The Interweb Unanchored – Decentralization of Brands Online

My parents are from the generation of Americans who still use the Yellow Pages. Not YellowPages.com or the mobile app, but the actual physical printed Yellow Pages which is as thick as… well… a phone book. Ask them for a neighbor’s phone number or local restaurant address and out comes the Big Book of Information.

They aren’t Luddites. They have a computer and online access. If I offer to look it up on my iPhone, it’s almost a race to see who can find the answer first. And to be honest, the yellow book is fairly effective. It may not always be up-to-date, but it is faster than walking to the computer and looking it up online. It is just about as fast as typing into a smartphone. Same content, different access points.

Despite its efficiencies, most people younger than my parents would never think of pulling out a printed resource = phone book, encyclopedia, dictionary. I have been thinking about this a lot recently as I contemplate the future of the Interweb, specifically the role of branded websites. 15 years ago every brand needed a web destination. In the early days there wasn’t a solid rationale, but everyone was doing it and those URLs were going fast. The Dotcom Virtual Land Rush from 1995 – 2000 saw most companies establishing their online turf, investing a significant amount of money into making them a nice place to visit.

People looking for information about your company/product/service? Send them to your website. Want consumers to enter a sweepstakes or get a coupon? Promote that URL on the package. Selling stuff? Remember to add the https to your links. Running online banner ads? Better have a place to send people if they click on them.

The last 5 years has seen a decentralization of Brand Spaces online = social networks, user-generated content, mobile devices, networked TVs and video game systems. These force companies to contemplate life beyond the grounded, controlled brand website. First step was creating mini-brand destinations = Facebook fan pages, mobile sites, Twitter feeds, Youtube channels. But the amount of user-generated and socially-connected content is quickly overwhelming brands and paid search keywords won’t fix it. Brands cannot just stake out land plots and hope consumers stumble onto them. Relegating consumer conversations to your Facebook tab will have limited impact.

I watch people younger than me interact online and it seems the very idea of brand destinations are alien to them. They still want to interact with brands, but on their terms via some type of marketing osmosis that we are just starting to decipher. But it is apparent that they expect brands to find them, not vice versa.

Although there is still a need for branded areas to aggregate content, distribution of that content is becoming crucial. Social networks have paved that path. At some point search engines will have to focus on delivering content to users, not sending users to the content. Mobile and other access devices in the home don’t require entire websites formatted to fit their screens, just their content. Your brand site will transform into a data repository feeding the rest of the Interweb.

Brand sites are destined to become Yellow Pages 2.0. Many companies will fight this trend and pump dollars into maintaining them, redesigning them, and attracting people to them (and wondering why their traffic continues to decline). Your Facebook tabs and Youtube channels are next. I give it 5 years for the transition to become apparent. In 10 years, the only people visiting brand sites will be old people like me. Start planning your exit strategy now.

Google Makes the Interweb Faster and Lazier

Wow there's a lot of hoopla over the announcement of Google Instant (positive, neutral, and downright indifferent). Auto-populating content based on what you half-type isn't really new. I blame my iPhone's autocomplete spelling function for completely destroying my ability to type on any other keyboard. Now we can apply the same principles of devolution to finding stuff online.

Google's concept around saving "350 million hours" of user time a year -- since we won't wait 2-3 seconds for every search result to appear -- is what has me worried. Over the years we have jumped from dial-up modem speeds to faster dial-up modem speeds, from broadband to faster broadband. Now we are moving from real time to faster real time.

Which is great progress for someone who's been around the Internet awhile. But to users like my kids, who are just starting to interact online, it becomes a starting reference point. Everything else is going to seem slow. Even if it isn't. Instantaneous is the new Fast.

What's faster than instantaneous? Not having to take any action, starting a whole new race into predictive content. Why go through the whole pain-in-the-ass process of actually seeking information? Shouldn't the Interweb just provide it to me when I need it, before I realize I need it?

Predictive Content has been online marketing's holy grail for a long time. From Amazon.com's "you might like" shopping lists, to behavioral targeting of ad banners, to Facebook's "your friends like this" recommendations. Everyone wants to provide you with information that they think you want.

So what happens when we solely rely on this type of content? The Interweb definitely feels faster. And easier. And slothier. On an extreme, it's dangerously close to eliminating Free Will. Or at least Searching Will.

There's already an entire grey market of companies reselling your website browsing cookie data to ad networks. Combine this with all the Facebook "likes" you are clicking across the Internet. Add a healthy dose of "we know you like this, and these other people like this also, and they browsed here, so you must be interested in the same things" logic.

Which is all good and fine, until we reach the point where we don't actually take independent action online. We lose our autonomy when we stop proactively seeking content. When I start consuming the same content as my peers -- just because it is fed to me and easier to consume -- then these predictive algorithms lose their edge. The content they recommend gets marginalized. Our cookies get fat and lazy. Our social content becomes generic groupthink. And the Internet will start to feel so, well, boring.

The big question is at that point, will any of us remember how to actually find content on our own? If only there were a web site for that...

"S-" is the new "E-"

Remember back in the day when Cyber was the suffix du jour? We had Cybercafes, Cyberspace, Cybermalls, Cybersex. Cyber, cyber, cyber. Then one day Cyber became sooooo 1996 and we switched over to the more modest, less likely to mock, e-. eCommerce, eBanking, eBooks, eCRM, eCoupons, eMail, eToys, eBay, e, e, e. It became synonymous with "something you can do in real life, but on the Internet instead!" The fastest way to distinguish that your program or service was cutting edge and different.

Well, e is soooo 2008. Please welcome the new prefix 2.0 ... Sesame Street interlude here ...

s- !

Yes s, as in Social of the networking variety. Social media, with Facebook and Twitter as the poster children, is finally incorporating itself into standard online marketing strategies. Can't figure out how to cram your marketing into social media? Cram social media into your marketing! Just add an s to it.

(Once again Mobile gets dethroned so close to the finish. Bye bye m-, we barely new ya.)

Here's a couple s terms coming your way in the next fiscal marketing year:

sCommerce
Sure some marketers are tapping into social networks to enhance their purchasing experience [Jansport w/Fbook Connect] or promote their sales promotions [Dell, local malls].

But the new trend is cramming eCommerce into the social networks themselves. Bring the shopping cart, cash register, and UPS truck to the consumers, if you can lure them away from tagging old high school photos long enough to actually buy something. 1800 Flowers just launched an e-commerce page on Fbook. Other retailers are sure to quickly follow.

Does this position Fbook as the next Amazon.com? Can they actually charge enough commission to make a decent living? Too early to tell, but at least it provides something new to dangle in front of the investor community.

So what happens when Microblogging meets Micropayments? Who will be the first to figure out an eCommerce transaction via Twitter? [hint: Pizza Hut]

More importantly, will they create a funny name for it (twuys requiring twitcash)? Perhaps Paypal should buy Twitter to protect their eCash from sCash. The South Bay Community Network might just be sitting on a golden URL.

sMail
It's like eMail but less trackable! My Fbook inbox and Twitter direct messages are just as congested as my Outlook. Which means they are now prime candidates for marketing clutter.

Actually, I think limiting emails to 140 characters could be the most productive technology solution since charging for faxes per page. I have no problem implementing private tweets as the new corporate messaging platform. Even better if attachments are limited to 140KB.

sCRM
Finally, my favorite fuzzy acronym. CRM on its own has a hundred definitions and receives the most hesitant not-sure-exactly-what-you-are-talking-about headnods per capita of any marketing term. eCRM is often pitched as the solution if you don't have a CRM program.

Where CRM focuses on the lifetime value of a consumer, eCRM focuses on using the internet to cheaply maintain that relationship. All of which is very one-to-one. Where is the viral word of mouth influence in that?

But add an s to CRM and now we're talking viral. I envision sCRM as maintaining a relationship with consumers who have the highest likelihood to socialize your brand. Thus you could potentially reach a much larger audience through key influencers, without messing around with double opt-ins and database fields. Pyramid scheme relationship marketing. Amway would be impressed.

Of course, you need a plan for actually identifying those influencers and communicating with them. Which is how the new breed of sMarketing agencies are born.

sConclusion
Our industry loves buzzwords. Social continues to rank at the top of the hype list, destined to be ingrained in your marketing strategies for the near term.

So pick you favorite marketing term, add an s, and be amazed when your programs are recognized as the future of marketing.

Facebook is Gettin' Pubes!

It seems our little Facebook has finally reached puberty, grown some hair in new places, and is ready to become an adult entity on the Interweb. Here are some recent grown up problems it is encountering:

Online Urban Legends have started hitting user status posts and are spreading like viral wildfire. For instance this one, which is the variation of a hoax that has been around since at least 2000:

Isn't that the same guy who hides used syringes under gas pump handles? It is interesting to watch the viral spread in real time, as other Fbook friends repost the same cut-n-paste warning. You know the drill. Someone posts it, others repost, someone debunks it, it shows up 3 months later with a slightly different plot. Two years later your parents warn you about it.

Phishing is also affecting Fbook email users. The last two weeks have seen a huge increase in Facebook email phishing attacks. Get a random link from your friend, click it, and go to a fake Fbook page asking you to log in again. Give up you username/password and within seconds all your Fbook friends receive the same email message/link. Then publicly apologize to all your friends, thus admitting your susceptibility to anything with a hyperlink. Rinse and repeat.

These phishers get extra credit for bundling password scamming with email spamming, specifically to a group who has been "protected" from spam via the closed Fbook network.

What's next? Viruses from picking your Top 5 Things No One Else Cares About? Those are just fun little quizes and games, right? Well -- unlike those Free Screensaver downloads that fostered widespread installation of annoying adware and pop-up ads -- these cute little Fbook apps have the potential to do a whole lot more harm. Have you ever thought twice about clicking Allow before playing with them?

Recent announcements that Fbook will allow these 3rd party apps to tap into even more user information is another sign of TechnoEvil to come:

The move would allow developers to build applications and services that -- with users' permission -- access user videos, photos, notes, and comments. The move would be a significant change for the social-networking site, which had previously retained tight control over the site and how developers interact with it.

To allow developers to take advantage of the free feature, Facebook users would have to give the companies access to their data, and users' privacy settings would extend to new services built, according to the report.

At least Fbook isn't in the habit of changing their privacy policies, which could provide these developers access to even more personal data after they are installed. Wait a second...

All it takes is one rogue developer to create an awesome fun-to-use app, which gets spread across the Fbook universe, only to have it turn into a private info carnivore. Maybe a virtual screensaver that pulls images from your friends' Fbook photo albums, but behind-the-scenes is also reading all your Fbook email messages? Or analyzing your status posts to determine when you will be out of town for an extended time?

But at least the damage would be contained to Facebook.com. Unless you consider Facebook Connect, which allows you to extend your Fbook personae to other websites. Primarily by logging onto those site with your Fbook username/password, allowing you to interact with your Fbook friends there, or push site content/actions back to your Fbook page. Red Bull has a good example.

Did we mention it will be leveraged to enable collaborative shopping on e-commerce sites? You know, the ones with your credit card information...

Sure this might all be unnecessary paranoia, but hackers love a challenge. Fbook's pristine natural private Utopia is just begging to be deflowered. Try not to get knocked up in the process.

The Oceania Webcams Are Now Live

From Techweb:

Google Maps Now Show Views From Webcams

The latest layer to be turned on in Google Maps is one for webcams. Just click on the “More” button on the top right of each map right next to the “Traffic” button. When you do that, it shows you thumbnails from different public Webcams around the world as tracked by Webcams.travel.

You don’t see an actual video, just the most recent still image captured by the Webcam. But this can come in handy when you want to actually see the traffic on a major highway yourself, or how the waves look like at the beach. While you are at it, you can also click on the other layers, such as Wikipedia entries, photos Youtube videos, and public transit.

From George Orwell:

Behind Winston's back the voice from the telescreen was still babbling away about pig-iron and the overfulfilment of the Ninth Three-Year Plan. The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it, moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment.

How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live -- did live, from habit that became instinct -- in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.

Twitter: The Devolution of the Casual Game Portal

In January I posted about the first interesting marketing effort on Twitter = Flying Dog Brewery's Post & Win Some Free Shit microblogging promotion.

Since then, Dell launched a Twitter program to distribute follower-only deals via tweets. And Coupon Tweet utilizes Twitter's public search engine to aggregate tweets from any merchandiser posting coupon offers.

But perhaps the killer app is just around the corner. A variety of social games have emerged, per this post from Techcrunch:

Follow @TwitBrain and get served calculations on a regular basis (like 3 per hour). If you’re the first person to reply with the correct answer, you’ll earn one point and hopefully make your way to Internet fame (well, not really) by getting on the top 10 list.

Follow @BeatMyTweet and do the exact same thing, but this time with word scrambles. Warning: it’s ridiculously easy so be fast if you want to be one of the first 10 to reply with the correct answer.

Casual games have always been the rage online. Social casual games were the first true widget hits (still pining for Facebook Scrabulous?) The idea that this extends to microblogging is not so far fetched. Granted it is a slimmed down text-only version, but what other technology could have such a broad instantaneous reach? Plus it provides a real world reward for setting up a Twitter account. Just like American Idol text mssg voting catapulted SMS into the average American living room.

This could be the simple approach that makes Twitter relevant to the masses. It extends the social gaming aspect that gave Facebook its viral energy and provides a mass audience as well.

Microtimesuck may become the buzzword of 2009.

iMedia Brand Summit Reflections & Forecasts

So I just attended my first iMedia Summit as a brand marketer (as opposed to the agency side). Overall very impressed with the level of presenters and topics. Usually I attend interactive conferences and don't learn a damn thing. Not because I'm so smart. Mainly they just regurgitate the same case studies and industry insights that have been beaten into us over time. Which makes you feel smart but really just makes you lazy.

So rather than tweet away and recap each session, I thought I'd provide the insights that floated to the top. Performing 90 1-minute interviews with media sales reps (the Speed Pitching session) gives you a fairly good overview of where things are heading.

Ads in "Free" iPhone Apps are the Next Widgets
Encountered at least 5 vendors who are now selling ad space in free iPhone apps. Which just proves the theory that anything a consumer stares at longer than 5 seconds is prime advertising real estate. iPhone app hype continues to rise faster than iPhone penetration. If you buy into this then you better get a free iPhone for your CMO so he can review the creative.

Twitter is the Next Podcast
Remember when podcasting was going to be the next big thing? It was like radio, only with a more limited audience. Podcasting still serves a specific niche, but it really isn't the mass channel that was originally hyped.

I like Twitter. I think status posting (or microblogging if you want it to sound more impressive to your boss) is here to stay. But it doesn't make a mass marketing channel from day 1. The hype we thrust upon these new communication channels prevents them from really maturing and finding their place. Best thing you can do is ignore all those tweets and let them at least reach puberty.

Mobile is the Next Mobile
The longest-running emerging trend on Broadway. Soooo many mobile vendors. All still small and niche. None can explain what they do in less than 60 seconds. Most won't be around in 12 months. Rinse and repeat.

The Return of the Streaming Microwebisodecast (with product placement)
There are a ton of video production houses going rogue and starting to work directly with brand marketers -- bypassing the creative agencies and media shops (and their high budgets).

Special thanks to last year's Hollywood writer's strike for providing a new outlet for quality video creative. Which means brands are in charge of creating their own branded videos. Minus the hilarious agency creative team, big name director, and week-long stays at Shutters On The Beach. I wonder how long this trend will last...

Bigger Banners are Better but Consumers Still Don't Click Them
Research companies are still presenting the insight that bigger banners perform better in brand effectiveness studies. Geezus, no kidding. That was in my first Dynamic Logic report circa 2001. And the second. And the 157th.

Google/Doubleclick reports that the average banner CTR is now 0.10%. The norm previously had been 0.15%. That means that now 1 of every 1,000 people click your ads. As Google encouraged us: "This decrease seems to have stabilized." Yeah, because the water on my driveway froze solid, but luckily it isn't getting any solider. Is it even statistically possible to get below 0.10% of anything?

The World does not Need a 500K Banner (file size, not price)
Seriously, someone tried to convince me that a 500K square banner would be awesome. Now, a $500K banner I might be intrigued by. Maybe for next year's Superbowl.

Your Email Inbox is the Next Social RSS Reader
I now have email inboxes on Facebook and Linkedkin, at work, and at home. I need to be notified of friends' Twitter posts, Facebook wall posts, friend invites, Linkedin profile updates, blog comments, and when I am tagged in bad high school photos.

All of these create alerts that I can have routed to one email address. So rather than checking all these sites (plus my phone SMS, and my iPhone apps, and my Blackberry), I have them forwarded to my home email. Which is forwarded to my iPhone email. So while away from my computer I know everything going on in my social networks. No different than an RSS reader that gets updates from all the websites/blogs that I have tagged.

If I can get that RSS reader to send daily summaries to my email address then I will be completely decentralized centralized.

The Recession has not Hit the Swag Industry
My tally of free stuff:

• Best Swag = free Zoot running shoes
• Lamest = 5 inch stack of branded Post-it Notes
• Most Repetitive = branded USB thumbdrives
• Yummiest = chocolate-covered pretzels (eaten)
• Sort of Yummy = fortune cookies containing sales call to actions (eaten as last resort)
• Most Relaxing = wooden foot massager with peppermint lotion
• Least Relaxing = branded Rubik's Cube
• Vaguest = leather desktop holder for something (pens? business cards? wooden foot massager?) with embedded clock
• Most Retro = large zip-up portfolio with my name on it
• Closest to Downright Bribery = branded $30 Visa Gift Card. Or maybe it was a stimulus card
• Most Useful = empty box with paid postage to mail it all back home

That's it. I'd definitely come back to the Florida Gulf in February next year. Despite my sarcasm, there was a lot of good information and insights. And some sort of drama at 3 AM on the 4th floor. But what goes on at iMedia stays at iMedia. At least until the webcasts are uploaded.

Spending Some Time at the Information Superhighway Rest Stop

My 4 year old recently received a digital camera for her birthday. It's a cheap one-step-above-disposable camera that takes crappy photos and even crappier videos. But for a preschooler it's pretty cool.

Yesterday I caught her on the couch with it making a bunch of electronic noise:

"Whatcha doing over there?"
"Playing games."
"Games?"
" My camera has games on it. Wanna watch?"
"Honey, I really don't think you should be playing games on your camera."
"OK. Can I play one on your phone?"

Touche already. Damn kids. Which forced the realization of a couple facts:

1) I had experienced my first digital generation gap moment

2) If it has a screen and a button, someone will figure out how to stick a game in it

3) It has been awhile since I played Bejeweled

My gut-reaction really was that a video game has no business being installed on a digital camera. Ironic considering my iPhone is bursting at the memory seams with games, apps, music, videos, and mobile photos. A phone that takes pictures? No problem. A camera that does anything besides take pictures? Heresy!

Technical convergence in consumer electronics is a funny thing. Back in the late 90's everyone was shoving the Internet into appliances. Surf the WWW on your fridge! Check email on your TV! Put a web browser in any room! None of these succeeded initially. Could you come up with a better doomed failure than a cobranded Gateway/AOL Internet touchpad? However, over the last 5 years multipurpose devices have slowly become the norm.

For me digital cameras are a one trick pony. I'm sure my parents felt the same way about their fridge. Soon my kids will bring home something else for me to scoff at, providing a soap box on which to stand and proclaim how it used to be: "We never had the Internet in our shoes!" (Oh, wait, yes we did.)

Every generation is destined to have their kids pass them by. The Dotcom Age occurred so fast that it chopped generations in half = those who had no clue and those who did. I came in right at the breaking point, providing a perspective that understands why the kids love mobile texting while watching TV on their computer -- and why their grandparents don't.

I've been waiting for a sign that the Internet Generation is finally jumping past my feeble brain. Now that I have a taste, I can't wait to see what comes next.

Caveat Social Emptor

With the new year upon us, it is time once again for the 2009 Internet Predictions game.

Before releasing my own personal wisdom, let's review the current environment. Specifically social media, since that has been the #1 Internet Hype of 2008.

In the last month:

eMarketer reveals that Social Networkers Aren’t There for Ads. But MediaPost claims Social Media Wins In Marketers' '09 Plans. Forrester warns that Consumers Don't Trust Corporate Blogs. But Buzzlogic claims that consumers trust ads on blogs more than social network sites.

Doesn't help that eMarketer adjusted their 2008 forecasts for MySpace/Facebook revenue. Which makes it seem like the sites are tanking, even though it really just shows that eMarketer's predictions in May were completely wrong.

Depending on who you trust, widgets are either vastly underutilized by marketers (AdAge = Bob Garfield Examines a Tool That Is Cheap, Easy and a Great Expression of the Post-Advertising Age) or a complete bust (AdWeek = Apps: The Newest Brand Graveyard).

And even before the economy crashed, the days of unlimited VC funding for widget startups was declared expired. Start-ups tried the old game of using different words to describe themselves and avoid the taint (social entertainment applications?) Yet they continued to receive more cash.

Meanwhile social networks -- sensing the impending backlash -- try convincing marketers to support the consumer-generated bootleg brand pages already on their sites (MySpace Exec: Marketers Should Embrace Fan Sites). Which is like hitting the hyperspace button in desperation -- hoping you don't end up in the path of an oncoming asteroid -- since they don't make any revenue off these pages.

How do you explain such ying yang reports? Is it really that confusing to determine the state of social marketing?

Desperate times call for desperate analysis. Desperate analysis of an emerging medium provides too much leeway for personal opinion and uneducated guesses. Even for the professionals. Caveat social emptor.

Brother, Can You Spare Some KinzCash?

I've been thinking a lot about micropayments lately. Back in Dotcom 1.0, it was lauded as a sure thing to drive the success of the Internet. It was essentially the Long Tail of e-commerce = paying minimal fees for accessing content or services online. Which, over time, would add up to real big revenue for the companies providing it.

Dotcom companies tried all types of micropayment schemes = digital tokens, points, microwallets, etc. In the end we got Paypal, 99 cent iTunes, and affiliate marketing kickbacks via Amazon.com "buy this book" referral buttons.

But I have noticed the reemergence of micropayments in a most unusual place: kid-focused virtual worlds such as Webkinz, Club Penguin, and Neopets. The focus of these sites is accumulating virtual stuff for your virtual pet/avatar. This includes virtual houses, furniture, clothes, food. In order to purchase it, you need to accumulate virtual money. This is primarily achieved by playing online games and performing other tasks within the site. Most of these only reward you with a few points/cash at a time.

You have to play a bunch of games, or complete a bunch of tasks, in order to actually purchase something substantial (in a virtual kind of way). Similar to collecting tickets at a carnival or Chuck E Cheese. After 3 hours of mindnumbing games, you then can get that cheap stuffed toy from China that will fall apart before you get home.

We are training a whole new generation of consumers to accept micropayments as a way of life online. Only this time -- in a bit of e-commerce role reversal -- they are the ones getting paid. Which in the next 10 years could lead to a whole new online marketing platform.

Marketing to kids in these environments is really tough. Unless you happen to be a provider of essential nutrients and vitamins. But soon these consumers will grow up and start accessing sites where you can market to them without getting sued. Will they be willing to watch your branded online video for a few Paypal coins? Click your banners and rack up points to get real stuff? Spend 3 minutes on your brand website and win their girlfriend an exclusive virtual unicorn for her Myspace page?

Google AdSense and affiliate programs already have marketers comfortable with spending micropayments of their own for ensuring consumer action. Can't wait to see what happens when consumer microrewards and marketer micropayments finally come together.

Can't Wait Until They Add a Voice Chat Option

So hands up, who hates the New Facebook? Seems like a lot of people, which is natural when something you are really fond of gets messed with.

My concern is that they have completely buried user widgets in the new layout. Not only do I need to click on the "Boxes" tab to view them, but anyone visiting my profile page must do the same. It's going to kill the efforts of most marketers who are entering this space. Number of widget impressions will plummet dragging the number of interactions along with it. Which will also limit the viral spread. It's been the one area of Facebook that advertisers could get a foot into and has been relocated to the basement.

Which isn't the end of the bad news for marketers and social networks. A recent report shows that 46% of social networkers accessed their fave sites via mobile devices (primarily MySpace and Facebook). Mobile access is mostly limited to posting text status updates, sending messages, and viewing friend profiles.

However, the new iPhone and Google apps are bringing more functionality to mobile devices. The most recent Facebook iPhone app provides access to most of the site's content and tools -- except widgets, sponsored text links, and banner ads. Which is going to be a buzz kill for marketers.

As sites port more content to mobile, there is less need to visit the website versions. As more consumers access content away from their computers, online media pillars such as reach/frequency, time spent on site, and page views will crumble.

Social networks will need to find ways to cram advertising and marketing messages into their mobile apps. If they can find room. And if they can do it without screwing up the consumer experience, which currently is fairly nice and clean. That whole social mapping craze is looking more promising...

Please Be My Closely-Proximal Friend Who Likes Dive Bars

Social networks are rapidly migrating into mobile territory to keep up with their users. Mashing up the cellphone's GPS capabilities with Google Maps has led to the latest trend = social mapping.

Basically it is nothing more than finding your "friend's" current location on a map. Or maybe your "friend's" latest comments about the Thai restaurant that is just around the corner. Newsweek, Washington Post, and Technology Review provide decent overviews of the trend. Especially love the story of the guy who used it to avoid people, rather than meet up with them. The antisocial social machine.

The iPhone has become the premiere launching pad for a lot of these social apps: Yelp, Where, Platial Nearby, Loopt, Whrrl, Moximity, seem to be leading the path. Nokia purchased UK-based social mapper Plazes, so expect that functionality to be automatically loaded into their phones. Google Android's mobile operating system should attract even more social map providers and provide access across multiple cellphone types.

Which leads to the bigger question = if anyone can tack on a GPS Google Map to their service or application, does it become so autonomous that the "find your friends" feature is irrelevant? Do I need all my friends to be signed up and using all these apps in order for them to provide value?

Many of these start ups have fallen into the risky business model based on "he with the most users signed up wins." Which is fine when there is only a limited amount of competition. But there are currently 88 social networking apps available for the iPhone, all of which could become GPS map enabled. Slim chance any of my "friends" are also using them. Not to mention that they now also have to be physically located close to me to be of interest.

Expect the social network giants like Facebook and MySpace to buy up the ones that have the best technology or interface, incorporate it into a new tab on their mobile app, and quickly decimate an entire start up vertical. Or just ignore them completely and do it on their own. Either way the same outcome prevails.

On the other hand, with the Google-supported OpenId movement, there is a chance that these apps could grab onto the holy grail of an XML friend list feed. Thus not requiring you to build up your friend list from scratch on each app, just import one from your fave social network site. Then the apps with the best features or niche community focus could prosper. Which would be great for Google, since any app using a Google map mashup becomes lucrative advertising space for them. I'm sure they would prefer to have it spread across multiple social map providers, each signed up with the AdSense network and receiving micro-kickbacks when a Google map link is clicked.

As for me, I'm working on the new iPhone app Loozr, which shows you where everyone else's friends are and how much fun they are having. Then connects you to other Loozrz in your area. The bar around the corner offers a half price "beer to cry in" if you show up in the next 15 minutes and invite 3 other Loozrz to join you.

But be careful, collect too many Loozr friends in a 1 mile radius and you get kicked off the app. Being antisocial has never been so much fun.

Too Late, NanoTwitter.com is Already Taken

Interesting story about HP's nanotechnology initiatives:

HP's grand vision: measure everything

Imagine walking down the supermarket aisle with a cheap device you could hold up to a tomato. If the sensor detects a pesticide residue, you'd know the "organic" label is a lie. Similar tools could track the chemical content of water in a stream, telling you if there was lead contamination and when it got there, or keep constant watch on a bridge and tell if a structural steel beam was at risk of collapse.

Such products are almost certain to become common in coming decades, according to Stan Williams, who heads Hewlett-Packard's Information and Quantum Systems Laboratory. He aims to develop a panoply of microscopic-scale nanotech devices that will be able to measure essentially anything - and at low cost to boot. Viruses, bacteria, the chemical composition of molecules, vibration, moisture levels, particular sounds - these are just some of the things that the super-cheap devices he envisions will be able to detect.

The Internet is great at collecting massive amounts of information. Search engines are great at tracking and sorting massive amounts of information. The WWW is great at giving visual context to massive amounts of information. Mobile technologies are great at collecting/distributing that information anywhere we want. Imagine worldwide tracking of carbon emissions in realtime, viewable via Google Earth.

So it will be interesting to see how these technologies jump the shark into the public space. Toss some in the fridge to automatically add items to your webgrocer shopping list when the food starts to go bad? Paint some on your lawnmower to let you know when it is time to fertilize the grass?

And if marketers start implanting them in their products, and network them together into a massive consumer database (think really small RFID), what research insights and marketing programs might be spawned? At least the privacy groups will then have something bigger to worry about than behavioral ad serving.

This Way To The Information Supertrail

Just spent some time in the Michigan UP deep woods. Cabins, lakes, fishing, beer. No cellphone access, internet connections, or even a hardlined phone.

After a week of being cut off from instant information, you realize that you could survive without the internet. I missed George Carlin dying and the break of Madonna's divorce rumors. And I didn't know exactly what the weather would be like when I pushed the boat off at 6 AM. But jumping off the Info Superhighway was a nice break.

On the other hand my cousin, who is a freshman in college, found a 3' X 3' area in her cabin where she could get a weak cellphone signal. She spent a lot of time standing in one spot mashing away at her Sidekick keyboard.

Which made me contemplate The Kids today. Personally, I am old enough to remember life before email, WWW, and Windows 3.1. A week without it is a blast to my past. I suffered through AOL on a 28K modem, so tolerating slow webpage downloads on my 2G iPhone isn't complete torture. But The Kids will have no concept of life prior to always on / always fast / always realtime information.

Richard Louv is co-founder of the Children & Nature Network. He wrote a great book titled Last Child in the Woods. It analyzes the connection with children and nature, and the impact of society's alienation between the two. He warns about the decline of "unstructured outdoor play" and Nature Deficiency Disorder. It can be a bit treehugger at times, but overall it raises very valid points regarding how a disconnection from nature can have a broad impact on a child's creativity and social awareness. It can also induce pangs of parental guilt, but even a walk in the local nature reserve is a great first step.

So I think of The Kids and how they will be tracing their nature walks on Google Maps, posting their 24" Northern Pike catches to Twitter, blogging around the campfire. This digital multitasking behavior already runs rampant through most companies. Hotels have started offering conference rooms that don't have Wifi/cellphone/Blackberry coverage to keep offsite meetings ontrack. Why not the same for vacation spots? It was refreshing to tell everyone at work that there was no way to contact me for the next 10 days. Not my fault! Don't even try! You could probably charge more for those cabin rentals or all-inclusive resorts.

Meanwhile I posted my vacation photos to my Facebook page, staked out our next nature vacation on Google Earth, and found a section on Weather.com that tracks prime fishing times throughout the day. Old habits are hard to break.

The Future of Mobile Advertising is Soooo 1997

So Mobile finally caught up with the web browser circa 1997:

Go2 Media Unveils Animated Banner Units
Aiming to entice brand advertisers, mobile content provider go2 Media is rolling out animated banner units across its network of mobile content sites on wireless carrier decks.

The banners will appear at the top of mobile WAP pages and feature a series of images that display on a 10- to-15-second loop and are optimized to run across all networks and devices. The idea is to go beyond static graphical spots and text ads to offer marketers a more eye-catching option for mobile campaigns.

Seriously, if this is the future of Mobile then we can stop now. Because creative teams are really pining for the good old days when they had to cram their creative into 12K banners the size of postage stamps. And animation is soooo important to improving brand awareness, message association, and purchase intent (make sure you put the logo in every frame).

We are really in trouble as soon as the iPhone supports Flash. And the first phone screen takeover ad that I find will be publicly bashed.

Here's something to bet on: 2 years from now we will be moaning about the decline in mobile banner CTRs and start looking for ways to bait-n-switch over to engagement metrics like "time spent reading sponsor pages." At least until video pre-loads explode on the scene and save the day.

Another option: forget about mobile as a banner channel. Reward consumers for interacting with you, don't just push more advertising messages. You could start with SMS code call to actions on your print ads and on your packaging. Or sponsor unique content that they can't get anywhere else (at least when they aren't staring at the 1st or 2nd screen).

Mobile can provide a true one-to-one experience. Please don't waste it on the same tactics that are choking the WWW.

Will Work for Stock Options Again

Back in February I talked about the new trend of senior interactive agency talent moving to the Dotcom world. The trend continues:

Matt Freeman Quits Tribal DDB for Top Job at GoFish
Matt Freeman, the executive who was handpicked a decade ago to build the Omnicom Group digital network Tribal DDB, is stepping down as the agency's CEO to head up GoFish, a publicly traded digital ad network.

The pool of senior marketers with strong interactive experience is not very large, and agencies have been hoarding them ever since the dotcom bust. So they will be a primary focus of recruiters.

The advertising industry is also notorious for incestuous feeding/swapping of talent. Will be interesting to see how it fairs as that talent pool shrinks. Without a doubt they will need to start hiring people from smaller webshops/specialty agencies, or second tier markets, who will struggle with being part of a much larger and complex agency structure.

Reconsider That Photo on Facebook

I told you Google Face is coming... From the NY Times:

A Google Prototype for a Precision Image Search
Google researchers say they have a software technology intended to do for digital images on the Web what the company’s original PageRank software did for searches of Web pages. On Thursday at the International World Wide Web Conference in Beijing, two Google scientists presented a paper describing what the researchers call VisualRank, an algorithm for blending image-recognition software methods with techniques for weighting and ranking images that look most similar.

Finally, a home for those Grateful Dead jams

Interesting report of a super data storage technology out of the UK = Racetrack computer memory.

"IBM says this technology could enable a handheld device such as an mp3 player to store around 500,000 songs or around 3,500 movies - 100 times more than is possible today."

Can't wait to see at what point the human mind breaks under the weight of "content pressure" = the desire to collect more and more content just because you can. At which point Google launches their handheld Google InfoBox that can hold all information in the world, all the time for instant access. Very Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

The "Perception of Free" could be the new "Free"

So Chris Anderson's latest Wired article (about how "free" is the future of business) is now the #1 viral business idea getting emailed around corporate board rooms, marketing departments, and Marketing 201 classes.

Based on how his previous concept "The Long Tail" had a long tail of its own (it still shows up in marketing presentations), you can expect this one to have a decent half life. Especially with the book version coming out next year.

It will be interesting to see how the “perception of free” works its way into the e-commerce model.

I pay $79 a year for Amazon Prime, which gives me “free” 2 day shipping on almost all orders regardless of purchase amount. Which causes me to buy more things, more frequently throughout the year. E-commerce snacking.

Apple and Nokia are looking into an “all you can eat” music device that gives you a lifetime of “free” music downloads.

Which could lead to a Long Tail of Free essay from Mr. Anderson in 2010, followed by a book. Which probably won't be free.

Do No Evil... Yet.

Google is hilarious. Everyone thinks they are "just a search engine." That now owns one of the largest online ad networks, the largest video repository, photos of every place on Earth, is trying to scan in all the books ever printed, and probably 15 other scary things that you haven't heard about yet.

Forget about Microsoft's monopoly of computer systems/software. Google will have a monopoly on information itself. Which, as long as they are open about it, is fine. But once they go cloak and dagger on us, then get nervous.

Two reports this week that start to make that point:

Google to media companies: We're your friend
Google has no plans to become a provider of content, but wants to be viewed as a partner by traditional media companies, according to David Eun, VP, content partnerships. Eun, speaking at a conference Monday, dismissed speculation that Google will evolve into a full-fledged content producer. "That's absolutely not the case for us," Eun said.

Google Goal: Collect All Advertiser Assets
If Google has its way, all the world's ads will belong to it. Speaking at the annual Bear Stearns Media Conference, the firm discussed its brand and display ad goals, revealing its hope to become a virtual warehouse for every advertiser's ad assets. "We have a long term horizon here which is we want every advertiser in the world to put all of their assets into our system," said Tim Armstrong, Google's president, advertising and commerce, North America. "That's really what we're focused on." Kate Kaye, The ClickZ Network, reports.