A number of key themes are emerging in the reaction to the launch.

1. Privacy – this feature, and its perceived privacy issues add to the continued discussion and concern around Facebook and its handling of privacy
2. Local – local is big, its a growing source of discussion, technologies and investment. Facebook with its massive audience, is the 500lb gorilla in the room in many digital arenas, local is no different. Its entry is going to help bring Gowalla & Foursquare type functionality and usefulness to a much broader audience. How other players sit alongside Facebook will be interesting to watch.* Importantly for marketers this will bring this exciting space to maturity faster.

*Gowalla & Foursquare where present at Facebook HQ for the announcement and are partnering with Facebook in the Places product.

Features Include:

1. Check into a location
2. Tag a friend at a location
3. See people who are at the same location (people are displayed for a limited time period)
4. Read comments from friends who have been to a location before

This Try Before You Buy section houses current free versions of paid applications, no new apps here.

So why the section?

You can argue, that this is a semantic challenge to some developers frustration with the lack of trial ability when deploying applications to the iPhone OS. It remains to be seen if in a later version of the iPhone OS SDK, that trial ability will be included.  And that this Semantic step, was a small, first step towards that.

Where are the app trials? (ZDNET Article discussion)

Below is walk-through of getting to this section, through the app store on an iPod Touch.

One of the most interesting aspects of Shopkick’s value proposition is the mechanism through which a users location is validated. This mechanism also allows for greater granularity for location detection once inside the store.

The steps are:

1. A physical device installed in the doorway of the store emits inaudible noise.
2. The noise is receive by the consumers iPhone running the shopkick application.
3. The consumer is then checked-in and can receive points, discounts etc. from that store
4. These offers can also be targeted to specific areas within the store (via additional radio devices)

The model implies a number of things:

1. The current systems of using GPS and manual check in, are, in certain cases, not effective enough
2. Brick and mortar retailers are willing to make the investment in the hardware and logistics of installation of the radio devices to negate point 1

Stores that are partnering with Shopkick include BestBuy and Macy’s.

For more visit:

Shop Kick site

Techcrunch Article (with demo video)

Some key features of the Torch:

• Blackerry 6 OS
• First RIM device with Webkit Based Browser
• Touchscreen with QWERTY keyboard

Check out this video for more on the Blackberry 6 OS:

• Nielsen predicts that smartphones will overtake feature phones in the U.S. by the end of 2011.
• In the Q2, 2010 – 27% of new smartphone sales where for the Android OS, followed by 23% of iPhone OS based devices – ANDROID HAS SURPASSED IPHONE IN SALES
• iPhone users like their devices the most
• Android like their devices a lot
• Relative to iPhone & Android, Blackberry users have mixed feelings

[Source: Nielsen Wire]

http://www.predictablyirrational.com/?p=704

http://autocompleteme.com/

]]> http://www.vmlgate1.com/2010/01/10/google-autocomplete/feed/ 0 http://www.vmlgate1.com/2009/12/13/marching-towards-the-mainstream-ufc-twitter/ http://www.vmlgate1.com/2009/12/13/marching-towards-the-mainstream-ufc-twitter/#comments Mon, 14 Dec 2009 00:46:40 +0000 Devin Cheevers http://vmlgateone.wordpress.com/?p=572 by Devin Cheevers

The UFC and Twitter are both brands who are marching exponentially towards the mainstream.

In the last week, the UFC at UFC107 (where Diego “Nightmare” Sanchez got badly beaten by a Marv Marinovich built BJ Penn) up’ed their use of twitter as a channel by displaying live tweets during sections of the event. In parallel real time tweets began appearing in Google results, Twitter with a similar deal with Bing as well now has a dependable revenue stream. Twitter takes one more step towards the mainstream.

The UFC and in particular their President Dana White has focused on connecting to current and potential UFC fans through social media. Dana and UFC fighters are featured in video diaries before big events on the UFC’s youtube channel. These provide a raw, behind the scenes view of the UFC. It also means fans are connecting to the brand – and perhaps more importantly to individual fighters. Now the UFC is encouraging their fighters to use Twitter even more. The UFC recently ran a three day workshop (fighter summit) to help their fighters understand the opportunity social media offers their individual brands and equip them with skills to use the different platforms.

By empowering their fighters to build their own brands and connect with fans through social media, the UFC will benefit.

“I want you to twitter your as*es off.” – Dana White

See: Digital Royalty (Powering UFC’s Social Strategy)

]]> http://www.vmlgate1.com/2009/12/13/marching-towards-the-mainstream-ufc-twitter/feed/ 0 http://www.vmlgate1.com/2009/12/07/bigger-is-better/ http://www.vmlgate1.com/2009/12/07/bigger-is-better/#comments Mon, 07 Dec 2009 13:49:40 +0000 Devin Cheevers http://vmlgateone.wordpress.com/?p=376 by Devin Cheevers

Chances are you’re reading this on a single monitor – if you are this makes for interesting reading.

In a study conducted by the University of Utah under the auspices of NEC switching to a 24inch monitor over a single 17inch screen for a company with 250 employees could save that company 2.2 million dollars in increased productivity per year.

What this means for the individual information worker, is that they could be getting to complete their tasks faster with an investment of $200-$400

Now this I admit – that I don’t know the underlying methodology for extracting these figures – how much the monitor cost, aptitude of the computer user etc. But I challenge anyone who is using a single 17inch display to go to a 24inch monitor for a week or two and then willingly go back to using that single 17inch display.

View the study here: http://www.necdisplay.com/gowide/NEC_Productivity_Study_0208.pdf

View some graphs below from the study:

Update: Joe wanted me to post my current set up – please note that the main monitor is a Dell ST2410 24inch screen – just acquired – I will be adding the same monitor again to have a dual 24inch set-up. This is once I find a decent USB-VGA adapter.

http://squareup.com/

This is on the surface very cool – it’s a start up based around a custom built physical piece of hardware+software – it connects to the iPhone directly – it uses inventive ways to transmit data (think microphone input for credit card data).

However reading the comments at techcrunch & hacker news; it’s not getting a huge amount of love; at least the perceived need and business model isn’t. Time will tell.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/12/01/jack-dorsey-square/#comments

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=970250

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAJR0t-NlPk&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

Launch then iterate, iterate, iterate – a paradigm of the start-up world – agile, scrum all frameworks to speed up and broaden the feedback loop. The goal is fairly simple; get the product into the hands of as many customers as possible and enable and gather useful feedback. Then through multiple development/feedback cycles, hone the offering, to deliver as effectively as possible on the metrics defined for success.

Context spectrums – the range of situations a particular technology platform is generally used in to consume content in addition to the user’s relationship with that platform. Mobile devices have the widest context spectrum of mass-market content delivery platforms. They are used in wide range of physical locations versus a more narrow set for more traditional platforms like personal computers and TV – home and work versus anywhere you are. The main activity you’re engaged in ranges greatly for mobile devices versus a more focused attention on the platform itself for TV and personal computers – watching TV, working on the computer versus getting the latest movie time while walking down the street. Finally the primary function of a mobile device is to connect to the owner’s social network all the time, this ensure a more personal relationship with mobile devices than other platforms.

As brands a position themselves against competitors and deliver information and experiences via the mobile channel. It is import that they understand the context(s) in which their customers are occupying when using this mobile content.

Mobile content present the opportunity to deliver real value to the consumer and brand – but only when used effectively especially within the often limited context it is deliver, be this technical limitations e.g. smaller screen requiring effective user interface design or situational limitations e.g. time limitation of user getting the phone number urgently from a mobile site while rushing to a meeting versus shifting through a large amount of content.

A more rapid development, iteration process and broader feedback mechanism is one way to aid in understanding the multiple and often new scenarios consumer use their mobile devices to interact with content and adjust accordingly[1].

Lastly, on a connected but separate note, please view the video below for what I think it one of the best ad campaigns in a long time for a mobile device.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-QhxjJFl7E&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x006699&color2=0x54abd6]