Coming soon: augmented reality

Mobile innovation

Each major advance in distribution technology over the past 100 years has spawned a class of media upstarts that grew into giants.

Now a new era of media innovation is under way, one with mobile at the center. The disruptors in this category are capitalizing on four powerful trends: local, social, photo-centric and mobile -- or, as I call it, "LoSoPhoMo." As this group establishes a beachhead in your pocket, it's pivoting into more traditional formats. Let's look at four examples:

LOSE IT 
Lose It is a disruptor in health and wellness media. It debuted in 2008 as an iPhone app built around a simple premise: It calculates the number of calories you need to maintain your weight and then you can use its service to help track what you consume -- ideally, a slightly lower number -- and tap into your social network for support. The app, which is free, has millions of users and its parent company, FitNow, is bringing the Lose It brand to other platforms.

Amazingly, Lose It didn't have a web app when it launched, but has since added one. This year the founders also published a brand-new diet book as well. Android and other launches are in the works. And it recently linked up with Withings, a bathroom scale that connects to wireless networks and can even tweet your weight.

TWIT 
Leo Laporte is no stranger to tech media. He saw it bloom with ZDTV, a tech-focused cable network that later became TechTV and then faded once it couldn't find an audience.

Since 2005, however, he has built This Week in Tech, or Twit, from the ground up into a tech-media powerhouse, thanks to a suite of shows that attracted a strong following and advertiser loyalty. The company started with a focus on mobile, its popular audio podcasts riding the coattails of the iPod wave. Later it added video (live and recorded) as more sophisticated devices gained in popularity, and now Laporte is building beyond mobile to become a significant position on set-top devices, such as the Roku.

ANGRY BIRDS
 In 2010 it was virtually impossible to miss Angry Birds. The year-old mobile game has been downloaded 50 million times since launch and is already a global addiction. Every day people collectively play the game for an astounding 200 million minutes, according to Rovio, its publisher.

While its roots may be in mobile, it's now a popular desktop download in the Mac App Store and the birds' status as pop-culture icons led to a line of plush toys and a forthcoming Mattel board game. So it's no surprise that a movie and TV show could be next for the flying birds and pigs, making it arguably the first pop-culture juggernaut to originate on mobile devices.

INSTAGRAM
 Finally, there's Instagram, a mobile social network for photos that can be styled to look like an old Polaroid or Kodachrome. The service, only 10 months old, already has more than 1.75 million users. Media companies such as NPR have jumped in and now Instagram is also attracting brands.

These four examples illustrate how "mobile first" can be a blueprint for media disruptors, and with the market for smartphones set to explode, there's no doubt we will see others. But whether pure plays will continue their reign or whether traditional media companies can use their brands to create new models, a la News Corp.'s The Daily, will be worth our attention, too.

@adage

5 rules for Social Business

1. Trust is the new social currency. Trust drives influence, engagement, and relationships.  People and organizations must earn trust through their actions across their relationships.  Trust can be expended to gain influence, create engagement, and foster relationships.  Trust can be taken away through lack of credibility, bad behaviour, and dishonesty.
2. Social is a cultural shift. Social is not a fad.  The growing preference for engagement through social channels drives new relationship models.  Social has moved beyond the tipping point.  How social evolves and permeates our lives is the question.  Expect a smaller but strident anti-social movement to counter this current trend.  Social is here to stay and is one of the five forces of consumer tech entering the enterprise.
3. Building community is the goal. People and organizations seek a sense of belonging.  Communities form around personal ecosystems that transcend geographies, time, and individual status.  Communities provide the force multipliers to amplify messages through advocates and detractors.  Communities require curation and nurturing for success.  Once you have a community, organizations and individuals must earn trust to create social currency.
4. P2P is today’s reality. B2B and B2C are dead.  Social business is conducted through Peer-to-peer (P2P) relationships.  Attempts to stove pipe individuals into forced-fit, artificial market segmentations, fail because each individual brings multiple roles to the community.  Each role brings a new perspective and a set of expectations in customer experience.
5. Social business is just good business. While the moniker social will eventually go away, business has always been social.  Breakthroughs in technology and cultural adoption drive the social business phenomenon.  However, business can not be conducted without relationships.  Social business will be omniscient.

@Gene Delibero&Ray Wang

Social Media ROI

Often, our industry can appear complicated, and yearns for simplicity.  One such technique to glean simplicity is to develop frameworks which the corporate social strategist can then apply to achieve their business goals. I’ve been working on this “ROI Pyramid” framework for a few months now, and am ready to share in greater detail than on my keynote at LeWeb (slides and video) where I introduced this to the public for the first time.

[The novice provide executives with engagement data --causing themselves to be stuck in the churn of obtaining more followers and fans --without a clear business goal]

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140 social strategists around the globe at enterprise class size companies indicated their top internal objectives for 2011 is to “Create ROI Measurements”

Measurement, the Number One Priority, Is Important to Social Business
In our recent research report on the buyer of social business, (read research report: Career Path of the Corporate Social Strategist) we learned that measurement is one of the most important aspects to social business, in fact the top priority stated by 48% of corporations was “Creating ROI Measurements” for internal programs, (see data).

• Experimental mediums require proof they work. The corporate social strategist is constantly being challenge as they grasp more budgets to prove their efforts and teams are making a difference.  In addition to proving these new mediums are worth the time spent, the corporate social strategist is being challenge by their peers in incumbent positions who may be giving up effort and budget to support social efforts.
• Down markets put greater scrutiny on spending. As spending across the board reduces in a recession, focus on proving new efforts is required by all parties involved.  Those that can effectively measure improvements can make the business case they can truly obtain more budget.
• The Corporate Social Strategist Must Develop Frameworks Now. Most corporations are already forming in the “Hub and Spoke” formation (see data) which means a small cross-functional team is helping a variety of business units.  Establishing a standard way of measuring now is important before corporations move into “Dandelion” where measurement strategy fragments into spokes.

[The seasoned professional provides executives with business metrics first. They know fans and followers aren't a business goal, but what you do with them is]

Yet, Measuring Social Media Is Challenging
While we learned that measurement is the key, we found (see data in slide 20) that 65% of corporations are using engagement data as the top used metric, with only 22% using product revenue as a metric.

• Excess variety of data options, and disparate platforms. Due to the thousands of applications, dozens of social networks, and millions of combinations corporations are stymied by how to make sense of this disparate space.  In addition to the variety of choices to deploy, each has a different set of ways to measure from fans, engagement, followers and the like.
• Technical limitations vast in a fast changing environment. As if the choices weren’t staggering enough, there are significant challenges to measuring.  Corporations are unable to apply web analytics tools on third party sites they don’t have ownership on, and therefore are often relegated to manually counting data, or relying on one of the 150 brand monitoring platforms to scrape it for them.
• Hard to tie engagement to bottom and top line efforts. In addition to being a new program, understanding of this disruptive set of technologies causes friction.  Additionally, social media is frequently known for driving awareness (second to ads) through WOM then through customer engagement through interactions –yet rarely tied to transactions or ecommerce which often occur on a disparate platform.

Apply the Social Media “ROI Pyramid” In Your Measurement Strategy

(Above: First, recognize there are three types of role, all who need different types of information about your social business efforts)

(Above: Secondly, understand the high level types of data they need in order to be actionable)

(Above: Finally, assemble this information using the metrics and creating formulas. The above are just examples, as customization within every corporation is required)

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Matrix: Understand the Social Media ROI Pyramid

	Who it’s for	How to generate	What no one tells you
Business Metrics	Executives, and everyone else who supports them, which of course, is everyone.	This is a roll up formula of Social Media Analytics. Use tracking software or referral traffic to infer how customer engagement moves down marketing funnel. Existing CSAT methods should also incorporate social channels, and measure a sample of sentiment from customer communities. Cost reduction is a formula based on reduced costs and time in these lower-cost channels.	The pyramid is smaller at top as their are less metrics to give to busy executives. There’s really only three: increased top line, reputation, and reduced costs. Compare these lower cost channel to existing marketing efforts to get additional budget, and benchmark over time.
Social Media Analytics	The Corporate Social Strategist and the internal stakeholders and internal clients (leaders of the ‘spokes’ in the hub and spoke model)	This is a formula based on Engagement Data (the tier below), there are no industry standards, so pick one and benchmark over time	We’ve identified there are 16 analytics, but there are many more in existence, you’ll have to create these formulas on your own
Engagement Data	Those who are deploying social media: community managers, developers, designers, agency partners, IT.	This data is already created by many social tools, and a variety of analytics are already available to gather this info from brand monitoring to the analytics provided by Facebook and Twitter and others. Don’t forget to include traditional web analytics. Read our research report on Social Marketing Analytics to learn about the existing formulas.	Don’t ever give this to executives until you’ve first given them business metrics or expect many months focused on ‘more followers’ without a business purpose.

(Above: Here’s a single slide with all three columns of info on it which you can use as an instant reference)

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Five Steps To Start Using the ROI Pyramid Now
Corporations must develop a standardized way to measure first based on business goals.  Next developing a standard way that the entire company and agency partners can think about measurement is key in 2011 as social business will fragment to every customer touchpoint.

1. Start with a Business Goal in Mind. Expect significant challenges to occur if your social media efforts don’t have a business goal, so clearly you should first start with a purpose.  It’s easy to spot when this happens as the goal will be on getting ‘more fans and followers’ rather than moving the business needle forward. Start with a clear business goal and define ‘what success looks like’ or don’t start at all.
2. Give the Right Data to the Right Roles. Not all roles require the same types of data, and be sure to give the right type of data to the right segment.  While all the formulas of the pyramid should be accessible by the corporation, understand the viewpoints needed from each vantage point.
3. Frequency and Quantity of Data Varies in Pyramid Tiers. Recognize that executives need reports less frequently that the deployment teams, hence their size on the pyramid.  Also, there is more data needed at the bottom tiers than at the top, remember the top tiers are roll-up formulas from bottom tiers.
4. Know the Customization of Formulas is Required. This industry lacks any form of standards, so don’t wait years for an industry wide formula to appear as it likely won’t even apply directly to your business needs.  Invest the time to create the social media analytics needed to support your business goals now, which you should expect will take massaging over a period of time.
5. Benchmark Over Time and Cascade to All Spokes. The specific numbers aren’t as important as the trend lines over months, quarters, and years, yet in order to obtain these, you must start now.  Looking at how these numbers trend over time will provide more insight to the teams involved.

@Jeremiah Owyang

Confirmation | Rethinking the role of landing pages in conversion | James Niehaus | Salesforce.com

Confirmation Rethinking the role of landing pages in conversion James Niehaus Salesforce.com

Small Business and SM

The University of Maryland’s Smith School of Business looked at the relationship between social media and small businesses and found that the technology adoption rates in the U.S. have doubled in the past year from 12% to 24%.

The data comes straight from the university’s third installment to its Small Business Success Index report and is based on a December 2009 telephone survey of 500 small business owners. Adoption rate calculations are compared against a baseline report conducted in December 2008.

The study concludes that nearly one in five small business owners are integrating social media into their business processes — Facebook and LinkedIn were the most popular sites. In fact, 45% of surveyed respondents even believe their social media initiatives will pay off financially in 12 months or less.

As the graphic below details, the small business owners who are using social media are primarily engaging in social media through company pages (75%) and status updates (69%) on Facebook or LinkedIn. What’s especially intriguing is that a much smaller percentage of respondents — just 16% — are using Twitter as a customer service channel.

Another interesting notion is that small business owners now believe social media can help them on the lead generation front, and that is the primary motivating factor for engaging in these new customer service channels. So while half of surveyed respondents found the time it takes to use social media sites more daunting than expected, 61% are still putting in the hours and making active efforts to identify new customers.

Clearly social media has become a valuable tool for small businesses, but we’re especially curious to see how Twitter adoption rates fluctuate over the time. While we expect more small businesses to use Twitter as a customer service channel in the year ahead, as it stands, Facebook and LinkedIn have become the predominant platforms for small business owners.

@Mashable

Online impression it´s to die!

Why should we have to change the online metrics?

Media Are Different
It makes sense to use impression metrics to compare one 30-second TV ad spot to another. It makes no sense to use impressions when comparing a TV spot to a website banner impression to a magazine ad page. Probably 90% of what makes each of those media placements special is unique to media and how their viewers, users and readers consume them. TV is all about sight, sound and motion. It is about shared experiences; it is passive, leaning back. The web is all about leaning forward, interactivity and declaring intentions. Radio is often just in the background. Magazines are glossy, sensual, personal. Defining the economic comparability of those various media by the 10% that is the same, distorts their relative value and creates a false sense of equivalency.

Exposures Are Different
Cross-media impressions comparisons are bad enough, but what about using impressions to create comparability among very different types of media exposures? Impressions are not the best way to compare interstitials on NYTimes.com to a corporate logo on a pro golfer's visor promotion to Facebook buttons. It doesn't matter which exposure is better; -- they are all clearly very different. The NYTimes.com interstitial owns your attention while you wait for your news. The Facebook button is one of a dozen more ad-like images fighting for your attention while you check our friends' status and photos. The pro golfer visor logo is one of hundreds of latent logo "impressions" that you see every 15 minutes when watching a golf tournament on TV. Who can argue that each of their impressions are comparable?

No More Scarcity
Focusing on impressions as the common currency of media made some sense when all media impressions were scarce and as a rule folks were not consuming three or four different media all at once as they often do today. Decades ago it required printing presses, broadcast licenses or transmission towers to deliver media, and their owners -- newspaper companies, TV and radio broadcasters -- made sure to create a limited number of ad units that they charged a lot for. Today, the internet and digital networks have made media distribution plentiful and cheap, and impressions have become plentiful and cheap as well. When impressions were scarce as gold, they had currency value. Not now, when they've become as plentiful as paper.

Back-end Overtaking Impressions on the Web
Web advertising is probably the most impression-standardized media of all. The industry adopted impression-based measurement and cost-per-impression measurement as its primary selling and buying metrics from almost the very beginning. However, as everyone who has bought or sold web display ads know, back end metrics, like cost-per-click and cost-per-action and cost-per-conversion are the real drivers of the economics in the category. Cost-per-impression campaigns are almost always "backed into" from results-based measurements. As more media channels become "web-ified," impression metrics will continue to lose ground to back-end results.

Clickz/IAB/Adage

Nielsen shows how iAds are more effective than TV spots

A Nielsen study shows iPhone users are paying attention, while TV views — eh, not so much. iAds started around 7 months ago on our iDevices and now there are effectiveness studies showing up, this one fromCampbell’s (the soup maker).

People exposed to one of Campbell’s iAds were more than twice as likely to recall it than those who had seen a Campbell’s TV ad. This five-week Nielsen study showed that consumers who saw an iAd remembered Campbell’s brand five times more often than TV ad respondents and the ad’s message three times more often. iAd respondents were four times as likely to to purchase Campbell’s than the TV viewers. Users also liked the ad five times more than the TV commercial.

Anyway, Nielsen didn't say how many people were involved in the survey, only that the TV and mobile surveys were conducted separately and it was a five-week analysis.


By CNet

The New Next: 2011 Moblie Influencers Predictions by TrendsSpotting

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

The New Next: 2011 Moblie Influencers Predictions by TrendsSpotting

View more presentations from Taly Weiss.

The Daily, the first iNewspaper

Rupert Murdoch, american media magnate has introduced today "The Daily", his foray into an iPad-only newspaper. “New times demand new journalism,” he says. The challenge he says, is to “take the best of traditional journalism—competitive shoe leather joranlism, a skeptical eye, and combine it with the best technology such as 360 degree photographs. The iPad demands that we completely rethink our craft.”

Murdoch notes that a growing population of news consumers no longer read print or even watch TV. His aim with The Daily is to combine “the magic of great newspapers” with the magic of technology. “The Daily is not a legacy barnd moving from the print to the digital world. We have license to experiment. We believe The Daily will be the model for how stories are told.”

A new edition will come out every day, with updates throughout the day. it will feature a carousel navigation that looks like Coverflow, an dinclude video and 360-degree photographs.

Since there are no trucks and no printing costs, The Daily will cost 14 cents a day or about $1 a week. The first two weeks are free, thanks to a sponsorship by Verizon. You will be able to download it live at noon ET.

(Tech Crunch)