Michael Myers

I recently posted about Retail 2.0 and the impact the convergence of real world and digital world will have on retail products. Examples of this convergence are QR codes, augmented reality; browsers and “the other flavor” and things like SixthSense. These examples and how they’re applied are bridging the gap between digital and physical.

Businesses that create products have been selling them in stores for many years and are familiar with product placement within the store and the appropriate messaging based on that product. Over the last ten years they’ve been figuring out how to sell them online. Stores like Amazon seem like no-brainers today but when they began, it was a huge unknown. Today, because of the convergence of the physical and digital worlds, tangible products must extend into the digital world. Some would say this is already exists in the form of form of online product descriptions (images, text, etc). The issue lies in that these digital representations are for the most part information based.  Although that information is valuable that product needs to contain more than that. It needs to exist online; a shadow of the physical product. At a bare minimum it would need to contain the following elements:

• QR code on product packaging that leads to digital product download/purchase information
• iPhone application and/or microsite with multiple mediums; video, audio, images and maps of the best places to experience your product. Think touch screen. Can I rotate the virtual product to see all angles. (If you have a Ducati in the garage and can’t drive it because it’s snowing; you could interact with it on your digital device. Better yet, you could interact with Ducati’s latest concept bike.) Smartphone UI sensibilities technology is headed to laptops via the iPad
• iPhone app/microsite should have a way to vote and share. This enables consumers to become conduits for selling that product
• Unique URL for on product packaging (for those that don’t have smartphones) to enable users to download/purchase digital product
• Packaging needs to impart the digital version
• In-store web connection is advised to allow people to view the online version of their product

The virtual version of the products should also be able to be purchased online as a virtual good. So when your wife says she would really like Chanel purse for the low low price of $2108,13, you can go to Facebook and buy her a virtual one! (Prepare yourself before doing this by wearing a cup, a helmet and shin guards.) Businesses could offer discounts on the physical item for those that bought the virtual item. These online versions of products also need to have analytic elements embedded and be search engine optimized so they can be easily discovered. We need to know who bought them and how they’re interacting with them to fuel product innovation. (Also, the bulleted list above should expand based on higher end products, like a Ducati. I’ll get to this in another post.)

This type of online product existence also feeds into the continuing atomization of the Internet and the impending death of the homepage. (Google’s Google Base and Google Products are examples of this shift.) Most people online are searching for products, not brands. I’m excited to see the concept of product continue to evolve and now that I think about it . . . iPhone (iPad) applications would be a perfect venue for this!

Tuesday two students presented Shel Israel’s book, Twitterville. They did a great job and took a deep dive into the lessons learned covered in our Twitter class. In hindsight, next time I’ll have the Twitterville presentation and the Twitter class coincide. Seems like common sense but I wanted to get to Twitter earlier than later since it is an important marketing engine and Twitterville is not a quick read.

This team also used Prezi for their presentation (below) and I’m going to see if I can use it for my class presentation tomorrow on monetizing web 2.0.

One of my students forwarded me this video after we talked about the collision of social media and the mobile Internet. Amazing video and I really like the thought of getting the Internet into the hands of the masses using this tool. Thanks Jason.

Thursday we talked about one of my favorite attributes of social media; mobile. This field is growing by leaps and bounds and provides some of the most compelling marketing opportunities. The first thing we did was talk about  existing technologies that enable location based offerings to be possible.

• Loki (by Skyhook) – The technology behind Brightkite’s location detection
• Geominder – A location based reminder (and an element of things to come!)
• Safari & Android – This browser & OS, know where you are
• GPS – I learned from a student that this can tell your elevation as well
• Cell based location (Yes Jason. This is an old video but it’s the best I have!)
• QR codes – These little things can be used for discovery and sharing
• Location Based services
• Geotagging

We then discussed two of the major players in the location space. Brightkite and Foursquare. We talked about placestreaming, Kiteups (rhymes with tweetups), “caribou crossings (Brightkite wants to introduce you to the people that travel the same patterns that you do), the element of game (badges, mayors, etc), some of Foursquare’s recent deals, Facebook supporting Foursquare check-ins and the concept of location as a platform.

I forgot to mention meetMoi in class. Great idea for a mobile dating site and prior to class one of the students found PleaseRobMe.com. (It’s only a matter of time before the founder of Foursquare get their homes broken into by the creators of PleaseRobeMe.)

From there we touched on trends:

• By 2013 smartphones will outnumber PCs and by 2015 more people will surf the net on smartphones than PCs.
• Facebook now has 100 million users accessing their offerings by mobile phones
• Facebook Zero
• 1 million check-ins a week on Foursquare
• Where 2.0 (which I forgot to mention in class!)
• A new report on location in 2010 (I have not had a chance to read it yet but will post on it when I get done with it.)

I then listed out a number of sites that are focused on information for the mobile industry.

• TrendsSpotting – Not so much mobile but a great resource.
• Mobile Behavior
• Distimo
• MobileCrunch
• MediaPost Mobile Marketing Daily
• MediaPost Mobile Insider
• Antonella Stellaci
• MMA (No. Not mixed martial arts.)
• MSearchGroove

We then talked about the future of mobile

• Augmented reality maps
• Augmented reality browsers
• Cloud services
• “It makes calls to” – Mobile is more about data. Telephony will take a distant second.
• Nokia point and find
• Retail 2.0
• Conduit marketing

We ended the class discussing whether or not the iPad was a mobile device. Good conversation and I’ll post on this later if I can actually form a strong opinion.

Next class we have a presentation reviewing the book Twitterville by Shel Israel. (I also got the Esquire augmented reality issue to share with the class. Gotta love eBay!)

Today was a good day. I got to talk to Vincent Hoogsteder of DISTIMO (@DISTIMO). They’re a company that I posted about two months ago and after reading there most recent report on the status of “all things application store” I thought it would be good to get them on the phone and talk about what they do and how they came to be.

Just in case you don’t want to read my original post: DISTIMO supplies competitive analysis across the Apple, Android and BlackBerry application stores. They generate a free monthly reports, custom reports (which are not free) and now provide a monitoring dashboard for application (free for) developers (sign-up here). Below is a screen shot.

The monitoring tool has the following real-time capabilities:

• Monitor downloads of applications - view daily downloads in multiple app stores, drill-down through app stores and countries
• Monitor revenue of their own applications – view daily revenues in multiple app stores, drill-down through app stores and countries

• Monitor popularity of their own applications – view daily popularity in multiple app stores (in all application categories), drill-down through app stores and countries

• Compare popularity of their applications with competing applications, view daily popularity of competing applications in multiple app stores (in all application categories), drill-down through app stores and countries.

Vincent and his team were developers in the mobile space when it was just starting up in Europe. They were employees of eBuddy and over time they found it very painful to keep their applications up to date across multiple carriers. This is before the iPhone application store and once that happened they decided to provide competitive intelligence for app developers.

I asked Vincent when they would start to track Ovi, the Nokia app store and currently they are tracking it and reporting will be available. They also would like to add Vodafone 360 and the Windows Marketplace.

The goal is to offer competitive analysis between all app stores. At first glance this is a clean-cut deal. But based on the potential future outlined in this post by Edo Segal, it will get more interesting as the lines between application and web are blurred.

One of the things that I believe makes DISTIMO extremely valuable is their monitoring tool. Unfortunately I have not seen it but have been told it’s a dashboard that allows a business to determine how they’re doing at a glance. This will prove an indispensable tool for those growing the applications business.

It is easy to imagine that over time the monitoring tool will become robust enough to deliver the same information provided in a custom report. Until that time, Vincent and his team are ready to create custom reports.

As a marketer, analytics provides an essential knowledge base for decision-making. DISTIMO looks to provide a premier service that enables businesses to target their market across multiple mobile devices. This type aggregation is essential and to date, DISTIMO leads the pack.

So . . . I’m a big fan of Anthony Bourdain and was recently reading one of his posts about the Hudson Valley episode. In the episode (video below) he sits down with one of my other favorite people; Bill Murray. The focus of his post is a funny incident after the cameras were done rolling. It really is worth reading even if you’re not a fan. He’s an excellent writer (and has many books out).  So I decided to weigh-in on the show and add a comment. I said something heinously similar to:

Great show. I think the driving sequence you described with Bill Murrary should be made into an Alternate Reality episode. (Love those.) I also would like to see you make a buddy movie with Hugh Laurie (in character as Dr. House). You could call it Caustic Measures.

As for taking the little girls father; sleep with the lights on. Angry little girls can be dangerous. I know. I married one!

That last sentence was a joke. (Sorry honey.)

That’s pretty much it. For some reason the comment was not approved. I actually submitted another comment asking why my last was not allowed. No answer. This type of nonsense should not be allowed and if you’ve ever watched the show you’d know that the comment was right in line with Bourdain’s sense of humor.

Businesses need to be careful when moderating. It threatens transparency since communication is a two way street. Yes the business needs to be honest about the things they can be honest about AND customers (fans) need to be able to participate with their own voice.

Very cool use of augmented reality from James Alliban.

We discussed personal branding last night and its importance as the walls between customer and business become less distinct. We reviewed the birth of the concept and the evolution from self-improvement to self-packaging. It’s important to select a professional direction and not necessarily a final destination. Remain flexible in your career goals. When building your personal brand it is best to tie yourself to a vertical (the more niche focused the better) so that you can position yourself as a SME in that industry. Make sure you select the industry wisely and prepare to rebrand yourself at least 5 times during your career. Your brand needs to be memorable, communicable (preferably like a virus) and shared over and over. Something compelling.

We also touched on the concept of employee brand and how this concept will expand as businesses learn to utilize social media. I also recommended they read Dan Schawsbel’s book: Me 2.0 because I haven’t gotten a chance to read it yet!

Then we reviewed what people were NOT willing to do to build their personal brand throughout the online relationship model I developed (findable, recommendable, transparent and collaborative). Are you willing to create a crappy GoDaddy commercial to be found? Are you willing to create fake recommendations to build trust in you? These are much easier to figure out then what you are willing to do.

We then discussed the new protocol for branding yourself online. (Remember; your network is your brand.) The progression of where you should be/how you build your network is as follows:

1. LinkedIn – Network to people you know and determine who you want to get introduced to based on your career direction.
2. Twitter – listen, follow, retweet, etc. (Only use Twitter if it’s in your nature!)
3. Email – Email that person directly utilizing information you have about them (keep it professional)
4. Phone call – Have a casual call about how you may be able to work together
5. In person – Do this over coffee (not possible at times given geography)
6. Professional relationship – Work on a project together
7. Facebook – Invite them into your life, family, kids etc

Not everyone you do business with should get to the Facebook phase and again, you need to figure out what you’re NOT willing to do.

We then did a self-assessment to see where everyone’s brands were at through Google search (images, etc), LinkedIn search, Twitter, Facebook, flickr and YouTube. We clarified that there were no criminals in class and also found some others that they share names with. One student found someone on Twitter with the same name that felt cats should be steam powered. (You just can’t make that stuff up.)  We also determined that location was a good way to differentiate yourself from others with like names. (I have A LOT of experience with this.)

We finished up by reviewing some of LinkedIn’s functionality such as groups, organizer (first video below), company sites, account types (premium account highlights below; 2nd video),  answers, network stats and Guy Kawasaki’s 11 (even though it says 10) ways of using LinkedIn.

After reviewing LinkedIn’s offerings, I have to believe that SalesForce will acquire them within the next couple of years.

Next class, we’re going to be reviewing mobile’s role in social media. Much coolness to be had!