Techno//Marketer - Matt Dickman on Digital Marketing and Social Technology

Text to newsstand

I was flipping through the Economist the other day (because it exhausts me to try to actually read the whole thing) while I was on the plane and came across this insert in the magazine. I found it quite interesting and wanted to get your take.

 

The point of the service is to send a text message to receive alerts when the print publication is hitting newsstands. It's an interesting idea in the promotion of print with digital platforms. Obviously the content strategy is to release at the stands first and then online to keep print subs up.

What do you think of this? Would you sign up? Would you want this service for other printed materials? There are a number of magazines that I read but don't subscribe to for which this is an interesting idea.

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Technorati Tags: advertising, marketing, Matt Dickman, mobile, SMS, Techno//Marketer, technology, trends

Inside//Out: QR codes

Wouldn't you love to drive people from your physical world marketing efforts to the web in real time? Who wouldn't? This has been a dream of marketers since the popularization of the web and technology is starting to catch up. QR (or quick response) codes are, quite simply two dimensional bar codes. The codes were designed in Japan for the auto industry and they remain popular today.

In marketing, QR codes have started to pop up sporadically in ads and catalogs. I did a post on this technology in 2007 which you can read here. In that post, I noted that this was a potential technology for marketers to leverage in the future. To be blunt, this is still in the future, but the trend is one that is coming quickly (though it may take another form). The ability to grab information and go will build momentum over time.

The entire system works by taking a picture of the code with a cell phone camera, decoding the symbol on the device and taking an action. That action can be directing someone to a URL, passing them a phone number, giving them marketing copy or sending them a text message.

Here is a demo of the technology in this edition of Inside//Out

[Feed readers, click through to the post if you cannot see the video]

Pros:

• Quick and cheap to create
• Simple and compact design
• Able to be placed on myriad surfaces (paper, cloth, etc.)
• Convey complex information to mobile customers

Cons:

• Lack of consumer education about how QR works
  
• Hardware/software readers are scarce
  
• Lack of adoption in the US
  

Key Takeaways:

• QR should be used for nothing more than a test/experiment at this point
  
• The ability for mobile users to get complex content very quickly is a major trend
  
• Scanning codes, text message response or the next generation of this idea will push the need further
  
• You already see this in real estate in major markets using SMS
  
• Integration between physical marketing and digital marketing will continue to converge using new technology
  

Have you seen these in mainstream ads? Would you consider using them in your campaign? Are you looking at SMS response? Let me know!

There are a number of readers out there. I use the NeoReader on the iPhone. The Kaywa Reader is probably the most popular.

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Technorati Tags: marketing, Matt Dickman, mobile, Techno//Marketer, technology, trends, QR codes, devices

Two tips on building microidentity

Little things are the new big thing, right? Well, in keeping with that notion, I wanted to share a couple of little tips on online identity. Whether you're a blogger or a corporation, these two items go a long way. One is very old school and the other is as new as new can be.

New school: apple-touch-icon.png

This one I found out when my lovely, amazing wife bought me an iPhone for Christmas. Thanks dear!! Through the iPhone you can add a blog/site to your menu just like an application. If you do this without following the next steps, however you get a very generic, non-identifiable icon. It looks something like this:

Not impressive, not readily identifiable. After a bit of digging, however I learned how to add an icon to replace the generic default. To do this you'll need to create a PNG file that is 158x158 pixels. Here is the one I created:

Now, rename that file to apple-touch-icon.png and upload it to the root directory on your website (meaning it will be at http://www.yourdomain.com/apple-touch-icon.png). The iPhone/iTouch does the rest. It resizes and rounds the corners and adds that shiny love to the image.

UPDATE: Here is a quick video overview of how this one works.

[Click through to the post if you cannot see the video.]

Old school: favicon.ico

Depending on how geeky you are, you may or may not know this little file. The favicon.ico controls the tiny logo/headshot that appears in the address bar for a site when you visit (see below). It's a small differentiator, but that's okay.

To create this file head over to this site. From here you can create one from scratch or upload an existing image. Keep in mind the output is around 15 pixels square so make sure you use something simple. Once you have the file, you need to upload it to the root directory for your site. (Ping me if you need more info on this one.)

Shows up in the address bar in your browser

Shows up in tabs when you have them open

Shows up in your bookmarks to help them stand out

These are both easy tactics to implement can make a big difference in user experience and usefulness. Feel free to add Techno//Marketer on your iPhone and let me know your thoughts.

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Technorati Tags:
branding, marketing, Matt Dickman, micromedia, Techno//Marketer, web2.0, microbranding

You can't give yourself a nickname

When I was in college, I had a boss who had a massive prejudice against anyone who attempted to give themselves a nickname. You've probably heard people do this in a conversation that looks like this (please picture the guy to the right):

That Guy: Hey there! Do you mind if I join in your pickup game?

You: Not at all. My name is John.

That Guy: Nice to meet you John. My name is Dudley, but call me "Crusher"

You: Ummm...okay Dudley. Why don't you wait over there.

See, it just doesn't work. Now, let's parlay that into a marketing topic that I took issue with the other day. It seems that some enterprising individuals are trying to name the Tuesday after Cyber Monday "Mobile Tuesday". On this date, you're supposed to shop (or otherwise engage) on your phone. Really?

Here is a snippet from an Ad Age article on the topic:

Mobigosee, a mobile-marketing firm, is moving forward with the launch of Mobile Tuesday on Dec. 2, despite the loss of major marketing partners whose budgets have been decimated by the recession.

...(Mobigosee) is attempting to launch Mobile Tuesday with just three marketers onboard: McDonald's, Finish Line and RedTag. The company is hoping to attract additional retailers with couponing strategies, in which Mobigosee is paid only when the mobile coupons are redeemed."

This is one company trying to start a movement that would require at least one major US mobile carrier to get involved to be remotely successful. The only potential winner here is the company who attempted to launch this thing and I would not call it a success. Companies should, be looking at engaging on mobile if it makes sense, not for the bright shininess factor. Maybe in 3-6 years, but not today.

Permission is key on the mobile platform and each brand needs to build its own audience in its own way. The paths of mass marketing and mobile marketing should never, ever meet.

So let me ask you. Have you purchased on your mobile? Take the poll below.

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Technorati Tags: marketing, Matt Dickman, mobile, social media, social networks, Techno//Marketer, trends, trust, web2.0

IDG Next Generation Marketing 2008 - Kwang-Seop Sohn, Chiel Worldwide

Kwang works at Chiel Worldwide in their interactive group, "the i". The presentation focused on a case study for Samsung's HAPTIC device. The Haptic looks very similar to the iPhone, but the operating system is unique.

Here is a video overview of the phone's functionality:

• Focus of the campaign was on brand experience and contagion
• The Haptic phone launch is very similar to the iPhone (full screen touch)
• Phone launched with a premium image/brand and technical image
• "first is better than better" - Samsung was not the first mover in this space
• The touch sensor provides feedback
• Japanese book "HAPTIC" gave the team feedback on how to approach marketing the device
• Had to explain the haptic term through many media outlets in a way people could understand
• Launch show made to mirror Steve Jobs keynote addresses, invited power bloggers
• Tagline "touch and it will react" driven through ads
• Use of celebrity to drive the "touch" focal point in ads, online, screen saver
• Haptic blog helped to engage users, also reached out to power bloggers to get their unique and personal experiences

Samsung also created a new ad where a building transforms in to the phone. The gist of the conversation is the guy with the phone says that his phone can become anything he wants. The other guy asks him to prove it by making the building transform.

Technorati Tags:
marketing, Matt Dickman, social media, strategy, Techno//Marketer, trends, samsung haptic

Inside//Out: Fire Eagle

Location awareness has a lot of potential to tie the gap between digital and the physical world. The iPhone's integrated GPS clearly hints to the future of mobile social networking. Fire Eagle (a Yahoo product) aims to make updating your location easy.

The service is very simple and has only one true function. Tell the world where you are. Once you tell Fire Eagle where your location is, they allow third parties to tap in and use that same data. This way you don't have to update your location on 4-5 different sites, it is done automatically.

[Feed readers please click through to the post if you cannot see the video.]

Key Takeaways:

• Social utilities, like Fire Eagle, are going to make network convergence a reality
  
• The privacy settings that Fire Eagle uses are robust and should allay most fears of intrusion
  
• The open API they are providing developers has picked up the adoption rate and made some major players take notice
  
• Competition from Google/Apple/etc. will be quick to come about
  

As always, I want to know what is on your mind. If there is a video you would like to see me do just email me or leave a comment on the post.

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Technorati Tags:
location, Matt Dickman, mobile, social media, Techno//Marketer, widgets, Yahoo, geolocation

Twitter for marketing, branding and customer service

Yesterday I had the opportunity to speak to the Cleveland Web Association on the topics of micromedia (Twitter, Pownce, FriendFeed, etc.). This was a follow up presentation to the one I gave back in February and is meant to dive a bit deeper into the subject.

I thought the audience was very receptive to the topic and the examples absolutely help out with that. David Meade of Optiem gave a bit of a more technical primer before me and is who I reference in the first few minutes.

The presentation is available below as a SlideCast (meaning I have added an voiceover audio track to it) which you can access by hitting the green middle button that looks like this .

Enjoy!

| View | Upload your own

[Feed readers click through to the post of click the "View" link above.]

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Technorati Tags:
conversations, customer service, FriendFeed, Identi.ca, marketing, Matt Dickman, micromedia, PR, social media, strategy, Techno//Marketer, technology, trends, Twitter

Inside//Out: Identi.ca

Does the world need another Twitter clone? How about thousands of them? Identi.ca is a Twitter competitor that us running on an open source platform called Laconica. The product is open source and can be installed and rebranded anywhere including behind corporate firewalls.

The trend with these services is to become more and more distributed and eventually interconnected. I would fully expect Google to implement a common protocol for these services to become universally integrated in the future. For now we'll have to rely on tools like Ping.fm and Summize (which was purchased by Twitter today) to carry out our conversations.

[Feed readers please click through to the post if you cannot view the video.]

Key Takeaways:

• More and more Twitter competitors will rise up taking niche communities with them as Twitter remains on top for the foreseeable future
  
• Open source versions of Twitter will begin appearing behind corporate fire walls acting as communications tools and helping knowledge managers compile conversations across the enterprise
  
• Oddly during Twitter's periods of sporadic downtime, sites like Identi.ca were so crushed with traffic that they also crashed limiting Twitter's exposure
  
• Core components missing here are the API, mobile integration (both of which are allegedly down the road)
  
• Twitter's own open-source software is out there and may trump all of the up and comers
  

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Technorati Tags:
conversations, Inside//Out, marketing, Matt Dickman, micromedia, social media, Summize, Techno//Marketer, technology, trends, Twitter, Identi.ca

What would it take to topple Twitter?

Twitter has a double unfair advantage over its competitors; a huge user base (estimated at over a million users now) and a very solid head start.

This hasn't stopped a host of new competitors from trying to give it a go. Among the latest competitors are BrightKite, Jaiku (who is owned by Google), Plurk, Utterz and even Facebook and LinkedIn have begun enabling micromedia updates on user profiles.

[Cartoon by Hugh MacLeod]

However, as Twitter's service woes keep mounting and user sentiment keeps edging toward the negative, I have to wonder...what would it take to topple Twitter?

In order to understand this, we need to look at what makes Twitter work. Let's break them down so we can see how it's gained such wide-spread popularity.

1. Simplicity: Twitter does one thing really well. It lets you communicate what you're doing right now. Now other functionality (no matter how easy it would be to implement), 140 characters, one text field and one button. Anybody can look at it and start using it in minutes.

   What competitors need to do: Though I think that there is room beyond 140 characters of text on a service like this (think video and photos), it needs to remain easy to use. Design and usability needs to be where the majority of the development time is spent. The technology should, as I've said before, fade away to the background. If it's not clear on what the user should do within 5 seconds of opening the page it's too complicated.

2. Ease of use: This builds on the previous idea of simplicity. Twitter let's you use it. It gets the heck out of your way and adds value by supporting conversation. The interface guides the user smoothly through the interactions. Posting a message is easy, replying is easy and the content is simple text. That's ease of use.

   What competitors need to do:This is a no-brainer. Any competitor who is going to topple Twitter will have to have an extremely easy to use service. Like I mentioned before, a lot of attention needs to be paid here. Too many services offer more features/better technology, but are a pain to use.

3. Mobility: Twitter has a very strong mobile platform. Not only is the SMS (text messages) updating solid, but the mobile site allows most of the regular site's functionality from nearly any device and network. Either option allows for seamless use when away from the browser.

   What competitors need to do: There is no option for the competition to miss this crucial piece of the equation. The portability of the user experience has to be in place. Users need to be able to update and receive updates from any device in the world. SMS is growing in popularity and allows quick updates from US networks. The mobile site allows more reach and really lets the user step away from their computer with confidence. SMS also serves an important role in getting messages to people and breaking through the clutter.

4. Platform agnostic: We just touched on the mobile platform, but Twitter's open architecture has allowed developers to extend the service to IM (AOL/GTalk/Jabber) as well as desktop applications. For IM, users add Twitter as a friend and send it their updates. Applications like Twhirl work like any desktop application (think Start > Applications > Twhirl) and don't make you keep a browser open at all times.

   What competitors need to do: This is another area that any competitor worth their salt will need to copy. The open architecture allows the development community to do its work and enhance the service faster than the competitor would be able to.

5. Strong RSS: Twitter has a very strong RSS architecture. You can subscribe to individual's feeds, your own feed (messages and replies) and use the RSS feeds to build other services. Other services like Twitterfeed use RSS to update Twitter accounts automatically. You can look at my "Techno//Marketer" twitter feed for an example. That feed is 100% auto-generated by Twitterfeed.

   What competitors need to do: No question here either. RSS is a staple of the new digital frontier.

6. Widgetization: Twitter had this right from the start. One of the most powerful ways that Twitter spread through the social media space was from the blog widget that allowed people to promote their messages as well as the service. It added value to the reader and drove new users. You can see my example in the right-hand panel of this blog.

   What competitors need to do: The more options people have to spread their content the better. Formats should be adjustable (width, height), customizable (color, branding) and should work everywhere possible.

7. The community: This is Twitter's ace in the hole. No matter how good other services are, no matter how easy they are to use, no matter how comprehensive the utility there is no use for a service like this that doesn't have a community. While some competitors have been around longer they have not been able to build the buzz and following that Twitter has. Some of this is due the founder's background (having founder Blogger.com) having an immediate, connected audience.

   What competitors need to do: You have to transplant the community. What I mean is that a competitor that's looking to topple Twitter (not build a new, unique audience) will need to use the openness of Twitter against it. Accounts will need to be moved over while keeping all of that user's connections in tact. to move user's networks in whole. Accounts and logins will need to be moved to make it as easy a transition as possible.

What would you add to this list? Is Twitter indomitable at this point or are they Yahoo in 1999 with Google just around the corner?

Technorati Tags:
conversations, design, Facebook, FriendFeed, Jaiku, marketing, Matt Dickman, social media, strategy, Techno//Marketer, technology, micromedia, Twitter

Nokia's Jan Chipchase on the evolution of mobile

I am a huge fan of the TED Conference's video library. If you're not familiar head over there and poke around (be warned, you will spend a lot of time there).

This video of Nokia's Jan Chipchase is one of those videos that I come back to over and over again. It truly changed the way I look at technology's implications on the global community.

Jan spends his time traveling the world and doing ethnographic research to figure out how the mobile phone fits (and will fit in the future) into our culture. This local, first-person research is so valuable and has very wide-reaching implications.

The coolest part is when Jan goes into the way that phones are used in Uganda as ATMs. People basically exchange airtime minutes as currency. There is a central point person in the local village who has a phone and who exchanges minutes into cash. In other parts of the world there is a whole industry created around supporting and repairing devices where those services do not exist. Other countries are using mobile phone numbers above the entrance to houses instead of house numbers. That's their identity.

Check it out:

Technorati Tags:
communications, Matt Dickman, social media, social networks, Techno//Marketer, technology, TED, mobile