally removed the application from the site because of increasing legal pressure and threats from Hasbro, the creators of the original Scrabble game.
The bitter feud dates back to January 2008, when Hasbro and Mattel, joint owners of the board game, asked Facebook to remove the application citing copyright infringement. 400,000+ Scrabulous addicts instantly rushed to the defense of the game in the form of status updates and supportive Facebook fan groups, and over the coming months the application managed to stick around.
This week, however, Scrabulous finally bowed out as Hasbro introduced its own official Scrabble game to Facebook, which despite a rough (and very buggy) start has already drawn 50,000 users.
The makers of Scrabulous, however, not to be defeated, this morning announced Wordscraper, a very similar game to the original with a completely different look and feel. Whether or not these changes will satisfy the gaming giants remains to be seen, as does whether original Scrabulous users will migrate over to the official Hasbro application or try their hand at the knock-off.
What is clear is that the game’s popularity (and the controversy that surrounds it) has certainly drummed up interest in a board game that many argue had faded into obscurity amongst the Facebook generation. I understand Hasbro’s frustration with not creating the application first, but I can only imagine that Scrabulous has done great things for sales of the original game.
Meanwhile, the saga continues. Certainly, Wordscraper still treads somewhat on Scrabble’s toes…but the question is how hard, and whether Hasbro will continue to fight two guys whose efforts seem only to have benefited the gaming giant — finally lifting the almost 100-year-old game into the Internet age.
Future of Marketing, Thy Name Is Baron
Viral + celebrities + humor = The future of marketing.
Two brilliant YouTube videos have been making the rounds the past two weeks that are fantastic examples of how to use viral marketing - one overt, the other more subtle. But both use the above formula sublimely.
The first is a pretty ingenious piece of cross-promotion for iBeatYou.com, a competition-based social network started by NBA star, entrepreneur and LaunchSquad hero Baron Davis. The clip features Baron and Adam Sandler as Zohan, the title character from his new movie, in a staring contest. It’s really funny
(Why is Baron a LaunchSquad hero? Well, that’s pretty obvious.)
The second doesn’t actually mention a brand by name – but is for Nike – stars Kobe Bryant and the “Jackass” guys, well, doing stupid stuff. Also very funny:
So, what’s the common denominator here? 2.8 million. That’s the total number of views these videos have gotten for only the nominal cost of producing these videos. How’s that for effective? Millions of people – engaged users who sought this content out – saw these ads and they cost literally nothing. Just a bit of star power and creativity.
I was at the Under The Radar conference in Mountain View earlier this week and there was an interesting discussion amongst a panel of Internet advertising execs about why companies haven’t abandoned traditional advertising for these types of viral campaigns. The answer was a mix of two factors: First, the there will always be a need, in some manner and in some scale, for traditional advertising; and second, that big companies and agencies are simply addicted to buying advertising. That’s amazing.
Being skeptical of new technology is one thing, but ignoring it because, well, that’s the way you’ve always done it, is just stupid. All it’s going to take is for one of these types of campaigns to totally blow up and all the sudden, they’ll become the norm – I’m sure advertising on television was scary for a while back in the early 1950s. Until then, it’ll be pretty easy to spot the savvy companies. Just visit YouTube.
Coors Perfect Pour Vid - Cool or Crass?
Viral video success “The Perfect Pour” looks at first glance like so many other amateurish YouTube videos. The shaky camerawork and bad lighting all spell “cameraphone,” as does the setting–a house party that a guy shows up to and starts doing wild and crazy tricks with cans of Coors Light, such as pouring two of them into glasses while hanging upside-down from a rooftop. But a closer look reveals that this is a clever marketing stunt, bought and paid for by Coors itself.
The folks at Gawker sniffed it out immediately, because of the video’s striking similarity to similar stealth videos by RayBan and Levis. Sure enough, the New York Times eventually discovered that the Coors “perfect pour” video is the work of ad agency Avenue A/Razorfish (owned by Microsoft). Silicon Alley Insider then revealed that the ad agency also paid several others to post “response” videos illustrating various beer pouring tricks of their own. Hot on the trail of the story, SAI later reported that one of these videos–featuring a sexy woman opening a can of Coors Light– was deemed too risque and pulled from YouTube. (It’s posted on the blog, as well as on Blip.tv.)
All of this raises the question–is it okay to use YouTube in this way, or this kind of thing overly sneaky and just a little bit sleazy? My first thought is: what exactly will happen to the “real” amateur videos on YouTube? Already, signs indicate that for the most part, what people watch online isn’t all that different than what they watch on TV. Perhaps professionalization is inevitable. But it makes me just a little bit sad, especially when the occasional true UGC “gem” comes out on YouTube, such as the laughing baby. (Oh no, wait, that became an AIG commercial. Oh well, at least it started out amateur.)
My second thought is, what’s all the fuss about? This is just like product placement was in the 70s. People didn’t always notice it, and if they did, they weren’t necessarily aware that they were being targeted with advertising. Eventually they figured it out, at which point product placement hardly went away–it got bigger than ever! Which indicates that viewers not only tolerated it, but they kind of liked it. I know that for me, watching ET on the big screen and seeing real brands at the breakfast tables struck me immediately as far more realistic than other movies I’d seen.
However, this isn’t the 70s, and audiences have gotten savvier. In this way, such stunts represent a step backwards. Nowadays, with product placement, audiences are quite often let in on the joke. Marketers treat them as equals and rather than sneaking the ads by them, they make sure they’re noticed. MTV does this with its overtly advertorial Dove tie-in, as do edgy online-only video producers like Revision3, where the guys on Diggnation crack jokes about their sponsors while nodding and winking to audiences about it. And to my mind, this is the way it should be. In the long run, this approach will make audiences into partners rather than unwitting victims. Still, I have to admit I’m impressed–I never would have thought to suggest that even the response videos should be part of the marketing push.
Update June 6: NewTeeVee has sniffed out a great example of a viral video that works without resorting to sneakiness of any kind:
Running 2.0
While running Bay to Breakers last weekend as part of the Asics Aggies Centipede, (If you don’t know what a centipede is in this context, click here) I came to the realization that there is truly no better time to be a runner than the present. Discounting scientific advances that have bettered our understanding of human physiology and training techniques, the fact that my best time for the mile would have had me ranked number 1 in the world as recently as the 1910’s and that (some) modern professional runners can make millions of dollars doing it, Web 2.0 has had a profound, positive impact on the running community.
I use a Web site called running2win to keep track of my training. My college teammates are on the same site and it allows us to follow each other’s progress, offer comments and encouragement and plan group runs and other activities. Our coach was able to log-in and view graphs and charts that tracked total distance run, the average pace of runs and overall improvement.
Even a mere decade ago, track fans were forced to wait days or even weeks for race results to be published and distributed. This was true even of the most prestigious events - let alone your local 5k or half-marathon. Now, it’s nearly unheard of for race results not to be immediately available online. But it gets better. A friend of mine ran this year’s Boston Marathon and plugged my email address into the marathon’s site so that I would receive automatic updates with his times at the 10 kilometer, half-marathon and 30 kilometer points.
RSS-style updates don’t satisfy you? Companies like MediaZone allow you to watch the race in live, streaming video while companies like Flotrack have taken advantage of the ease with which it is possible to upload and share videos and travel around the country and world filming races and interviewing athletes. Whereas previously it was impossible to watch anything longer than a sprint on television without being interrupted for commercial breaks (if the track meet was even televised to begin with), enthusiasts can watch even the longest distance events wholly uninterrupted.
After the race you can go to the message boards on a site like LetsRun.com - that boasts over 200,000 monthly visits - to discuss the latest results, our predictions for races, training techniques, how to prevent/heal injuries and all forms of running-related gossip.
These topics are boring to most people. They don’t care that shoe X weighs 1.3 ounces less than shoe Y, whether you should warm-up on a track running clockwise or counterclockwise or how an obscure Kenyan name is truly supposed to be pronounced. But we do.
We runners are clearly a weird bunch when compared to the general population. When I said at the top of my post that Web 2.0 has had a profound positive impact on the running community, it would actually be more truthful to say that Web 2.0 enabled there to BE a running community. The interactive Web has provided a forum for uniting the global diaspora of runners where previous communities were limited to small and scattered groups of fanatics.
Not only have these developments allowed runners to dive into all aspects of the sport in unprecedented depth, but they’ve made the sport more accessible to the general population as well. It has never been easier for a wannabe-marathoner to find a community of like-minded (and like-bodied) people to train with. As it does with many things, Web 2.0 has expanded the depth and breadth of participation.
Ultimately, it’s pretty amazing to see how the world’s latest technological advances are applied to to its oldest and most basic form of competition.
So next time you see someone running and feel the urge to yell, “Run, Forrest, run!” or harass him/her in any other way, remember: there are a lot of us out there. Now we know it, and we mean business.
SF MusicTech Conference Showcases What’s Coming
I recently attended the SF MusicTech conference, a really inspiring event that featured a number of interesting music technology companies. Some of the panel topics included social networking platforms and music, mobile strategies, and record labels and new technologies. The conference provided the opportunity to hear about a lot of cool upcoming companies and to see first-hand how the music industry is evolving and what the future will look like — it was a day well spent.
One of the panels that was particularly interesting was the mobile strategies discussion, which featured panelists from Kadoink, Mozes, Thumbplay, Mplay, Tonethis, and XLR8 Mobile add links to these companies. As with all forms of media, music features for mobile devices are expanding in an amazing range of directions and this panel made it clear that as these devices are becoming increasingly sophisticated and better handling bandwidth, the possibilities for streaming, sharing and discovering music on your phone are exploding. Goodbye iPods?
Another panel that we enjoyed, though it had very little to do with music, was an interview with Tim Ferris, author of “The 4-Hour Workweek.” CD Baby founder Derek Sivers interviewed Tim about his incredibly successful book, thoughts on productivity in the Web 2.0 age, and how he became an Argentinian national dance champion for the Tango. Tim’s thoughts on “experiments in lifestyle design,” which pretty much translates to “just getting things done better, faster,” were often enlightening — for example, he recommended not reading your email first thing in the morning, as it will only put you in “reactive” mode for the rest of the day. You can get a feel for his style on this video interview of Tim conducted at the conference by Mashable CEO and LaunchSquad friend Pete Cashmore.
The MusicTech conference included way too many ideas and companies to sum up in a single blog post, but clearly it got me very excited about where the music industry is headed. From Pandora to Songza to the next awesome music application being created in someone’s apartment somewhere, music and technology are developing a fascinating relationship and we’re happy to indulge.