If you haven’t noticed, social networking has infiltrated our lives. We post our resumes, our pictures, our relationships, our minute-by-minute thoughts, nearly everything we are to create better connections with our friends and loved ones. For the most part, though, we have left out our culture’s most recent entertainment resource: video games. Facebook, for instance, asks its users to list interests, favorite movies, favorite books, favorite TV shows, favorite quotes, and favorite charitable causes, but it neglects our favorite video games. We share most of our lives, but to date, no one has provided us the same ability to share our games.
OnLive, a new streaming video game service, is sweeping the gaming industry off its feet – or at least trying to. Through the use of cloud computing, they’ve created a platform that could allow all video games to be immediately accessible to gamers, even those not interested in buying a super-powerful PC or next-gen console. The technology is pretty cool.
The most amazing thing about OnLive’s user experience though, isn’t the immediate access to games, rather the immediate access to other gamers. OnLive has effectively created a brand new gaming social network.
What OnLive has recognized is that creating and maintaining social connections is a type of play, and is an important piece of the gaming experience that has been underserved by the current generation of consoles.
For example, simply search for Guitar Hero on YouTube.
The majority of what you probably found was a lot of videos of people playing those songs that people consider “impossible.” Almost like a rock star social club. The videos are meant to brag to their friends and the larger Guitar Hero community online. The only problem is that these rock stars have to reach outside of the game to share, rather than making bragging rights an integral part of the game.
Nintendo also had this insight when they launched the Wii. The entire campaign was based around the shared experience of the Wii with your friends and loved ones.
Although they recognized the importance of those physical connections, Nintendo completely ignored our virtual ones and failed to facilitate a useful way of sharing games or even playing with your friends online.
This is what OnLive aims to remedy. They have allowed gamers to create friendships, share videos, and watch their friends play across their entire library of games. If and when they combine this technology with a partner like Facebook Connect, OnLive will have finally allowed gamers to dive headfirst into the world of social gaming.
Twitter Experiences 1,384% Year over Year Growth
Brian Kress
Over the past few months Twitter has seen meteoric growth, with last month being the most impressive month yet. The total number of users increased from 475,000 in February 2008 to 7 million in February 2009, for a total of 1,384% growth. While the numbers are still miniscule when compared to Facebook’s 66 million, it could show some signs of promise for the microblogging site.
Design (and Color) by Numbers
Jeff Whang
A fascinating look at Marissa Mayer, Google Employee No. 20, who controls the look, feel and functionality of Google’s home page (not to mention introducing new features like Google News, Gmail, etc.) Take a peek into her life and how decisions like which shade of blue to use for the toolbar on Google pages was decided…by the numbers.
Find Executives Who Twitter
John Keehler
A new site that promises to be a great resource to find executives who Twitter, by industry. If you know of a CEO who’s Twittering and isn’t included in the list, submit them!
YouTube Adds Detailed Engagement Stats
Tobias Pugsley
If you’re publishing video on YouTube, you can now get much more detailed reporting through engagement statistics. These new statistics include the ability to see more details on ratings, comments and user data such as geographic location.
Everything You Know About Design Is Wrong
Cam Beck
From SXSW 2009, Dan Willis reminds us of a fundamental shift in the thinking about design. Design exists as a means to an end: To solve problems. “Elegant and beautiful failures can hide in plain sight. They win awards. They’re going to win this week.”
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The Web Awards for SXSW just wrapped up this week. For the uninitiated, the interactive portion of SXSW began in 1994 and has a reputation for being a breeding ground of new ideas and creative technologies – for example, Twitter was launched at SXSW in 2007.
Simple googling will reveal thousands of reviews of the talks, conferences and new technologies that were shared at this year’s SXSW, but here’s a list of what I think were the best of the Web Awards, taking an in-depth look at innovations in digital story telling, tweeting political figures, crowdsourcing for new words, and corporate websites using 3-D gaming technology. You won’t regret checking out these Web Award winners from this SXSW 2009.
Digital Story-Telling (Winner: Experimental category, Best in Show)
“We Tell Stories” is a collaborative project between an alternative reality gaming company Six to Start and the well-known publishing company Penguin UK. The project involves six authors who write six interactive stories each over a period of six weeks, with the stories primarily related to “immediacy and connectivity of the Internet today.”
I’ve included one of their six stories here, which uses Google Maps (and a story arc that is highly mobile) to take the reader through the streets and sights of London and beyond. Check out at least the first few screens of the first chapter and you may find that you can’t put your mouse down.
Tweet your Congress(wo)man (Winner: Activism category)
This website allows people to search by location and find out if their Congressman or Senator is on Twitter, and if they’re not, it allows people to sign a petition asking them to join Twitter. The ultimate goal is to aid in transparency and communication between elected officials and simple folks who voted them in like us. They already count 110 members of Congress tweeting, have offshoots in the UK (Tweetminster), Sweden and Switzerland, and are looking to launch in other countries as well.
A quick search on our local senators here in Dallas? John Cornyn is on (2,601 followers and 133 updates) but non-tweeters that you can sign a petition for include Kay Baily Hutchison and Eddie Bernice Johnson. And we know they have a Blackberry and/or iPhone.
Wordoodling (Winner: Amusement category)
Wordplay website addictionary lets people invent their own words for social phenomena. Of course, people get to rank and reply to ones they favorite – recent highlights:
Matrimoney: people who marry for money
Boredation: the starving feeling when you’re really really bored
You can also create challenges, that let you fill in the blank: “there oughta be a word for _____.” So far, for “a person who loudly gabs on the phone in public”, “cellevangelist” in a close race with “mobile dick.”
3-D Gaming Environment…in a Corporate Website (Winner: Business category)
One of the first corporate websites to use complete 3-D technology, you’ll get the sense of being part of the visual space with elements of the website rotating around you, helping bring this architecture/design firm’s portfolio to life. Visit the website (you may want to click on the “how to use this site” link), and just play around. Use your mouse, your up-down-left-right keys and explore the world of Jasmax.
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Coke’s Customers Bring the Brand to Facebook
John Keehler
Coke has the largest group of fans for any brand on Facebook, but the page was started by a couple fans, not corporate. Check out this great story about how a brand has embraced its fans as a part of their social networking strategy.
Mobile Web Audience Doubles
Jeff Whang
Metrics firm ComScore just reported that the number of people using their mobile device to access news and information on the Internet more than doubled from January 2008 to January 2009. Among the 63 million who did so in January 2009, 35% of them did so daily. And while you iPhone users did your fair share of helping bump this number, 70% of users are accessing the mobile web with basic, no frills phones. As the iPhone and other smartphones gain market share, expect the mobile web to really take off.
The Size of Social Networks
Brian Kress
Because of sites like MySpace, Facebook, and, now, Twitter, the way some people think about social networks has evolved into the accumulation of “friends” to keep in touch with. Naturally, this assumes that the accumulator connects with more people than a more conservative friender, but this may not be the case according to Facebook’s in-house sociologist Dr. Cameron Marlow.
SXSW Interactive
John Keehler
The SXSW Interactive festival is wrapping up today, and there’s no shortage of great coverage online. Start by checking out the official site for SXSW Interactive. In addition, you might just see our very own Pete Lerma there, who’s in Austin today speaking on a panel.
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The best way to make sure a Web design and development project goes smoothly is to ensure everyone is working toward the same goals. The only way to ensure they’re working toward the same goals is to, early in the project, express the goals in clear, concrete terms and get agreement on them. An effective way to accomplish this is through the creation of use cases.
What is a use case?
Historically, software developers created use cases to define how individuals were expected to interact with a system. They expressed an interaction between users and the software, but from the perspective of the users rather than the system, the programmers, or the programming language itself.
A single use case represented a single task or goal – usually from the perspective of a single user role (called “actors” in geek-speak). However, a single use case could contain several scenarios, which represent variations that could occur in how the system behaves, depending on a specific action or condition of the actor.
An example
For instance, let’s take a look at a simple use case for a word processing application. Say we want to define the printing process. The use case can be expressed in the form of a diagram or in plain text, but either way, it identifies key operations and attributes of the system:
- Who or what is using the operation? (In use cases, the actor isn’t always a person)
- What is the actor’s goal?
- What must the actor do to initiate the process we’re defining?
- What does the system provide in return…
- …when everything is done and set up properly?
…when everything is not done and set up properly?
Consider the implications of the failure to go through this exercise. It would be very easy to overlook the need for the system to identify the conditions necessary for the successful completion of this task, and, if those conditions aren’t met, to provide adequate feedback that lets the user know:
- That an error has occurred,
- What the error was, and
- What steps the user must take to correct it
Ideally, the system would help in this recovery process (e.g., providing a button or wizard to install a printer), but in some cases, it must suffice to tell the user what is wrong in clear language, such as “Your printer is out of paper.”
Don’t laugh. It beats the pants off of some strange error messages we still get from time to time that tell us nothing at all.
Use cases for the Web
Over time, web development teams started to consider a similar approach to website design. They understood that clients were demanding their websites accomplish more. Partially because there were more opportunities for more severe task failure, usability engineers, experience planners, and developers saw the value of introducing use cases for their projects.
With use cases, system designers can define what an actor expects when he comes to a website, what the he must do in order to get the result he expects, and what the system must do, in turn, to deliver that expected result.
And they also must provide for the means to recover from an error. An example of this is in an online shopping cart, where the user has not filled in all the fields or has entered obviously false credit information.
What does the system show in return? Use cases help teams to identify the optimal workflow, provide safeguards that make that workflow the most likely outcome, and anticipate – in spite of those safeguards – what the likely errors are and how to recover from them.
The goals of use cases
Building a book of use cases during the planning stages of creating a website provides several important benefits:
- Helps prioritize. It helps to identify features that provide the highest business value. This is of particular importance, as it helps companies decide what features are most critical to the successful implementation of the overarching business strategy.
- Reduces risk. Each feature takes a certain amount of time to develop. With use cases, it’s easier to estimate how much time (and money) it will take to build a feature. Joined with the budget for the project and the estimate of the value of that feature, it makes it easier to decide which high-risk features are expendable, and which are worth the effort.
- Improves usability. Because tasks are explicitly defined and assigned a business value early in the process, it is easier to anticipate possible obstacles as well as plan an iterative usability test plan. Each iterative chunk should be designed, as much as practical to reduce effort duplication, to test the highest value use cases first, to give the team more time to make improvements.
Web projects will always have a finite budget and a deadline. Use cases help teams establish a common understanding of what user goals are of the highest value to the business and what level of effort is necessary to deliver on the goals. Then it is up to the team to make sure, through their development processes, that the design and interface successfully communicate to the user what they can expect to do and how they can do it.
Ultimately this process helps build better websites that meet the needs of the users and the organization and, through the act of meeting (if not exceeding) audience expectations, endear the brand to the individuals who come to the site.
For more information about use cases:
Use Cases information from usability.gov
Use Case Design for Websites
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Social Networking More Popular Than Email
Brian Kress
A Nielsen study of 2008 activity shows that while 65.1% of Internet users accessed their email last year, 66.8% accessed social networking sites. OMG! The 15 page study also takes a look at the changing face of social networks and the challenges that may surface for advertisers.
The Economy, On a Whiteboard
John Keehler
This is a great video series from Marketplace where topical economic issues are explained clearly using only a whiteboard.
Primates on Facebook
Jeff Whang
The Economist asks Cameron Marlow of the Facebook Data team (their in-house sociologist) to help with the age old question of how many people can fit into our social network before we go ape. Read more to find some fascinating insights like the fact that the average man on Facebook with 120 friends will generally respond with comments (on the wall, status message or photos) to seven friends. Women, a little more sociable at ten. Come on guys, open up a little.
Another Twitter Business Model Success Story
John Keehler
Kogi Korean BBQ has a taco truck serving gourmet street food in LA, but the only way you can find out where it will be is to follow them on Twitter.
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Facebook Pages was first launched in 2007 for brands to create a presence on the popular social network. These brand pages have become an important part of many brands’ social networking strategies as evidenced by a recent study from The Participatory Marketing Network and Pace University. The study revealed that 62% of millennials have visited a brand or fan page on a social network, and an incredible 48% have become fans of such brand pages.
This is clearly a nod towards a viable social networking strategy for brands in an environment where the traditional online ad model of banners and clicks isn’t working. For those brands with a Facebook Page, or thinking of creating one, this new version should change your strategy.
#1) Blurring Lines Between Profiles and Pages
While the old Facebook Pages were distinctly different from user profiles, the new Facebook Pages are more similar to the user profiles people interact with every day, as you can see from the screenshot below. This means more attention should be paid to the content brands publish, rather than the “layout” of the page.
#2) Greater Viral Reach Through the Newsfeed
This change promises to have the greatest impact for brands. Prior to this round of changes, brands could only send updates to fans. Now, when a brand publishes content or makes changes to the Facebook Page, fans will be notified in the same news feed they receive notifications from friends. In addition, brands will be able to have a “status”, just like users. This means keeping your Facebook Page active is key to maintaining fan engagement and helping to increase your viral reach. Update your status, upload photos and videos, create discussions and more.
#3) More Robust Content Through Custom Tabs
Facebook has opened up tabs to the development platform, so brands can create their own custom tabs. This opens up the possibility of making a Facebook Page more robust in terms of content. Each tab can be linked to directly. The following example shows a custom “Be On Oprah” tab from Oprah’s Facebook Page.
Download the Facebook Pages Product Guide (PDF) here to see a complete list of the new changes to Facebook Pages.
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Poke a Facebook Friend Through…Yahoo Search?
Jeff Whang
There’s not many of us left who don’t use Google for search, but Yahoo shows that they still have a little life in them by coming out with innovative ways to search. 1) Go to http://search.yahoo.com 2) Search for someone you know on Facebook 3) Poke them/add them as a friend/send a message to them, directly through the search results page.
Creative Showcase: 2010 Mustang
John Keehler
This new website from Ford showcasing the 2010 Mustang is a great example of how to leverage 3D modeling to create a rich website experience.
Skittles.com Controlled by Social Media
Jeff Whang
When you visit the redesigned Skittles site, you’ll notice it’s been completely replaced with its Twitter stream. Or its flickr page. Or its Wikipedia entry. The only thing that’s left is a little widget-like navigation module that guides you to all the instances of mostly consumer-generated content related to Skittles. We’ve already begun to see musicians and other small businesses point to their MySpace page instead of a corporate-type homepage, but this is one of the first instances we’ve seen a big business do the same, essentially allowing their brand to be defined by what people say about them on the web.
Note: This campaign is also generating buzz because it’s a “stolen” idea
The Social Media Oscar Race
Brian Kress
While we know that advertising dollars help generate conversation in the social media world, it’s not the only thing that does. In this article, we learn a lesson from the recent Oscar nominees that having something truly remarkable can generate more buzz than ad dollars alone.
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I’m fortunate enough to work on the GameStop business, who has been highlighted as a recession success story, which made me interested in looking at how the gaming industry as a whole has faired in this economic collapse.
Really, the entire industry has been held up in the recent economic crisis as “recession-proof,” that regardless of how far the economy goes down the tank, video games have continued to shatter expectations. In fact, this is the second recession that video games have trekked through, having kept strong through 2001 as well.
There are a few oft-cited themes when analysts have tried to tackle the question: Why are video games recession-proof?
Responses tend to center around ideas like:
Gaming industry has benefited from the trend “staycationing,” and escaping into the world of “Fallout 3” is cheaper and easier than booking a trip to Anchorage.
During hard times, stress and depression is higher, and depressed people seek refuge in escapist entertainment, like video games. The rest of the entertainment industry, like music and movies, also benefits from this definition.
Console cycle, the 4 or 5-year period when a new generation of console arrives, drives incremental sales with games that look and play a little better than their predecessors
We think that in addition to all of that “natural” recession Teflon, the gaming industry has done an amazing job using marketing strategies to help. For instance, publishers will often release a demo version of an upcoming game for free download over Xbox Live or PSN and learn from the comments made across the social web by monitoring conversations happening online about the game.
However, most industries don’t have the benefit of a rabid fan base and accessible escapism, but fear not! There are a few marketing strategies that any company in any industry could use to help make their business “recession-proof.”
1. Market to your current customer
We know that new customers always cost more than keeping your current customers, and a solid CRM program can be a direct and low-cost way to increase sales while staying in touch and relevant. Start with messages that offer value-adds to enhance the experience of using your product or service rather than slashing prices.
2. Gather insight
Your customer has changed drastically as a result of the crisis, so having an understanding of their current mindset, needs, desires, and preferences is absolutely critical to communicating to them in a relevant manner. Perhaps identifying additional target segments that have a new desire for your product or service would help to sustain you during the recession. Start by using some of the multitude of new and innovative research technologies available to you, like social media monitoring, online focus groups, or even simple online surveys and answer those questions about how your customer’s mindset has changed as a result of the recession.
Above all, continue to get the word out about your business. Even if you can’t afford a full-scale marketing program, continue the more targeted tactics that will keep new and current customers coming through the door.
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