The social space online changes rapidly. Feedback stays on top of emerging media news so you don’t have to. Here are the must-read social media articles of the week of September 4, 2011.
Aug
18
18
Anna’s Social Media Picks of the Week (August 19, 2011)
The social space online changes rapidly. Feedback stays on top of emerging media news so you don’t have to. Here are the must-read social media articles of the week of August 14, 2011. Read More
Aug
03
03
Foursquare’s Next Step
In a move that should’ve come long ago, location-based app leader Foursquare has opened the floodgates for brands to create their own pages on the service. Using, shall we say, an office admin account, it was easy to set up our page by linking it to our Twitter account.
From there, to meet the requirements for inclusion on Foursquare’s Page Gallery, I added a banner, wrote a few tips and it was set up in no time.
As of this posting, we’ve yet to show up on the gallery page. However, a lot of brands are there and more are certainly being added by the minute. But, why? Will Foursquare pages become a new go-to for major brands?
The answer, I think, is maybe. There’s certainly value here, as demonstrated by some of the brands that have piloted this program over the past year or so, such as The New York Times, Tiffany & Co., Starbucks and Bravo. MTV has used theirs as a brand tie-in for the Jersey Shore, complete with its own badge.
But there’s also tremendous opportunity for spam. If you use Foursquare, you’ve already seen brands signing up as people, even brick-and-mortars, which I don’t understand. From a “checking-in” standpoint, it is absolutely ridiculous to think that the sandwich shop around the corner or the major research university nearby is “following” you or stopping in at the local watering hole.
What makes a lot of sense, however, is for organizations that travel from event to event, like our local SPCA, or businesses that frequently operate in multiple locations (hello, food trucks) to use this new offering to share with their peregrinations with interested parties, without violating the terms of service or common sense.
What is likely even more important about this change is that Foursquare is looking for more content providers. They want more people to make notes and give tips for the locations that they index, so they can pitch their value to potential advertisers and partners. Requiring brands to make five recommendations in order to be listed in their gallery will lead to an explosion of content.
All in all, I think this is a welcome change and opportunity. But like everything else, it has to be done right. Rush out and sign up your brand today, but make sure you have a plan on how you want to use it. As always, that’s the only way to truly and effectively get the most out of your social media tools.
-Thomas (@thomasmcdonald)
Apr
02
02
Color Me Unimpressed
So, ever wonder what $41 million gets you these days?
Apparently – if the Color app’s recent announcement is any indication – it gets you quite a bit of hype. The concept behind Color is important. But its execution is nothing to write home about. Read More
Mar
24
24
Big App-spirations
The other day I downloaded some mobile app I was referred to called Ditto. If you haven’t heard of it, all you really need to know is that it’s for groups of people to schedule get-togethers or something like that. For the purposes of understanding where I’m going with this, its specific purpose doesn’t really matter. Read More
Dec
03
03
Anna’s Social Media Picks of the Week (12/03/10)
Do you have time to search the web everyday to find the newest social media tools and trends? If the answer is no, then you have come to the right place. I have searched the internets for social media information all week, and stumbled upon a few favorites along the way. Here are my picks of the week:
Gowalla 3.Whoa!
Check-in at one of the biggest location based services, check-in at them all? The newest version of Gowalla’s iPhone app was released on Thursday, and had some pretty big updates. Gowalla has unified check-ins, allowing users to check-in to Facebook Places, Tumblr, Twitter, and competitor Foursquare when they check-in to Gowalla. Download Gowalla 3.0 here.
Rumor Alert: Google to Buy Groupon?
Rumor has it that Google may buy Groupon for a whopping $6 billion dollars. Groupon is rapidly growing in popularity, and is set to exceed $500 million dollars in revenue this year. Sources say that Google wants to make this purchase to extend their online dominance through local advertising dollars, and to fend off competition like Facebook, who recently announced their own deal service.
One Hangover (Badge), Coming Right Up:
Badges! Foursquare announced new badges this week, including Dog’s Best Friend (“for frequenting dog parks”), Great Outdoors (“for getting out to parks to breathe in some fresh air”), Swimmies (“for the aquatic minded”), 9 to 5 (“for those of us in the weekly grind”), Hangover (“we’re not encouraging hangovers, but are happy to salute people who keep on trucking!”), and Ski Bum (“to commemorate your trips up the mountain”).
Social Networking for Social Good:
This week, Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes officially launched Jumo, a social activism social network. You can connect with Jumo via Facebook connect, and then select to follow any of the 3,500 charity organizations (in 200 issue areas) you support.
Netflix To Offer More Streaming Options:
Recently, Netflix began offering a streaming-only subscription, and beginning in 2011, we may have more instant options. This week, Netflix announced a deal with FilmDistrict that will allow first run movies to be streamed. The New York Post also reported that Netflix is in talks with production studios, possibly paying upwards of $100,000 per episode for first-run TV content.
Nov
03
03
Facebook Pulls An Apple on Geolocation Deals
You can learn more about all of Facebook’s mobile announcements here and here, but we want to draw your attention to one game-changing item: Creating a “deal” at a location in Facebook Places.
Facebook has done for “deals” what they did for buying ads… They made it super-simple, very logical and with a prowess that makes Foursquare’s process seem silly. Sort of like Apple does to Windows on a regular basis (sorry, baiting a flame war there :).
Go claim your location and start dealing!
Oct
19
19
On Geolocation: Excerpt from GRID Magazine
From Richmond GRID (@richmondGrid), Autumn Issue:
Excerpt below from a feature on geolocation apps, popularity and more from Feedback, Inc’s Dean Browell (@dbrowell).
So who’s in your pocket these days – Foursquare, Gowalla, Yelp, Facebook Places, or other? Why one over the other?
I’m partial to Foursquare, interested in ShopKick, find Yelp helpful and will try anything. Just watching the landscape.
So what’s the deal with Facebook Places? Plan to use it, screw it, or could you care less about those knuckleheads in Palo Alto.
It’s important to not get distracted by just the check-in aspect. Geo-location and even Facebook Places‘ role in it will be just as important for what it does for any of the 500 million + average users who never check in but nevertheless ends up impacted by the check-in data of others, such as choosing a restaurant or hospital based on who has been there or seeking the testimonial of a friend who they’ve seen has been there.
Who do you hope prevails in the geo wars?
For Foursquare and all the more geo-dedicated apps, there’s a long and storied history of innovating specialists having a place in the discerning consumer’s mind. Just ask Apple or the entire craft brewing industry.
If you were sitting in the captain’s chair over at Foursquare or Gowalla, what would you say to Zuck?
“You were supposed to just take Microsoft’s money.”
Oct
08
08
Thoughts on OneTrueFan.com
A couple weeks ago, just prior to hopping on a bus for a cross-country tour, I fell in love with OneTrueFan.com. Now that some of the initial hype has died down, I thought I’d share how my first week with it went.
You should first know that this thing kind of blew my mind at first.
The canned description is that this is Foursquare for the Internets. In other words, a way to “check in” at just any ol’ website as you surf, thereby communicating where you go and tagging you as a “fan” of frequently visited sites and therefore the, “one true fan” of sites you’ve visited more than anyone else (like Foursquare’s, “mayor”). It also has patches/badges for browsing accomplishments and a point system that builds by visiting and sharing pages through Twitter, Facebook and more. It’s easy to lazily make this the web’s analog to Foursquare. It can be a lot more than that.
Step back from the mechanics, which require a downloaded plug-in for your browser, and you can see that in some ways this turns web analytics a bit on its head – in fact it reverses the magnifying glass, showing you the interesting detail beyond your simple history. It really forces you to take a different look at your browsing culture and personal identification.
As Co-Founder Eric Marcoullier (@bpm140) reflected openly in a Twitter conversation with me:
I pretty much always look at who visited the page before I read the article now. The context is fascinating.
During my first week I really stayed open with my browsing. I installed the One True Fan plug-in on my main browser and allowed auto-check-ins on basically every site I visited (in full disclosure I did hide check-ins on exactly three sites, for client sensitivity reasons). Doing this while on the AGLA Hiring Heroes tour was particularly interesting since my check-ins ricocheted between scheduling which tiny town we’d be in from Dallas to Los Angeles and keeping up with news and work from the world outside the bus.
There’s a stat dashboard I don’t visit very often, but does contain some sample activity:
And here’s the bar that subtly appears at the bottom of websites – it’s small at first but when moused-over shows:
I too found myself checking who else had been there, both from a crowd-sense and a breadcrumb sense. It doesn’t just include anyone with a OneTrueFan.com plug-in, but also anyone sharing these sites on Twitter, Facebook and more (lots more, coming soon, they promise). Yes, there are privacy concerns (that can be easily assuaged with just NOT sharing site visits or un-checking “auto check-in”) but it still makes for an interesting personal if not public experiment.
Consider how this lens, of our internet life, combines with other lenses. How our patterns and likes, our real-world favorites and virtual world favorites begin to make up our personal identity. Consider the generational differences and how OneTrueFan.com data could illuminate our perceptions of demographics… The mind blows.
Business, healthcare & higher education institutions… what if you could actually identify who your biggest fans were?
For more on One True Fan, here’s video of Eric from their Disrupt 2010 presentation:
OneTrueFan.com is in private alpha right now…
31
Foursqualor
by FeedbackOne threat to a check-in service governed by users is digital litter. For instance, it used to be when you wanted to mark your location on a social network such as Foursquare that you’d get listings of places such as “Seat 23A” or “this rocking chair on the porch.” That’s still the case, but it’s much less frequent in the United States; overseas, however, it could be a big problem in the United Kingdom, where Foursquare is just now starting to emerge. Feedback’s Dean Browell outlines the threat of what he calls “Foursqualor” on iMedia Connection:
In London, however, this issue seems to be worse as the general population interested in potentially using Foursquare is far more diverse. In the U.S., you were dealing with a savvy first-mover who didn’t mind (and potentially relished) the clean-up and pruning while the general public gave Foursquare a chance after many of the corrections had been made. In the U.K., a cross-demographic shift to social with these tools in place would mean newcomers could be turned off immediately by the digital litter and abandon Foursquare altogether. For Foursquare to take hold in the U.K. will require a base of superusers who can make changes to locations easily, reporting, policing and editing venues as needed. More at the link.