Michael Myers

We’ve been hearing the term hyper-local thrown around and declared the future of social media/mobile for the past year. Sounds great. Now, what the hell does it mean? At 30,000 ft, hyper-local means instead of saying Denver, you’d break Denver out into its constituent parts such as Highlands, Capital Hill, LoDo, LoHi, Edgewater, Cherry Creek and WashPark. Something, only locals would know. Now that we’ve defined where hyper-local is, let’s talk about how that information is shared.

It’s best to think of this information in terms of past tense, present tense and future tense. All methods move to past tense eventually but some are future/real-time.

Checking-in – When marketers talk about checking-in, they think of Foursquare because 4sq has experienced the most growth lately, but it’s important to realize that Loopt offers a deal focused check-in and Brightkite offers Branded Badges. (In a fit of “ME TO!”, Yelp also allows you to check-in.) These extensions on the check-in behavior are exciting and it’s important to realize that the act (or behavior) of checking in is the most important item. In regards to hyper-location, users are passively recommending businesses by checking in and/or actively adding personal insights to the location they’ve checked into. So for example, when I checked-in to Christy Sports in West Denver, a message displayed recommending that I walk across the parking lot and go to Mimi’s Cafe and to be sure and ask for a specific member of the wait staff. Additional services like Fourwhere provide an overview of who has checked-in using what service; Foursquare, Gowalla, etc. These check-ins and recommendations can give someone immediate context, delivered via their mobile device. This technology/behavior can be thought of as real-time  and will be added the data that the experience/place provides. (Also, look for this behavior to takeoff once Facebook introduces check-ins to their massive mobile user base, which was most recently, 1/4th of their overall traffic.)

Group texting – Brightkite recently added this feature to their offering (but launched it as a separate app?!?!?) This is a feature that makes complete sense for events. Organizing physical get-togethers within a venue. Sharing opinions about the game you’re both watching. This is a great real-time data-stream and can be repurposed to share information with others after the event is over. (There are obviously more apps that focus on this behavior. Click here to check them out.)

Tweetups - As one would suspect, these are events organized via Twitter (like a meet-up; get it?) and are great for dumping intent-based data into the stream. The organizer talks about who is going to be there and what will be shared during the meeting; food or otherwise. The nature of the meeting is entirely up to you and I would think of it as a flash mob with a purpose. (This is a good review of how to utilize a Tweetup as a business.) Also, people tweet real-time while at the tweetup, giving this event added weight with respect to content.

Twitter/Tweeting – Twitter has been referred to one of the best resources for intent-based marketing. People talk about what they’re going to do (along with present tense and past tense) and this information can be pumped into the data stream. Twitter founders have also said that they believe Twitter’s true strength is that it allows users to get hyper-local, which intuitively makes sense given Twitter’s mobile growth; up 347% since 2009. (Think Kogi.) Twitter has also embraced the location concept and businesses like TwittARound allow users to find tweets via their augmented reality browser.

Reviews – Reviews are of course past tense and provide someone a feel for what the place is like to visit. Osaka Sushi’s Google place page is a good example of this. It features reviews by users from Yelp, Citysearch, Judy’s Book and insiderpages. Blog posts by locals could also be a part of the review process. Everything from real estate to restaurant reviews.

Geo-tagging – Have you ever uploaded a picture to flickr and mapped where the photo was taken? That is what geo-tagging is. This has been made even more easy due to smartphone adoption. You can do this with video as well and Google Earth has a number of user generated YouTube videos, that display (after clicking the ‘Gallery’ option.) This form of user generated content is location specific and adds rich content to the data-stream. Spotisquare is an amazing example of geo-tagging a specific location with music!

Location based services – This is business’s response to all of the user generated information or “placestreaming” listed above. I’ll pick on Foursquare for a minute. What are businesses participating in Foursquare offering? Snacksquare has a list dependent on your area. How do partner with Foursquare as a business? Go here! Businesses are the once again the slowest to adapt.

Mobile coupons – Based on your location and your past behavior, you’ll receive mobile coupons. These can be real-time events (LBS=coupon) but they’ll be based on your foot traffic. Which is much more constrained than you think. We are creatures of habit and your “local” is where you always go.

News – Sites with a local focus like fwix, will need to emulate the model created by Front Porch Forum (about page here) and get more granular and will need users help. (Foursquare has recently partnered with Metro News to deliver location-based news.)

As you can see these technologies/mediums/behaviors offer a diverse array of methods for users/businesses to define on hyper-local offerings, creating a rich diverse landscape. The easiest way to imagine visually managing all of this information is a map with search attached. (Maps on mobile are the best.) The search could allow people to filter one their location and time-based offerings:

1. Reviews for restaurants, spas, etc – past
2. Upcoming events and those attending via Tweetups and/or Group Text – future/present and then into the past
3. Geo-tagged locations – past
4. Location based services currently offered – present
5. Mobile coupons – present

All in all, this is what I consider hyper-local. I’m sure there’s more. There always is . . .

For this class, we discussed the massive changes that are taking place in the mobile world and what factors are shaping the evolving landscape. I’m in the process of writing a white paper and hope to have it done within a month. For now, it’s safe to say that the following equation holds true.

Smartphone Adoption + Social Media + Location Awareness + Mobile Advertising = Mobile 2.0

This is what we covered in class and if you’d like a copy of the white paper, once it’s complete, please email me at mm@michaelmyers.biz.

Next class we’re covering human capital management.

When I first heard of Zappos, I throught “No way! Buy Shoes online . . . How do I know how they fit?!?!? That will never work.” Well, after an $850 million acquisition, I stand corrected; in my shoes that I did NOT purchase from Zappos. Turns out, people were willing to buy shoes online. A lot of people. As a matter of fact, I recently asked my class and another I was guest lecturing in, who had purchased from Zappos and about 95% of the people in both classes had done so. Why was I wrong? Zappos focused on customer service and has a no questions asked, return policy.  Those are the reasons Zappos was able to sell shoes online.

I hear many people say that they’d be unwilling to buy something through their mobile phone. Well, they may be alone on that one. Eventually. They should be feeling pretty lonely right about now. Here are some recent numbers showing the adoption of mCommerce.

• eBay handled $650 million in mCommerce transactions in 2009 and they expect to be at $1.5 billion this year.
• Amazon customers now order $1 billion worth of products per year via mobile devices.

As you can see, consumers are increasingly comfortable with mobile purchases and if we think about buying more personal things, such as clothing, etc my Zappos-based doubt creeps in. But wait! Remember, there’s a solution. Exemplary customer service! A no questions asked return policy! These are things that businesses embracing mobile commerce need to focus on. Mobile commerce is at an even greater deficit due to the screen real estate, but that can be overcome following the Zappos model.

We also need to remember that it isn’t just what you do, but how you do it. Businesses embracing mCommerce need to enable customers to contact to customer service in a format that is native to the mobile device AND that they’re most comfortable with. Those formats are:

• Email – Some are more comfortable with this ancient format. It’s not quite smoke signals, so you should support it.
• Call – This should used for more immediate help and a personal touch and their smartphones do make calls!
• Instant Messaging – Because of online chat adoption, this behavior may carry over. Typing on a mobile is not fun, no matter what, but some may have to do it given the situation; such as they need to keep it quite but need immediate help.
• SMS – This is the number one data-based behavior on mobile phones. Enough said . . .
• MMS – If a customer wants to take a picture or shoot a video of the issue and send it to you; let them.

If I were just starting a business, I’d launch with all of these (because they’re cheap) and monitor which ones have the most traction with my customer base. These are great tools but they need the Zappos mindset to truly be successful for mobile commerce.

. . . and now. To help you relax . . . the Zappos Map

Some months ago I was surfing the net and came upon a post that featured a brief conversation at the end of it. Someone was watching a panel discussion and they were talking about the future of search. (I wish I could find the post.) They were discussing the rise of social search and predicted that search/search results would eventually have three layers.

1. Social – Return results from your social circle first. The thought is that those that know you OR those that are passionate about the subject and create content centered around the items your searching on will provide the most relevant information.
2. Business – Think Bing, but more successful. Search engines are for shopping, not just research and shopping is right up there as far as online activities.
3. Algorithm – Think Google. Return the mathematically relevant sites first. PageRank works from a statistical standpoint but may not represent overall online intent with respect to the search.

So . . . this is what the future of search is predicted to be and it makes sense. (This is why Google is terrified of Facebook and the potential of Rockmelt.) There would of course be some overlap between the three categories since some friends may recommend a business solution, etc. Social results would show up on the first page and then business related results and then algorithmic. Or maybe they would be in separate tabs. The only other thing I remember about the post was the tail end of the conversation which when something like this:

” . . . wow. Sounds like we just figured something out. Something important. I bet someone writes a book about it.”

I really wish I could find that post!

Obviously, Google is a pretty big subject to cover in only one class. You could teach an entire quarter on Google highlighting all that the web giant offers, but . . . I only had 2 hours and 10 minutes.

Google, for lack of a better way to say it is the web. Without Google the vast ocean of content would be relatively inaccessible.  Metaphorically, Google could also be thought of as the axle and the chassis. Without those items, the wheel would be nowhere. You’d have a round object that rolled down the hill with no way to control/utilize it.

The Internet is comprised of three things; information, entertainment and communication. All of these take many forms and specific to Google we reviewed the following.

Information – One of the informational areas that’s currently exploding is mapping. Google committed several years ago to creating their own mapping data which is a lot like saying I’m going to boil the ocean to make some soup. As far as their market share, Google Maps was equal to MapQuest as of February 2009. (Living in Denver, with the MapQuest office less than a mile a way, I can tell you that the rumors of MQs demise over the next few years are true. I had a chance to work with the MQ team in 2006 – when they had 71% market share – and they simply got outpaced by Google. Google offers street-level views and now include elevation in their API. It’s also easy to imagine Google incorporating real time views into higher traffic venues, much like Microsoft Live Labs demonstrated at a TED Talk.

Communication - I always thought Google would buy Skype. Google seems to understand the multifaceted forms of communication that exists online. They did create Google Voice after all featuring such options as the SMS to email feature.

Entertainment – Google TV. This was recently announced at the Google I/O event and the idea is really simple; treat television content like web content and pull it into search results. The announcement provided a more thorough explanation and the ultimate goal is to have the flat panel at home be your TV, Internet, Phone, IM, email, etc – with you using Google to find everything. AND with over 4 billion TV users, you can understand why Google wants to sell ads in this medium. (They already do but we’ll get to that in a moment.)

Before there was Google TV, there was YouTube. Google bought them for over $1 billion and spent $100 million defending them from Viacom. Many cite YouTube as one of, if not the biggest of Google’s failures, with the company losing an estimated $471 million on 2009 alone. YouTube is enormous but the majority of video watching is owned by a splintered market. YouTube has enabled businesses to brand themselves by creating Business Channels such as this one for Icelantic Skis. We then reviewed Mashable’s suggestions around building a loyal audience on YouTube and the introduction to closed-captioning of YouTube videos. The closed captioning dumps a ton of searchable content into the Internet. (video below) We also reviewed the ability to annotate videos on YouTube. As a business, if I have created my own channel, why not allow my fans to add annotations on the video? This type of engagement goes a long way towards deepening relationships.

From there we moved on to Google as the owner of 80% all Internet searches in the United States. Remember, Google is an academic business at its core. They just happen to have a bunch of smart business people funding the endless summer of development! This video by Matt Cutts helps explain how Google’s search works. It’s important to remember that Google will change their algorithm whenever they feel like it. This means that you could be on the top of page 1 of the search engine results today and by tomorrow you could be on page 5! (Some have called for Google to be regulated.) Google has recently introduced the concept of social search, which means as a user you could see results at the bottom of page 1, featuring content created by someone within your social circle. After that we talked about the importance of getting search right as a business. I recently posted about this and if you’re a business that requires a site search, you should consider Google’s Site Search, which can be customize if you’d like.

We then reviewed the initial version of search that Yahoo! provided back in the day. Essentially one big FAT drill-down exercise. We then talked about Bing and it’s business focus. (Bing + Yahoo = 20% of the market) The example I brought up (which had worked that morning but failed to work that night) was a search on Ankor Wat. The goal was to show how Bing is a business centric search engine while Google is an academic/math based search engine. So, when I searched on Ankor Wat that morning, one of the first non-paid results were for a tour group of Cambodia/Ankor Wat while Google results had the Wikipedia entry first and a host of others. By the time class rolled around, Bing had changed their SERP. The point still stands though. Google is about finding information while Bing’s goal is facilitating business.

We then touched on the fact that Google doesn’t own search internationally. The axis of non-evil is as follows:

• Russia – Yandex
• South Korea – Naver
• China – Baidu

We then discussed the gradual migration of advertising from a CPM model to a CPA model and reviewed a host of Google’s ad offers.

• Adsense – These ads can be featured on your site and are contextual based on the content in the site.
• AdWords – These ads are featured on Google’s search results page down the right hand side and are also contextual.
• Radio – Google is now out of the radio ad business but is exploring audio streaming opportunities. Essentially they want to place ads into all mediums . . .
• Television – Yep. You can use the AdWord Mechanism to buy television ads!
• email – Yep again. Google places ads in email. Contextual of course!

We then moved on to cover Google Analytics. I logged in and reviewed some of the functionality in the tool. There’s a lot that Google Analytics can do and guess what? it’s free!

Some of Google’s “pet projects” we discussed are:

• Chrome – This is currently a browser and will soon be a cloud based OS.
• Google Health – This is Google’s answer to Road ID. They want to allow you to access your health information from anywhere.
• Android – This is Google’s mobile OS. In my opinion the primary reason it was created was to deliver mobile ads. However, it’s turning into much more. They recently announced the release of an App Inventor that allows the average user to create android apps. There is obvious concern about the quality of ads created this way and things like this really drive the difference between Apple and Google home.
• App Market – In a me-too effort, Google created an app market. This market is much more open than Apple’s and will continue to grow rapidly.
• Stats – The AndroLib site has some excellent information about the Android app market and my preference is still Distimo, which features the major players in the app market including Google, Apple and BlackBerry.
• Google’s Music Service – There are rumors floating around that Google will be launching a music service. Details are somewhat limited but expect it soon.
• Google Me – Google will once again, attempt to get into the social space as they have with Okrut and Google Buzz. They’re doing this out of fear of Facebook and will most likely fail. I’m just sayin’ . . .

We then finished up with some business recommendations. These are general but most businesses should consider these methods.

• SEO – If you can’t be found online; you don’t exist. The web is the number one way people gather information (in the US of A) and Google has cornered the market on information gathering. It’s best to think of SEO as a thing you always do, much like site security. You’re never done!
• Keywords – There are lots of free tools and even more pay-for tools. When thinking about what keywords you should be using, you need to focus on what how your customers see you. Avoid the trap of being internally focused and using jargon specific to your vertical that your customers may not be familiar with. Use words/wording that they’re using. A quick review of Google Analytics will give you a sense of how people find you and you can build from there.
• Google’s Site Search – If your site needs search then give it to Google. As pointed out by a student, not all sites need an internal search. If your site is simple and not focused on content generation, you can live without site search.
• SEM – Traffic costs money. You’re either going to pay and SEO person to constantly review the site for performance OR you can pay for paid placement on search results. Either way, get the wallet out if you intend to be successful.
• Google Places – This is a free option on Google Maps and essential for brick-and-mortar businesses. It provides a deeper, user generated review of a business. Checkout Osaka Sushi’s place page.
• Google Analytics – It’s a good idea to become well versed in Google Analytics. It provides a clear picture of the type of demand your business is experiencing. Did I mention it’s free?
• Google Voice – Want to avoid the costly set-up of a business phone system? Use Google voice and Skype to address most of your communicational needs!

Next class is (was) Mobile 2.0!

Robert Scoble interviews CEO, Mike McCue about his latest iPad app, Flipboard. Great concept and makes you want “better” friends!