Most Online Moms are Getting Social
Brian Kress
Three years ago, only one in ten online moms used social media regularly. Now, though, according to a survey by BabyCenter.com, 63% of these 21st century moms are logging on to sites like Facebook to connect. The poll also found that some 44% of moms visit social sites to get advice on products and brands, and 82% are looking online for medical advice.
15th Anniversary of the Banner Ad
John Keehler
Today marks the 15th anniversary of the first banner ad, which ran on Hotwired on October 27th, 1994. It garnered an astonishing 78% click-through rate, and was the start of a revolution in the advertising industry. Read more about the birth of the banner ad in this great article from Advertising Age.
Google and Bing Adding Twitter to Search Results
Darlene Lo
MSN and Google both announced they will begin to include tweets in their search results. The article discusses how the search giants will face the challenge of filtering tweets by their relevancy or information.
The Social Revolution for Search
Jeff Whang
Responding to Bing’s efforts to integrate Facebook status updates and Tweets from Twitter into its search results, Google fires back with its own deal with Twitter and a new feature called “Social Search”. As long as your friends have connected their Flickr, Twitter, and a wide variety of other social media accounts to their Google profile, you’ll start seeing relevant search results from your friends. Say you’re searching for Timbuktu? With this feature enabled, you might see travel photos, blog posts, status updates and more – all from people you know. Your move, Bing.
Last week a friend uploaded a video to Facebook about Umphrey’s McGee, a jam band we listened to in college. To my surprise, this wasn’t shaky concert video from the Gorge, but instead a piece highlighting the band’s use of social media to create a custom, truly shared, live experience. Using a projected SMS feed, the crowd was encouraged to text styles, genres, or ideas of anything they wanted to hear, and as the texts rolled in, the band improvised their requests in real time.
This video made me wonder how else digital is changing the way we experience live performance. How are other live acts utilizing digital to enhance their presence? And what are the overall effects it is having on the live show experience? I found that digital is changing and adding value to the live performances in two main ways – greater access and crowd power.
Increased Access
Simply giving more people the ability to view the show changes access. With digital there is an opportunity to spread the experience beyond the physical limitations of a specified time and space.
- U2 streamed live on YouTube from their last tour.
- Lumeefly , Chicago based hip-hop production company, moves from viewing to virtually attending the show – for a fee you not only get digital access, but the ability to chat with other virtual concertgoers, send drinks and gain backstage access.
- Sony launched “Club Dates” music series in October showing live concert films in select movie thea
ters. - The Fray Live is a mobile app that gives users tour information, streams live show footage, allows users to upload their photos taken during the show and has a light visualizer (a virtual lighter to be held up during the performance.)
Although access can be gained, the question lies in how does this affect the experience? Is there dilution of value when exclusivity and perishability is removed? Or, more blatantly, is it worth paying the high price for a U2 ticket when you can watch the same show at home?
I feel the benefits offered by each experience are different enough that cannibalization will be slight. What live concert fans want – atmosphere, shared experience, bragging rights – will be hard to replicate through a digital viewing experience. The digital option lowers the cost of consumption creating a trial opportunity for a new segment of consumers. I think both can thrive simultaneously, so fret not Bono, your shows will continue to sell out even though they’re free on YouTube.
Crowd Power
The other way digital is changing “live” is by giving consumers power to actually manipulate the show in real time. Umphrey’s McGee showed us how digital crowd sourcing can be used to inspire and change the immediate experience. Another more unlikely example is the New York Philharmonic. During a performance last year in Central Park, the orchestra took a text poll on what their encore piece should be. After over 5000 votes rolled in, the classic orchestra ended the evening with “Purple Haze” by Jimi Hendrix. Now, rather than screaming “Free Bird” at the top of your lungs, consumers have a streamlined, audible method for reaching the decision makers on stage.
But crowd power can manifest in other ways than changing the set list. Created for an Edinburgh music festival, Fest Buzz is a social media application aiding festival navigation with the ability to contact the necessary people, receive immediate feedback and add reviews. What started out as an information source quickly turned into the guide that manipulated crowd flow. Bands that were putting on good shows got immediate promotion and the crowds moved in. And for bands that maybe weren’t so hot, the live feed let consumers know to focus elsewhere. This tool created a new level of accountability for the quality of the product being served and gave users a digital method to optimize their time and experience.
Consumer Benefits Turn into Lead Generation
Digital tools have added new dimension and real value into the live experience. Creating a genuine, custom moment for fans helps solidify fandom with an active role in the creative process. What’s more interesting is that benefit received is high enough for consumer to volunteer their information to participate. Experiences that create a more involved consumer AND capture valuable information about active target members? Seems like a rocking idea to me.
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My daughter was born about 2 months ago. Between diaper changes and tummy time (I had no clue this was a real thing until I had a kid), I’ve had thoughts of how being immersed in digital every day affects the way I parent. It started before she was born: hours of googling ways to make sure my wife and I were doing the right things to prepare for her arrival. Things like what cribs got the best reviews online, how to prevent stretch marks, what we need to pack for the hospital and the list goes on.
And of course, we’ve had to balance all the things we’ve learned online with the wisdom and experience of our parents. Advice from both sets of parents who happened to grow up in Korea in the 50s and have not only a generational but a cultural gap in terms of the kind of advice they give (did you know that if you have a baby in the sweltering summer of Korea, they will refuse to turn the air conditioning on…some superstition about cold air giving you osteoporosis when you’re 80 years old or something.)
So as I reflect on the past couple months, I’ve noticed a few areas that have really shaped the way I parent that has been impacted by the digital life I lead.
Every (Really Every) Moment Captured
Everyone has baby pictures. And some of your parents may have gone a little trigger happy on those cameras and you just have a ton of photos. Well, I bought a DSLR and flash media camcorder to add to our arsenal of memory-capturing equipment. The result? Just over 1,800 photos taking up about 16GB of space. Add to that a couple hours of HD video and I’m glad I went ahead and bought an external hard drive dedicated to baby (hopefully it will last through the first year.) The great thing about all this? A 8GB SD card will run you just about $15 on amazon. And a 500GB external hard drive, about $80. Having to be conservative about capturing memories due to the cost of developing film or the cost of memory is quickly fading (no pun intended.) And keeping one set of grandparents who live on the west coast up to date on baby’s growth is 3 clicks in iPhoto.
Dr. Parent
While in the recovery room after delivery, our nurse came by and asked us if we’d like baby to receive her Hepatitis B vaccine. We asked her if there were any downsides to getting it at the hospital and she said no, so we said it’d be fine to go prepare the shot for later in the day. Just to be curious, I whipped out my iPhone and googled “hepatitis B vaccine risks” and got a barrage of articles connecting the vaccine to a number of neurological disorders. Now I don’t want to be the “anti-vaccine parent” but it did make me pause – so we called our nurse up and asked her if it’d be okay if we waited on the vaccine until a checkup with our pediatrician later. She had no problem with that, and it gave us time to look into it further. Without mobile Internet, we would’ve had no perspective on this other than the opinions of our nurse.
On another more light-hearted note, we’ve found some fun apps on the iPhone that were more fun to try than anything, but I’m sure there are some power users out there. Here are a couple apps that keeps track of feedings and diaper changes:
Cataloging the consistency of your baby’s stool has to be one of the weirdest things I’ve ever done on my phone. WebMD Mobile has also been a useful app in accessing funky things a baby does in her first two months.
Baby’s Early Digital Identity
A couple week’s after we found out my wife was pregnant, we secured preferred gmail email addresses (with multiple variations using her first and middle name, depending on what she wants to go by) and a Facebook account. None are active right now, but we’re wondering whether to active her Facebook account and manage it for her in these early years. We post all these photos with her in them but we don’t tag her and what’s the fun in Facebook if you don’t do that. And who do we let become friends with baby? Just our friends? If she starts liking a certain brand of diapers or a stuffed animal, should we try to seek out their fan page or Facebook identity? In all seriousness, we did read up on the debate happening online on the line between transparency vs. privacy. When we post pictures of our children, do we only allow certain friends to view the content, do we open it up to all our friends or to the entire world? What is paranoia and what is unsafe? When do children get to manage their own digital identity? Lots of questions in this new world where we feel compelled to share content (embarrassing photos and embarrassing home videos) that 5 years ago we’d keep much closer to us.
This is a bit further away for my wife and I, but I’m sure there will be a day when a site like digitalparents.org (a site that is dedicated to “making sense of how young people use the web”) will be great reading for us.
So What’s the Verdict?
I think technology has enabled a lot of neat things to be possible as a parent but also introduced us to some of the ills of society that we’d probably rather have been ignorant to, but this is the world we live in. It’s highly connected and inter-related. The reason I can find such great advice and content for parenting in 2009 on babycenter.com is because other parents are transparent about their own experiences. But the same technology that makes that sharing possible strikes fear into other parents about posting details about their adorable baby online. As a first-time parent, I’m going to continue to contribute and share, but cautiously. That’s not to say I’m not going to post a gajillion photos of baby on my Facebook, but I’ll definitely be careful about what all I post and who I accept friend requests from.
Lots of things to get excited about and worry about, but at this point, two months in, I’m just focused on smiling a lot at baby, burping and changing blow-out diapers. And of course, taking lots and lots of pictures.
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State of the Blogosphere, 2009
John Keehler
Technorati has released their annual report on the state of the blogosphere. These great series of articles take a deeper dive into questions such as: Who’s blogging?
Music industry loses ringtone royalties
Jill Krumsick
Despite the best efforts of ASCAP, a Federal Judge has ruled that ringtones are not a public performance and therefore not entitled to royalties. Take that Kanye.
The Future of News Media
Jeff Whang
Put aside your political affiliation for a minute (as in, ignore the domain name) and read this thoughtful essay from the Craig who puts the Craig in Craigslist. See what he thinks about how technology is affecting news media.
Google Editions, the Latest in the Battle for E-books
Brian Kress
Attempting to get in on the Amazon-dominated e-book market, Google plans to launch an online service called Google Editions that enables electronic books to be downloaded to mobile telephones or any e-book reader. Readers should have some half-a-million publications available in the first half of next year.
Another Facebook Redesign in the Works
John Keehler
Facebook is redesigning, which means that changes are afoot that could affect brands on Facebook. Most notably, Facebook Groups is getting a redesign, and even more items will be given viral potential.
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The Reign of Email is Over…
Brian Kress
Well, not really. The Wall Street Journal just ran a piece about the evolution of communication technology, chronicling the rise and alleged fall of email to social media. While it’s not a conclusion we wholly agree with, it was derived from the fact that both growth and absolute numbers are on the side of social networking this year. All in all, an interesting read.
From HD to 3-D
Jill Krumsick
Sony and Panasonic are pushing television product innovation through 3-D capable TV’s. The film industry has already created a solid and growing market for 3-D experiences, but will consumers pay the high price for the product and necessary accessories AND want to wear those glasses to watch primetime? Sony and Panasonic are thinking so.
MySpace Who? The Exodus Accelerates
John Keehler
It’s probably been a while since you last heard anyone mention MySpace, let alone been given the suggestion that you should create a branded community. The once popular social network is losing members at a faster pace each month, despite a leadership change.
Do you want an endorsement contract? Udorse makes it happen.
Darlene Lo
A new application called Udorse allows you tag items or places you want to personally endorse in your photos. If friends like what they see, they can purchase through your tags and you earn money. Only American Apparel and Armani are currently signed up.
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Home pages have historically been a hotbed of contentious debate. Because of this, they are what Steve Krug called “The First Casualty of War.”
Why are they so controversial?
Because everyone wants a piece of the action. Because organizations typically work in silos, different departments feel slighted if their discipline isn’t “adequately” represented on the home page. One would think by all the name-calling and weepy eyes that the home page is kind of a big deal.
And they’re right. The home page is – kind of – a big deal. But not for the reasons people tend to get worked up about. After all, typically, only 40% of traffic to a website comes through the home page.
But as a consequence of their inability to set boundaries and priorities, they compromise the very purpose of the page. Every piece of real estate is up for grabs. The result of all the haggling may actually, as Krug suggests, kill the home page. But unlike a typical dead thing, it doesn’t go away. Like a zombie, it is reanimated into an unrecognizable abomination of its formal self.
You have 1/20th of a Second. Go.
The average time a new visitor (who comes to a site through the home page) spends somewhere in the neighborhood of 30-35 seconds on the page. User research tells us that people form lasting impressions of the quality of a website within 50 milliseconds.
That’s 1/20th of a second. It isn’t nearly enough time to process, well, pretty much anything except, apparently, a lasting impression.
There is one thing that can be processed in that amount of time: The presence or absence of clutter – the very thing that all the haggling over home page real estate tends to produce.
Like zombies, they also slowly suck the brains out of the user – making the home page manifestly harder to comprehend.
The purpose of a home page
To prevent this tendency, organizations and everyone who has a say in how the website is designed must realize what a home page is intended to do. A home page for a typical B2B or B2C site needs to do two things very well:
- Convey the big picture
- Speed people along their way.
Example 1: Hulu does an excellent job providing access to relevant video entertainment while minimizing noise.
This can be challenging for larger organizations that must communicate distinct messages to and accommodate the discrete tasks of many audiences – especially if they don’t have internal buyoff on priorities, or if they do not understand the purpose of the home page in the first place.
Example 2: Although improved from it’s previous version (on right), BravoTV still suffers from a significant lack of focus created by a failure to establish a clear hierarchy.
These organizations ought not rely on the home page to have a message and support each and every task for each and every one of their audiences. That produces clutter, which is enough to form a lasting negative impression within 1/20th of a second.
(As an aside — contrary to popular belief, clutter isn’t the result of simply having “a lot of stuff.” Instead, clutter is the consequence of failing to establish a clear priority and hierarchy. It is created, not by a multitude of objects or content, but by confusion.)
To serve all the audiences – even the important ones for whom the website was not primarily built – companies must ensure enough time and skill is applied to a comprehensive, consistent, and intuitive navigation – most of all from the perspective of all of the intended primary audiences.
Without a commitment to a process that recognizes that, they’re just tilting at the windmills – or worse – fighting a battle against a horde of undead without as much as a zombie survival guide.
Related Links:
Top Ten Guidelines for Homepage Usability
Don’t Make Me Think
How to Kill a Zombie
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Mobile Commerce is Here: Ebay Generates $380 Million in Mobile Sales
John Keehler
As a pioneer in mobile commerce, Ebay recently announced that between the iPhone application and the mobile version of the Ebay website, it’s already generated $380 million in sales this year from mobile commerce.
Damage Control: When Social Media Attacks
Brian Kress
Social media can be tough on companies. From bad products to bad customer service, the citizens of the social web are not afraid to voice their concerns. As with all things in life, the most important thing a company can do when blindsided is respond well – assertively and proactively. This post has three examples of companies that do just that.
Payola Regulations Extended to Bloggers
Jill Krumsick
The FTC is cracking down on the transparency of blog endorsements. With fines of up to $11,000, bloggers must now disclose any compensation agreements for reviews or recommendations within their posts.
Insight of the Day: Women On More Social Networks Than Men
Jeff Whang
In a beautifully presented graph, the blog “Information is Beautiful” takes a look at the gender balance on various social networking sites. The takeaway? Women dominate the social web. Click through to hear some speculation as to why.
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In anticipation of the first invites going out for Google Wave, earlier this week Shawn Scarsdale, a Multimedia Developer at Click Here, gave a great presentation to the agency to help us all understand this new platform. As of yesterday, the Google Wave invites are out, and already showing up on eBay. We thought this was a great opportunity to share what we learned and answer questions you might have:
Q: What is Google Wave?
A: How email would look if it was invented today… and much more
This was the simple challenge the Google Wave team started out with: What does email look like in the 21st century? The answer was Google Wave, where communication is collaborative, brings in the real-time aspect of instant messaging and the distribution of communication that social media has made ubiquitous. If you prefer the no-nonsense explanation of what the Google Wave is, watch this video.
Q: Why is Google Wave Important?
A: It competes with important platforms like Facebook and Twitter
The jury is still out on whether or not Google Wave truly poses a threat to Facebook and Twitter, but consider that many segments of the online population have already replaced email communication with instant messaging or social networks like Facebook. Google Wave is offering many of the same real-time communication tools. What remains to be seen is if Google can achieve the same scale as these popular platforms. They haven’t been able to do it with some of their other tools.
Q: What Are the Opportunities for my Brand on Google Wave?
A: Gadgets, Robots and Embeds
The folks at Mashable have one of the best Google Wave guides I’ve seen. Beyond the core functionality of Google Wave, the guide outlines three distinct categories of Google Wave features worth paying attention to:
Gadgets: These are fully-functional applications that are shared by a Wave. Most iGoogle and OpenSocial applications will work in Google Wave. An example of a Gadget would be a group poll application or games.
Robots: Robots are essentially an extra “person” in a Wave, but they’re not a person, they’re an automated “robot.” Think similar to the instant messaging bots you might be familiar with.
Embeds: The easiest way to understand embeds is that this is how you take a Wave out into a third-party website. Similar to the way you “embed” a YouTube video on any website.
Q: What Should I be Doing Now?
A: Follow the conversation, request an invitation and get your developers involved
There will be no shortage of conversation about Google Wave and possibilities over the coming weeks and months. It will be important to stay current on these conversations, as we’re likely to see some very smart folks dreaming up some very smart ideas on what Google Wave will eventually be. In the meantime, submit your invitation request, as Google tends to roll these out, well, in “waves.” Most importantly, have your developers or your agency’s developers investigating the Google Wave APIs.
I’m sure we’ll be posting about this subject again in the near future… I can’t help but think that even if Google Wave doesn’t replace email for the 21st century, it will certainly throw down a challenge for our communication tools to evolve, and for us to evolve with them.
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