During our wait, it occurred to me that we needed some kind of app with a cotton candy button. When we press the cotton candy button, we’re prompted to enter our section and seat number. The app would alert the cotton candy guy who is also logged into the same app, but viewing a graphic of the stadium seating chart. When our call for cotton candy comes through, a blip on his radar appears and he can start heading our way. He could even send us a quick message that he’s on his way, maybe even an estimated time of arrival. This way, we won’t get weak and settle for the $1 dollar candy bar instead of the $5 cotton candy.

Of course, such an app could be used for hot dogs and nachos too, and it may even change the way the vendors work together. Who knows, maybe more $5 cotton candy would be sold – bringing in higher revenues for the vending company.

Until then, my son and I will just have to wait for the elusive cotton candy man. What? I could get out of my seat and get my own cotton candy? No, sorry, couldn’t possibly do that. I might miss some exciting Royals action.

As more and more business are adopting Foursquare as a marketing channel by adding incentives for checking-in, the need to track and analyze this data has resulted in the launch of a Foursquare dashboard.  In order to use this dashboard, you must claim your venue. You do not have to be the person that created the venue to claim it, but you must be available at the venue to answer a phone call from Fourquare and provide details/proof that you are eligible to manage it. You can either manage the account through your personal Foursquare account, or start a new one, as the details of the manager’s account are public.

This dashboard is a collection of venue check-in analytics including stats like:

Key Metrics: (Overview of activity)

- Total check-ins
- Unique visitors
- Percentage of check-ins shared with Twitter
- Percentage of check-ins shared with Facebook
- Gender percentages of check-ins

Top 3 Visitors

12 Most Recent Check-ins

All Check-ins (detailed list)

Time Breakdown (time users are checking in)

See Below:

Currently, there is no way to access the information by a certain week, month, or day, so for now, we are forced to record this data and move into a spreadsheet or other tracking software.

This is a great step in the right direction for a business using Foursquare. We anxiously await more detailed tracking options from Foursquare in the near future.

Social Platforms

Meebo’s Enhanced Social Play
“Meebo — which facilitates the integration of multiple services like Facebook and AOL Instant Messenger in one interface — has launched XAuth (Extended Authentication), which automatically recognizes active social platforms and lets users connect with ease on participating publishers’ sites.”

The idea is to increase engagement while diminishing user confusion.

Facebook Makes Major Announcements at F8
The “Become a Fan” button has become a “Like” button. Based on Facebook’s research, they found that users are two times more likely to press a “Like” button than a “Become a Fan” button, increasing engagement with brands.

Facebook also announced the development of the Open Graph API that will allow the “Like” button to be implemented almost anywhere on the web, increasing the reach of Facebook. The Open Graph API also allows people and brands to pull fans from Facebook to other web properties.

Facebook F8: One graph to rule them all

How Big is Twitter
Twitter announced this week for the first time, the actual size of its registered members. According to Twitter they have over 105 million worldwide registered users with 180 million unique visitors every month.

Twitter Stays Strong as Growth Slows
Traffic on Twitter has begun to plateau according to Comscore, Nielsen, and Compete. However, engagement on the platform continues to grow.

Mobile Technologies

Use of cell phone for pictures and video popular across age groups
Here is a great visualization of the rise of the use of mobile technologies across the “Teen” demographic for multimedia (photos and videos).

Foursquare vs. Gowalla: Who’s Winning the Geolocation War? [INFOGRAPHIC]
A great infographic of the battle between Foursquare and Gowalla, both geolocation platforms for mobile technologies. Users “check in” to locations they visit to score points and update their friends.

Decreased Media Usage Hurts Ad Market
Ad spending was down in 2009 as was the amount of time users spent with media (12 hours/day down from 14 hours/day). Every media witnessed a decrease in activities except one; mobile, which was up 39%.

Talk time on mobile was up 12%, while average daily mobile Web use rose 36% to 11 minutes. Texting was also up, by 55%, to take up 27 minutes a day in 2009.

After talking about Twitter, Facebook, and all of the other buzz worthy services, we are often asked by our clients, “so what’s next?” While there are a lot of possible candidates as to the next big thing, the real answer is in talking about the larger trend.

For the first 15 years of the Internet we have mostly lived in a world divided between being online and offline. Those of us working in advertising know this all to well as we work to create “integrated” campaigns. Inevitably this is limited to delivering a consistent message and using similar visual elements across traditional and digital channels.

We are now seeing this invisible barrier starting to erode and make way for people to connect across channels in relevant and valuable ways. For clients asking what they should be focused on moving forward, the answer may be in how they lean into this trend and help connect to their customers between the physical and digital experiences.

Some areas to watch:

The Emergence of Mobile Computing:
With out a doubt the biggest factor in driving this evolution is in the fact that people can now connect to the larger digital world from their mobile device. No longer limited to being just a phone, we are seeing how people stay connected to each other and to information from anywhere and not just while in front of a computer.

Location Aware Social Networks:
While Foursquare is likely the most well known, there are a variety of location based social networks (see: BrightKite and Loopt) that allow users to share their location with friends in the digital space by “checking in” to physical locations. Assume that Facebook and others will either develop or purchase their way into this space soon.

Image Scanning:
Be it QR codes, bar codes, or images of everyday objects, we are starting to see a wide variety of services that allow users to scan a physical item with their mobile device’s camera and drive to a digital experience.

Augmented Reality:
Allowing the ability to begin to treat the physical world in ways that had previously only been reserved for digital. Two popular examples: subway map and baseball cards.

Interactive Displays:
While not exactly a new concept, there continues to be a lot of great examples (see: Microsoft’s Surface, IconNicholson’s Social Retailing, and Schematic’s Touchwall) Almost all of them are looking to meet the expectation set in the Minority Report.

Physical Platform Gaming:
From Nintendo’s Wii to Guitar Hero, we are seeing a shift in gaming from a solitary activity on the couch to a much more physical and engaging experience open to a broader audience. Microsoft is planning to push this to the next level with the launch of Xbox Natal.

Google’s mobile platform, Android, is starting to gain some real momentum. This comes on the heels of the launch of the Google phone, the Nexus One, and the fact that all of the major US carriers have or plan to have supported devices.

We see this impacting the numbers related to access of the internet through mobile devices; whereas, Android represents 27% of the Q4’09 AdMob traffic, up from 4% in Q1’09. Compare that to the fact that the iPhone share has stayed pretty much flat over the same period at just above 50%.

Given this we suspect that the development community will start to pay attention and that this will represent the first real platform to give the iPhone some true competition when it comes to mobile applications.

For those who want to get a start on designing and developing for the Android there are some great resources.

First, Google provides a set of best practices for User Interface development at the Android Developer website.

Second, Smashing Magazine has provided an Android GUI PSD.

Courtesy of Flickr - JulianBleecker

While reading a recent interview with Social Media Guru Erin Byrne, something that seemed insignificant caught my eye and has really taken over my thoughts over the past 24 hours. The two opening questions alluded to a new way that we as marketers need to think about how we communicate with our individual customers:

What do you see as the biggest changes in the communications landscape in the last five years?
The most significant change is the change to a many-to-many dialogue. Companies can no longer have one-way conversations with stakeholders. To truly be effective, you have to create dialogue and larger conversations. At the same time, companies should stop trying to control their messages and must focus on real-time branding.

Define “real-time branding.”
Real-time branding is the ability to leverage social tools to react and respond to stakeholders individually-with the right message for the right person at the right time. But it’s important to note that, while people talk about online, online, online, it’s really about integration. Conversations go online, then offline, then online again. The most successful PR professionals use traditional PR to build awareness and then use social media relations and digital tools to drive from awareness to action.

Amazing, right? There are a few things I wanted to bring to further light and discuss in more detail:

“The most significant change is the change to a many-to-many dialogue”
An amazing revolution brought on by the Web 2.0 technologies and the communities that have been forming in the social realm. Everyone now has a voice if they want one; each and every customer, advocate, and cynic. We now have to provide relevant content for, not only the masses, but also each individual. The only way to do this is “create dialogue(s) and larger conversations.”

“Real-time branding is the ability to leverage social tools to react and respond to stakeholders individually-with the right message for the right person at the right time.”
Using social technologies, we can not only communicate individually with the right person, at the right time, with the right message, but we can also communicate in the right space. Not all of our customers are going to be on Twitter and Facebook, but we can still use some of the marketing technologies we have at hand to build and continue individual conversations.

Social Ecosystem

To build a Real-Time Brand and to fulfill these needs of continuous individual conversations, we have to create a Social Ecosystem. Gone are the days of putting up a corporate site and hope our customers find it. We now need to focus on multi platform, social conversations, real-time search, mobile strategies, CRM or Database Marketing, customer service techniques, infiltrating mass advertising with social aspects (ie QR codes, augmented reality, etc) and so on. Designing this type of conversation strategy and providing relevant information to the individuals participating within our social ecosystem will allow the user to take what is meaningful to them and build a personal conversation with our brand, on their terms, with their preferred communication methods. This type of Social Ecosystem creates, what I call, a malleable brand.

Malleable Brand

By giving the customer the power in the conversation, allowing them to take content and information (rather than having it pushed on to them) will create a level of trust and understanding that traditional marketing could only imagine. Knowing where, how, and why to communicate with customers on their level is the future of what’s to come; creating an even larger definition of Real-Time Branding.

Conclusion

I am a huge advocate of communicating to individuals through marketing. With increases in technologies like Social CRM, database marketing, QR codes and social slimming, we have all the capabilities to become relevant in an individual’s world. By creating and understanding the social ecosystem around each individual, we can build this malleable brand that provides highly relevant content and processes that the consumer can mold into their own personal lifestyle, increasing trust, advocacy and passion.

With this passion, our customers will begin to proudly “wear” our brands as badges and utilize our brand essence to define a certain aspect of their own personality… the pinnacle of any brand.

VML was recently asked about the 2010 mobile media landscape based on what we are seeing internally and from our clients.

Needless to say we are bullish on the future of mobile.

We continue to see higher client interest in the mobile channel. Every new RFP that we work on includes a mobile component. While a majority of our efforts in the second half of 2009 have been around iPhone applications, we are seeing more mobile web development as users begin to access websites from a smartphone. As clients develop mobile applications and mobile web content there will also be a need to activate this content through mobile media.

The primary drivers of mobile marketing is the uptake in consumer adoption and the press. All the news around the iPhone and major companies (i.e. Google) investing in the mobile channel are forcing clients to ask what they should be doing in the space.

The biggest issues holding mobile back is the lack of familiarity of the channel by clients and the feeling that they do not have to be in mobile to meet their business objectives. As more clients start to execute mobile programs they will begin to see the unique value and become comfortable with mobile marketing.

We are very excited for 2010.

Chart: Kelsey Group 2009

As 2009 comes to a close, what are “the” conferences that everyone will be looking forward to next year? Where will companies be announcing their new launches? Where will clients be looking to learn about what they should be focusing on? Where will the veterans be sharing their insights?

Below is an initial list of some that the VML team feels will be important.

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	CES http://www.cesweb.org/ Las Vegas Jan 7 – 10 Estimated: $1,000
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	Mobile World Congress http://www.mobileworldcongress.com Barcelona 15-18 Feb 2010 Estimate: $5,000
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	SXSW Interactive http://sxsw.com/ Austin, TX March 12-16, 2010 Estimate: $395- $550
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	M2C http://www.marketing2conference.com/2010/ Paris 22/23 March 2010 Estimate: € 680.00
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	CTIA http://www.ctia.org/ Las Vegas March 22: Partner Conferences & Seminars March 23-25: Exhibit Floor, Keynotes, Sessions & Seminars Estimate: $790.00 – $1,135.00
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	Ad Tech http://www.ad-tech.com/sf/adtech_san_francisco.aspx San Fran April 19 – 21 Estimated $1,400
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	WOMMA School http://womma.org/events/422/ Chicago May 24 – 26 Estimated: ?
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	Internet Week http://www.internetweekny.com/ New York June 7th – 14th Estimated $1,000
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	Mobile Marketing Forum http://www.mobilemarketingforum.com/?q=node/956 New York June 15 – 16 Estimated $1,000
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	Ad Tech http://www.ad-tech.com/ny/new_york_pricing.aspx New York Nov 3 – 5 Estimated $1,400
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	WOMMA Summit http://womma.org/events/november-17-19-2010-womma-summit-10/ Las Vegas Nov 17 – 19 Estimated: ?
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While there is an expectation that some mobile phones, such as the iPhone, are able to provide users with the ability to view and navigate traditional websites, marketers still need to consider providing users with an experience that is optimized for the mobile channel.

The mobile optimization process falls into two categories, content and design.

Mobile Content Optimization:
Marketers need to start by identifying what content will be useful for customers accessing the site via a mobile phone. Many traditional websites are developed to take advantage of the fact that consumers are on a computer accessing the Internet over a browser such as Internet Explorer or Firefox.

As such, websites are often developed with the understanding that they can provide a large depth of information assuming that users can browse to what they are looking for on their terms. However, in the mobile channel users are often looking for specific information that quickly offers them some form of insight or utility based on the fact that they are on the go. They are also limited in that the smaller screen size does not allow for a lot of navigation elements.

The key is in focusing on content that will be of most value to users in the context of being accessed on the mobile phone. In the case of many sites this may include contact/location Information, news updates, and a company overview.

This content should than be prioritized and drive a focused architecture of the information to be delivered on the mobile site.

Mobile Design Optimization:
Marketers also need to evaluate the types of devices be being used by their users. This process can be facilitated through direct customer surveys and/or through the use of secondary research such as ComScore / M:Metrics. Most likely marketers will find that many of the users are not just on advanced devices, such as the iPhone, but also on more mass market devices that are more limited in their ability to serve and view traditional websites.

As part of the design process it is important to understand that large visual elements and interactive features, such as flash, are not conducive to being viewed on a mobile phone. This can lead to the inability for the customer to access relevant information or to abandon the experience all together as they wait for the large files to download.

Marketers should work to develop mobile sites that can deliver an optimized experience based on the phones that are being used to access their content. This process should include developing a mobile site that can dynamically adjust based on the device and the use of device detection that redirects users from the website home page to the correct mobile site destination.

Design:

• Even the best mobile handsets have a fraction of the screen real estate of a PC. Make every pixel count.
• Think portrait, not landscape. Desktop websites are designed in landscape mode, where the pages are wider than they are tall. Designing for the mobile means switching to portrait mode where the content is taller than it is wide.
• Horizontal tabs and columns of text – don’t well work on the mobile. Instead, think of the mobile like a page in a book with a portrait orientation. So use a single column with text that’s left justified.
• Logo should live top left and link back to the homepage.
• The search function should be visible prior to needing to scroll down the page, as this is the most commonly used tool within a mobile site and within a PC/Mac shopping site. There shouldn’t be more than three to four scrolls on any page as a longer page could lead to longer load times and frustrate customers with the page load.
• Ensure that site pages are built to fit across the broad spectrum of all size phones.

Navigation:

• Category navigation should be simple and visible prior to needing to scroll down the page.
• Break down the categories into thorough sub-categories in order to make the site as user-friendly as possible and to eliminate the need for long scroll pages with long download times.
• On your notices, have “layered notices” to let the main points of terms, conditions and privacy laws be a short line with a link to direct the user back to the main PC/Mac site for more extensive details. This offers a comfort level to users that all privacy laws are adhered on your site.
• The “Contact us” link should be visible from all pages. Use drop-down menus whenever possible to make the most use of the small space across the mobile canvas

Usability:

• Make your site searchable. You only get one shot at having a search engine find your mobile site, since you only get one entry in the Internet Zone files – the files search engines use to start every crawl.
• There’s no mouse. Moving up and down is fine, but navigating around a screen is no fun on a mobile.
• There’s no printer. So don’t ask people to print things out.
• The keyboard is limited. PC users don’t mind filling out long forms or writing whole paragraphs. Mobile users hate it. Keep the typing to a minimum.

Optimization:

• Bandwidth may be restricted. Mobile networks are catching up fast, but many mobile devices still fall short of broadband speeds. Keep pages, images and file sizes small. All imagery should be optimized for a mobile environment, not the PC/Mac environment. WAP will not do this for you, neither will an extension such as .mobi
• Megabytes sometimes cost money. Flat data rates are increasingly the norm but some plans charge by the megabyte. And even flat data plans may incur charges when roaming. Users won’t appreciate your wasting their money.

Many eNewsletters are formatted in such a way that it is difficult to read on most mobile devices. Often times the eNewsletter is cluttered with links that are extremely long and difficult to look past, poorly rendered HTML code, and with graphics that appear as broken links.

With over 51m users (22% of 233m mobile users) using their mobile device to check their email in the US it is becoming increasingly important for marketers to consider the mobile space when developing their eNewsletter strategy and executing any program.

Frequency of Use:
- 13% (13mm) almost everyday
- 5% (12mm) at least once a week
- 4% (9mm) between 1 – 3 times a month

Personal & Work Email Use: (numbers are not exclusive from each other)
- 21% (48mm) use a mobile device to check personal email
- 11% (27mm) use a mobile device to check work email

BEST PRACTICES:
1. Provide Dual-MIME Encoding: This method, of embedding a text-only version of the content, drastically improves readability on many mobile (primarily Windows Mobile) devices and is easy to implement.

2. Provide Alternative View Links: At the top of the email provide a single link to an “Online /Mobile Optimized Version”. The link can than execute device detection and drive users to a version of the eNewsletter that is optimized for their viewing experience. If they are on a computer it can go to an online version and if they are on a mobile device it can go to a mobile web optimized version.

3. Simplify links to the online versions of the eNewsletter. Reduce the code and tracking links surrounding the “alternative view” and “having trouble reading this email?” links to a bare minimum. While removing the tracking links may reduce data captured from the email campaign, the benefit gained by reducing bad user experiences due to phones not being able to click the links is worth the sacrifice.

4. While this multi-faceted approach will not eliminate issues surrounding readability, on most phones—namely Blackberries, Treos and Windows Mobile devices—the readability should be drastically improved.

* All data 2009 ComScore