Michael Myers

Saw this ad yesterday from Google and it really speaks to how search plays into our lives. Enjoy!

A recent report by Edelman (featured on AdAge) shows that people don’t trust their peers as much as they used to. In fact it’s down 20% from 2008 (45% to 25%). As a matter of fact if you look at the overall “trust-O-meter”, all forms of media are down when it comes to trust and I would love to believe that they used the same demographic/psychographic group these questions.

As for the drop, this could mean many things and it’s important to remember that 43.853% of all statistics are completely fabricated. Here are the most likely reasons for you not trusting your online friends.

1. Social media is maturing and people are starting to become more adept at figuring out who is honest and who is selling something or just plain wrong.
2. The economy has been very bad over the last couple of years and this impacts how people talk about businesses.
3. Some people don’t like to admit their ignorance so they recommend businesses they believe to be good but they have no direct connection with. You know . . . “that guy”.
4. People are finally realizing that a user generated medium may not necessarily be more honest than one created by business. The only difference is that businesses have something to gain.
5. You simply need new friends. Not the ones that do everything Facebook throws at them. Surveys, virtual goods (aka virtual junk); hugs, pillow fights, mystery eggs, etc.

The AdAge author makes a good point about people needing to hear things 5 times before they believe it. Fortunately for those types, there are now at least 1308 channels in which you can hear someone’s opinion; business or otherwise.  As for me, I recommend:

1. Reading this blog more often and recommend it to your friends.
2. Reading this blog more often and recommend it to your friends.
3. Reading this blog more often and recommend it to your friends.
4. Reading this blog more often and recommend it to your friends.
5. Reading this blog more often and recommend it to your friends.

10 classes down this past Thursday. I can’t believe how quickly it’s going. Two of the students did a presentation on Naked Conversations, a book by Shel Israel and Robert Scoble. The book focuses on how blogging is transforming businesses and they used the online tool Prezi for their presentation. Pretty cool collaborative, presentation tool. They reviewed the book chapter by chapter and the class understands that the rules for Facebook fan pages and Twitter all come from the rules of blogging. They’re different venues with different focuses but the basic rules are the same. Speak with a human voice, be honest and post frequently. They also talked about the three stages of items that become accepted as truthful. (truth = transparent)

1. It is ridiculed
2. It is violently opposed
3. It is accepted as being self-evident

The team covered examples of how blogging has transformed businesses such as Microsoft with its Channel 9. (Google and Apple don’t have an open blogging policy.) We talked about the death of journalism the futility of trying to be objective; this is the strength of blogging. You get to know the person because they share their perspective. We’ve already reviewed WordPress and the class definitely understands how easy it is to create content. They also understand how hard it is to get anyone to read it!

We also talked about an email I sent out that contained a thread from a LinkedIn group called Red Chair. This was one of the best threads I’ve seen about social media. The focus of the thread was that the biggest challenge to getting a business to utilize social media was realizing that it will change their culture; assuming it’s not in their DNA to start with. Three of the students work in businesses where using social media would be a huge challenge. One because of the size of the organization and the other two because of the vertical/culture they’re in. Social media forces a company to look at itself from a new perspective.

Next class we are reviewing user generated video sites (Yes; YouTube’s not the only one), how to customize videos and their impact on SEO.  We will also be talking about LinkedIn.

I recently read the article in BusinessWeek entitled Why They Can’t Be Friends with Steve Jobs and Eric Schmidt on the cover. Sadly Bill Gates was left off the cover and for the most part is an afterthought when it comes to the web and mobile space. (That “Bing thing” may be worth talking about eventually, with its business focus vs academic focus, but I’ll save that for later.) The point of the article and subsequent readings is that Google has encroached on Apple’s territory, namely  Android and Nexus One, and Jobs is pissed. Another reason Jobs is less than happy is the AdMob acquisition. Apple was set to buy AdMob and Google jumped in line ahead of them and came up the winner. Armed with a ton of Apple’s iPhone data form the acquisition, Google then set about refining Android. (The only reason Android exists is to serve mobile ads; don’t kid yourself.) So Steve then bought Quattro. Quattro, in theory very good at personalizing advertising but Apple just announced that they are not going to allow app developers to utilize location as a primary driver for serving ads. Let me say that again in case you missed it. Apple is not going to allow app developers to utilize location to serve up ads as a primary method of monetizing. They’ll be allowed to use location based awareness to drive a better experience but not to serve ads.

Why?

Because they’re going to do it. Apple is getting ready to serve up ads based on where you are, who you are and what you’re doing. The amount of information that traditional cell carriers have on your comings and goings is amazing. Looking at the data is like looking at several thousand migration patterns. Because of AdMob’s serving ads for iPhone apps, they have the same information AND they need to level the playing field with respect to Google serving search based ads on the mobile devices. What I liked most about the BusinessWeek article is when Apple said that if you have to search to receive an ad; you’ve already failed.

I’ve blogged about advertisers partnering with consumers to provide compelling advertising: aka, stuff you actually want. (You give them all of your information sans name/social and I promise not to deliver ads that you don’t want.) One obvious road block is that most people don’t trust companies. One company that people do trust is Apple. In fact they love them. With the release of the iPad, Apple is perfectly positioned to deliver on the promise of advertising that works and will be able to one-up Google by partnering with their users. (I mention the iPad as a excellent mechanism for ad delivery, not a mobile device.) If Apple can circumvent search as the primary mechanism for serving ads, they will own the space. “But what about Android users?” you ask. To which I reply, “Sssshhhhhhhh. Ever heard of Linux? Only the technically minded with buy that phone and they’re a numerical minority.”

Steve – Give me a call if you need help with this.

Thank you: Michael

The topic of blogging came up the other day and I was curious to hear why people blog. For some it’s therapy and for others it is selling what they do. For me it’s more along the lines of what Seth Godin says in this video. Enjoy!

Yesterday was Facebook. Most are very familiar with Facebook as a user but most are not using it for business. I do have a student in class that uses Facebook for their fan page functionality. Chris demoed (yep; that’s how it’s spelled) the “back office” functionality of Facebook fan pages and discovered that out of all the languages represented in the world, they (Icelantic) had only 9 users speaking Pirate English. (I love the Internet.) We then talked about the ways people can increase their fan (here also) base since only 77% of Facebook fan pages have under a 1000 fans. Icelantic has over 2300 and are successful because they update their page at least every other day while those in the 77% column, update it on average once every 16 days! Make no mistake: social media is a corporate-cultural commitment.

Some of the other things we discussed are as follows:

• Social class differences between Facebook and the artist formerly know as MySpace.
• Facebook allowing you to send ads to your fans friends
• List of preferred developers for Facebook application creation
• Facebook privacy tips
• Facebook geo-tagging your life
• A browser for Facebook called Rockmelt

We also talked about how companies like Slide are making more money from virtual goods than they are from advertising (video below). We covered the concept of Facebook as a walled garden, almost interdependent from the Internet. Judging from Facebook’s traffic, more and more people are staying on Facebook the entire day and I’m curious to see if they can avoid becoming the next AOL. We are going to try and get a virtual product into Facebook and I need to do some research.

I’m waiting on hearing back from the CEO of Brightkite to see if he can come in and speak. Next class we’re going to talk about personal brands.

For those of us that read the Cluetrain many moons ago, we are increasingly amazed at how well it has held up to the rapid changes the Internet has experienced over the last 10 years. (This book is amazing and is required reading for my class at DU.) At the time of its release, most people we locked into the concept of mass customization; which is now standard on sites such as Puma’s Mongolian Shoe BBQ. The real meat of the book was the fact that we are back to a marketplace relationships; online. This is why the walls of businesses seem to have become porous with customers actively participating in a business through social media and all its forms.

Several months ago, Forrester’s Jeremiah Owyang released a report outlining the 5 eras of social networking with the last era being social commerce. This is not a linear progression and there is some overlap, but Owyang’s contention is in line with the Cluetrain. There are two phases that need to happen prior to social commerce can happen:

1. Colonization – Data portability has happened via OpenID and you traverse the Internet with pertinent elements (based on network, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc) defining your profile.
2. Context – Social networks become niche focused with a social object at the core. This is happening currently on Facebook/LinkedIn groups and Twitter Lists but in the end will need to be a richer experience with dedicated tools. (Rhymes with Google Wave)

This intuitively makes sense when you think of a group of like-minded people (niche social network) working together on something they have a passion for (social object). “Let’s build something and sell it!” Curious to see which niche social network becomes a business first.

There will be a whole new market creating tools (online/touch web) to empower these networks to create their product and then take it to market. Excited to see this shift.

I know. I know. Stick ‘2.0′ on the end of anything and it means it’s soooooo different. Most times it is different and this time is no exception.

If you’re selling consumer product goods: brace yourself.

I’ve posted about the virtual world colliding with the physical world if smart phone growth this year is any condition (110% nationally/148% internationally) there will soon be a large crater outside your brick and mortar. I’ll list out all the changes to make it easier to digest. I’ll focus on brick and mortar to keep it interesting.

1. They’ve found you through mobile search (mapped results) or maybe an augmented reality browser such as Layar. Holding their smart phone up, informational bubbles populate the screen showing the user what products are inside your store. Maybe the augmented browser is augmented (sorry. I had to) with product search. You search for a product and it shows up in the augmented reality browser, with your shop in the background, complete with your inventory and current price.
2. Once inside, lesser products have QR codes and when they scan the code with a smart phone app like QR Reader, they’re taken to a microsite where they get a small branded experience. For the mid priced/endcap products they have an augmented reality display (the other kind) like Toyota’s (video below). People pick up flyers on the way in or are given t-shirts with the large augmented reality icons causing the animation to leap off of the page/shirt. For the high-end products you would have touch screen interactions like those created by Immersive Labs. From this interaction people could get product information in a kinesthetic way creating a great brand experience.
3. Your customers now know more than your sales people. They’ve done their research online and are now in your store asking to see it and asking the sales person what they can tell them about the product. This is another golden opportunity for a great brand experience assuming you’ve trained them to be true Ninjas. The research they did was comprised of the “expert’s opinions” and the peer reviews they have found from asking friends on Facebook, searching Twitter, etc. They know what the equivalent product/service has to offer and yet they are in your store. If they hear anything that they feel is not true, they may tweet from their mobile device to get immediate feedback. (Just like having all your friends with you to give advice.)
4. Once someone finds the product they’re looking for they can scan the bar code with a product like RedLaser for the iPhone and determine if the price is right for them. RedLaser lists the best price that they know of for that product and then links you to the site that offers it. If price is their main consideration and you have not engaged them; you’re toast.
5. As customers place “virtual markers” in your store, your location based services need to be designed to handle the appropriate level of interaction. Generic location based services will not work (unless you simply offer 10% off). Mobile is much more personal.
6. Also, customers can communicate with the sales staff via twitter, Facebook, etc. A friend or friendly sales person, told me something was going to be one sale. I gave them my twitter account and asked them to ping me when it went on sale. I saved $25 and gave them a $5 tip for helping me.

These are some of the ways consumer product goods are going to get more exciting in the near future. (I’m not even going to talk about the shopping cart that maps your shopping list for you and makes recommendations.) As you can see, the intersection of mobile and social will have a dramatic impact on this market.