Three Minds On Digital Marketing @ Organic

image credit: wynlok

RFID chip payment systems -- such as poll passes, subway cards, key chain tags you swipe at certain gas stations -- aren't anything new. Though Bling Nation hopes to market its branded chip sticker so that consumers can pay at checkouts with their cell phones.

 How It's Different
1. You can leave your wallet at home. There's no integration with the mobile device at all, so really, you could attach the sticker to your hat as one colleague suggests.

2. Cheaper to use. Bling charges retailers a fraction of what banks charge them to process credit card transactions.

Don't cancel your credit card just yet. Though Bling Nation's program is underway is a couple small communities. There are some crucial elements that it still lacks.

What It Needs to Stick
1. Infastructure. According to Netbanker, "There are about 110,000 PayPass merchants worldwide, less than 1% of the 25 million locations that accept regular MasterCard cards. "

2. Customized branding. Lending companies should make it a point to design eye-catching stickers. Or let consumers customize their own.

3. Security reassurance. Consumers are used to using a credit card with their name on it and some stores ask for I.D.s to combat fraud. Of course there are always early adopters, but it would take better education around theft-identity to assure consumers that this is indeed safe. Sure, my credit card could get stolen, but I would think a retailer would recognize a consumer using a stolen credit easier than someone trying to pay with a stolen phone.

I'm all for technology, but I must say that I'm one of those old school credit card lovers. At least for now. What would make you make the jump?

Thanks to Stephen Murray for the link and Fang-Yu Lin, Dan Neumann, Karri Ojanen and Stephen for their thoughts on this topic.

Sarah Jo Sautter
 

image credit: ianturton

A prediction on the Harvard Business Review blog says one of the top social media trends for 2010 revolves around people turning to mobile to keep up with their social media hobby.

What's Causing This Shift?
We keep hearing (and seeing) that smartphone sales continue to climb. Author David Armano adds that "approximately 70 percent of organizations" are banning social network usage, meaning that employees can no longer update their Facebook status or check in with their Twitter followers from their work computer. That might prompt more and more people to turn to their phones for this.

But is it the banning of certain social networking websites that has caused this trend or the constant need for individuals to feel "connected?" I catch people Tweeting in lines, while driving (not good), in cafes, even in the restroom.

Another cause could be simply the physchographics of the majority of social networkers. Twitter users are more likely to use their phone for surfing, texting and twittering. And with the young end of the Facebook target already avid texters, it's no surprise these companies shouldn't be focusing on reaching their users via mobile.

Cultivating Online Extroverts
Are people more interested in socializing with others online rather than those who are in their presence? I bet our social media addiction is prompting developers to make it faster, easier, cooler to get our fix via mobile.

Thanks to Anthony Viviano for the link on this 2010 trend prediction.

Sarah Jo Sautter

18% of people start their search for new information online via social sites.

It's one of those statistics that takes a minute to sink in, and then a whole bevy of new questions rolls out. We don't blink twice when people mention that they start their hunt for new information via search engines, or even portal sites. But is social media really starting to become the primary vehicle for content discovery?

The Nielsen study is vague, and had many of us scratching our heads as to what the implications were and whether the stat was over-representative or even under-representative of reality. And... ultimately, WHAT are these people using social media to search for?

Is this number accurate? Too high? Too low?

"Interesting... this site lumped Wikipedia in as a social media site. While I would argue that, while from a strictly techie pov it is one, Wikipedia is fundamentally and qualitatively different than MySpace or Facebook. Removing Wikipedia takes social media sites down to 9%." David Freedman

"I'm wondering if when people think about 'searching' if they only associate finding information via the Facebook or MySpace search bar. Are they taking into account how often they put a question like "Where should I eat out in Philadelphia tonight?" into their status update? I think more and more people are using that in replacement of the same search on Google." Marta Strickland

"I'd also like to add that not all blogs are 'social' media. Many heavily visited blogs are professionally written, edited, and maintained. Gizmodo, for instance, might be a starting point for people who are searching for reviews of electronic products." Fang-Yu Lin

The question of "how much" is interesting... but we really want to know WHAT people are using social media to search for.

"I'd be more curious about what the actual queries were within that 18%. My assumption would be that there is a specific type of information people would think most easily found by combing social media. If I'm looking for a great local restaurant, salon, consumer advice, parenting? I'd trust my 'friends' But I'd also just as easily trust a more filtered search experience. There have always been corners of the internet that house experts of one type or another, I don't think they necessarily have to be within my social reach." Nick Sternberg

"I, too, am more interested in the types of queries and find it strange that it wasn't highlighted as part of the study. I might search for opinion-based info on Facebook or Twitter, but I'd look to more reputable sources for fact-based info. I wonder, too, how many people don't realize Wikipedia is public-generated (especially in the older set) and take it as fact?" Sandy Marsh

"I see people making major decisions based on groups of people who might carry similar convictions as they do, though they've never met in person. Is this 'trusted resource' making it easier to sway others into your way of thinking? Or is it giving consumers more diversity in information in order to make more informed decisions? I'd like to think the latter. But you always have to consider the source. What is their motive?" Sarah Jo Sautter

In the end, what do we do with this new information?
While Nielsen didn't give us any insight into what people are using social media to search for, they did throw in this pretty relevant statistic... 26% find that there is too much information online.

Marketers need to consider that perhaps the reason why their audience is turning away from Google and even their brand site and turning to Facebook is to get information is because there is TOO much opinion out there, too much information to sort through. People are turning to their peers, their friends, and "experts" the know and trust to get their information.

And fairly soon... if you aren't part of that conversation, no one will know you exist.

Thanks to Nick Sternberg, Sandy Marsh, Sarah Jo Sautter, Fang-Yu Lin, and David Freedman for their thoughts.

Marta Strickland

In a piece by Michael Calderone & Daniel Libit on Politico.com, an argument is made that for this year's election cycle, cable and broadcast news had been usurped by (gasp) Twitter streams of influential political pros. And there's a major insight in this for any company looking to broaden its influence within its particular industry.

From the article's top:

Political junkie Mike Murphy couldn't get his fix while flipping through the cable networks Tuesday night.

"With a few exceptions," Murphy told POLITICO, "like [James] Carville on CNN or [Karl] Rove on Fox, I didn't see people who know anything about elections."

For hardcore lovers of politics, Twitter served up the real-time nuts and bolts of campaigns racing to the finish line. Top political reporters like NBC's Chuck Todd tapped away for hours as results came in. Meanwhile, the Washington Independent's Dave Weigel provided constant, on-the-ground dispatches from New York's 23rd congressional district, with Twitpics inside Conservative Doug Hoffman headquarters as the tide changed toward the Democrats. With each precinct reporting, journalists and junkies offered quick takes, both amusing and analytical.

Only more evidence of what we've said in this space before -- people like content that features true expertise and useful insights. While CNN, MSNBC and FOXNEWS provide a fun rip roaring run through the hot-and-bothered opinion-driven political sphere, the people who work in politics want facts, insights and relevance -- sometimes from the same employees of these networks without all the chuffa-chuffa of the network.

Too much media strategy has been placed on appealing to the most viewers possible...including vast millions who tune in these cable shows with no real interest in politics beyond the joy of getting worked up. (Same thing for when they are in traffic getting cut off, yelling at a drive-thru clerk for botching an order or arguing with a gate agent at LAX. Is this really the demo a network wants to offer up to advertisers?)

As a veteran of the newspaper/radio/TV/Web media circuit, I've been through streams of editors who thought dumbing-down the coverage to appeal to "real people" was the answer to the creeping irrelevance everyone is fighting in a splintered media market.

The problem is, dumbing down turns off the only people who mattered in the first place -- people who treat information, knowledge and insight as a hot commodity. Those who have specialized in an area (Politico.com is an example that comes to mind) have thrived in this challenging market. And the insight for corporations who now feature Twitter streams, Facebook news feeds, blogs and the like is that you can truly own a conversation by putting your expertise front and center in front of the world...cover your industry honestly, with enthusiasm, gusto and sophistication and watch the world of influencers flock to your doorstep.

--Mike Hudson

Composition Index Trend (Source: comScore Media Metrix)

Marta's off today, so I'm stepping in to bring you this week's digital happenings.

Twitter's Getting Younger and Facebook is Getting Older
Not only has your Grandma probably posted on your Wall, those college student that have been on Facebook since it's inception are aging. Hence the median age of users is going up. And all those reports that say Gen Y just isn't interested in Twitter are now out of date. According to ReadWriteWeb, "Twitter is now the second-youngest of the top four social networking sites." MySpace still takes the youth crown. Back to Twitter: 12-24-year-olds now represent the highest average growth segment, beating out the ever-popular 35-54 range. Could it be celebrities popular with this audience (remember the Ashton-CNN faceoff) that are driving this trend? Jonas Brothers have over 950,000 followers. Katy Perry has attracted over 1.3 million. Case in point.

Bold Moves
Volkswagen claims the only advertising they are doing for the launch of their new GTI is via an iPhone app. That's more than a $59 million savings. But it's also a first in car launches. VW has clearly defined their target and they feel this is a smart move. It might work due to the press behind it, but I wouldn't encourage marketers to be quick to copy. A second, third or tenth marketer to do this wouldn't have the novelty that might be part of it's success.

More Insight Into Your Social Media
Omniture announced the Social Media Optimization Solution in order to bring you "more actionable insight into social media activity, performance and impact." So now brands can more easily spot trends in Twitter or Facebook activity as they relate to a specific action on the brand's behalf. And that's just the beginning. This might be the first step in helping marketers more effectively spend their time and money on social media.

Google's Keeping Tabs on You
Google's Friend Connect is another way for users to interact with your brand. But do brands really need to add another tool to their "connect" mix? If it allows their users to interact with each other on their own terms as does Google's new Friend Connect, they might want to consider it.

Then again, users might be turned off to find the search-engine giant coddles your online habits in their Privacy Dashboard. Once the word is out, the Friend Connect feature on your brand site might not be the worth the implementation.

What's new in your digital world this week?

Sarah Jo Sautter

Image credit: L'Enfant Terrible / CC BY-ND 2.0

In the 1969 song "Where Do You Go To (My Lovely)?" by Peter Sarstedt, the singer tells us of a woman who has everything a modern person could want - money, prestige, education, friends.  But in the chorus, he deflates her by asking where she goes "when you're all alone in your bed?"

Consumers - and those who market toward them - would do well to ask this question now. Ask yourself, when the iPhone gets forgotten, or the car is in the shop, or the Bay Bridge closes, or the coffee shop reduces hours, or the flight is delayed, or the DirecTV DVR blanks, or the WiFi (god forbid) has little or no connectivity - what the &*&#*% do you do?

When I think about the sheer number of things required to get through a normal work day, it at once impresses and intimidates me. What if it all collapsed?

Coping With No Technology
On one hand, you might say that you would panic. The normal pace of life slows and you struggle to adapt. But at a certain point, when you have legitimate excuse as to why you can't be there for the meeting, or have that email sent out...isn't it kind of awesome to just settle in and stare at a bird, or a cloud, or eavesdrop a conversation?

On the other, you might say, you relax.  Who cares if my TMZ feed doesn't pick up for the next 12 hours or I have to wait for a repeat to see Mad Men? But at a certain point after the initial thrill of silence, you are a modern person who has to communicate and consume media just to get by, right?

A  Blessing In Disguise
I dance this line each time I hop in the car without my Blackberry, seemingly changing my mind every 10 seconds as to whether this misstep was a blessing or a curse. Usually I settle on blessing, but when the trackball recently fell out - and the choice of "no 24/7 phone or email" became less of a choice and more "this thing won't work even if I need it to" a certain discomfort did overtake me.

If experience is any guide, I tend to be much more productive listening to no music in a peaceful setting and focused on one task. But when I meet, say an auto mechanic on a lonely stretch of road in Nevada, my usual response goes only a few steps past fascination. I doubt I could pull a shift in his shop on a regular basis.

What Do You Do?
Is this magic man of no computer, phone, TV or other "distractions" actually more interesting than me, because he can do without? Or is fixing a fuel pump not enough of a trade for a modern person? The answer has some interesting implications for marketing folks...especially those dependant on technology to deliver the message.

So just for fun, ask yourself...where do you go, my lovely?  Write your thoughts here and maybe we can tackle the implications portion of this in a follow up blog...assuming our server doesn't crash.

Mike Hudson

This month, Esquire Magazine launched their anticipated Augmented Reality issue. The issue features an AR cover, where Robert Downey Jr. performs an intro and also a pitch for his upcoming Sherlock Holmes movie. In addition, there is other content, such as a fashion supplement where the weather changes based on the way the user tilts the magazine and the time of day they access the site.

An augmented reality cover isn't necessarily new. GE and Popular Science paired up back in February for the first ever interactive 3-D cover (Threeminds' "Augmented Reality is a Marketing Reality). But the level to which they have integrated it and in a fun, playful way is something for other traditional magazines to pay attention to, especially in a time where they are desperate for print readership.

Esquire is getting some flack for this issue from people who consider it merely a marketing tactic, and they are the first to admit that it's a gimmick. Being gimmicky is not new to Esquire. There was an E-Ink cover last year and a "mix and match" cover in May that allowed readers to mix the faces of George Clooney, Barack Obama, and Justin Timberlake.

Others claim Esquire has missed the whole point of augmented reality. Because the whole effort for a consumer to set up the issue against their webcam and download the software, it is essential to show they something of value. Jack Benoff had some ideas as to what that could be:

"What if Esquire's "fashion spread" allowed people to overlay images of an article of clothing on themselves ( for example ties) so that they could match (or in my case, learn how to match) them with their existing wardrobe. Editorial content could provide tips, tricks and insights. Now, that might provide some real value to consumers looking to make a purchase..."

The New York Observer goes so far as to say that users are so used to gorgeous Pixar movies that they aren't really interested in the gimmick that augmented reality could provide. Still, Esquire is getting a lot of press for this. And that is probably all they need to increase sales.

Thanks to Yee Peng Chia for the link.

Marta Strickland

The word is out. The Twitter account ShitMyDadSays is going to broadcast. And it's not the first Twitter sensation to land a TV show. In May, we reported that networks might be developing a series based on Twitter. And back in September it was announced that Texts From Last Night is being picked up by Fox.

These account holders are selling out. I don't think their followers will follow them over to the boob tube. Here's why:

1. Censoring. How are they going to get away with saying the F-word on prime time? Maybe they'll take lessons from Battle Star Galatica and make up a new word. Frak? Uh, not so riveting anymore.

2. Lost in translation. Voice to text then back to voice again. Yeah, both ShitMyDadSays and Texts From Last Night originated as something that supposedly happened in real life. But the humor is in the short tweet delivery. Build a 23-minute (I'm giving them a 7-minute commercial break) story around things like, "she sang that 'this little piggy song' to my balls. and somehow made it work, with me only having two balls instead of five." That alone is funny. I really don't want to know the whole story around it. Or, "If mom calls, tell her I'm shitting... Son, marriage is about not having to lie about taking a shit." Are you laughing? I am. But I wouldn't be watching an old man walking into a bathroom. TMI.

3. Too much of a good thing. These accounts have a ton of followers because people get a good laugh once a day or so. Cram it into a half-hour segment every week and it'll get old fast.

4. Wrong audience. Who's reading this on Twitter? The largest users are 30-plus-somethings. Who's watching TV? According to a study on the big networks released last year, it's 50-plusers. I'm not sure my dad would think someone of my generation making a mockery out of what he said is funny.

5. Wrong message. Sure, most sitcoms are simply a bunch of one-off jokes somehow wrapped into a short story. I can't think of many interesting stories around a guy living with his dad. Seems pretty depressing to me. Texts From Last Night isn't any better. It'd be like one big party. A bunch of kids going out every night. What kind of message does that send our youth?

Will Justin keep tweeting quotes once his show airs? I would think he's save all his material for the show. So all those 742,593 readers (as of today) will have to find something else to laugh at. Or maybe he'd still tweet and save the best material for TV, turning his Twitter stream into a second string. In either case, both ShitMyDadSays and Texts From Last Night have jumped the shark.

How long before you stop following?

Update: The link and quote for Texts From Last Night above were originally posted incorrectly. They have now been corrected.

Sarah Jo Sautter

watching hypnotised on 12seconds.tv

In days of yore, people wrote letters to one another to communicate. If you read Jane Austen novels, you'll know that it was all very proper and romantic. Then we got phones so we started talking instead. Bye bye letters.

Not long after, we discovered email. Although we still use phones, email has become the primary mode of communication for many. It's efficient, you can talk to more people faster, and the give and take generally involved in an actual conversation is somewhat limited. It's a great tool for introverts, since they can avoid the face to face; and it's a great tool for extroverts, since they can "talk" to a ton of different people at once. It works for pretty much everyone who is not a technophobe.

Enter Facebook ... where we can carry on multiple conversations simultaneously. While IM'ing. In real time or delayed. We have substituted quality for quantity.

Then came Twitter, where conversations are limited to 140 characters, and you can amass thousands of "friends" whom you have neither met nor spoken with. On Twitter, you can talk at people for the most part rather than to them. You can do this on Facebook, too. In these tools, conversations become more akin to a spectator sport.

Fast forward to late 2009, where evolution has given us 12 Seconds TV. An invention where, if you are too lazy, busy, illiterate or narcissistic to even bother to pen 140 characters on your keyboard, you can just videotape yourself talking (uh, or whatever, have to wonder about that) for, you guessed it, 12 seconds.

I was tempted to do it but you know, I am wearing my glasses, it's late, makeup is gone, etc., but you get the idea. I'll link to some random person's 12 second spot instead. Maybe it won't catch on after all, if more people are like me than not!

Is the pendulum going to swing back? Will people begin to find value again in personal interaction? Or are we going to continue to talk at each other, failing to truly connect, and just watch each other with limited attention spans going off for 12 seconds at a time, or talking in 140 characters or less? What then? Who will bring you soup when you're sick? Give you a hug when you're sad? Talk with you in depth about anything? Smack you upside the head when you're being a jerk? Tell you they appreciate you and love you when you need to hear it? Next up, marriage proposals via Twitter and 12 Second TV.

To hell with it, I am going to go read Pride and Prejudice. Again. Nah, on second thought, I'll watch it. LMK when someone comes out with the 12 second version.

Tracy Cote

There are a few things I hold sacred...
• honesty
• convenience
• privacy
• chocolate (but that's not really relevant here)
• and the right to experiential discovery

What happens when technology pits these sacred things against one another? How can we have more control over what we're exposed to or how we're exposed?

EXAMPLE 1: Take Google Maps Street View.
GMSV is an invaluable tool for things like checking out the neighborhood where I might consider buying a home (honesty, check!), or making sure I know what my mother means when she tells me to "turn left at the house with the green shutters" (convenience, check!). But, it absolutely gives me the heebeegeebees when I think of anyone that might be street-viewing my house - the most sacred of all sacred places.

The mere thought of that random satellite pic being taken at the exact moment I might be freeing a wedgie or on the very day I couldn't stop my husband from taking out the trash in his underwear, more than merely sends shivers up my spine - it actually angers me. My wedgies and my husband's underwear are my business.

The two-against-one fight - honesty and convenience vs. privacy - seems unfairly stacked. Should I be able to turn off GMSV for my own address? Or even further, should basic Google Maps have privacy settings?

EXAMPLE 2: Using the Internet in planning a vacation.
I can compare hotels to find one that's not next to a prison, but close enough to interesting sights to keep my mind intrigued and yummy restaurants to keep my belly full (honesty, convenience, check and check!). But, lately, I find myself struggling to avoid over-exposure to my destination when planning my vacations. I want to know some, but I don't want to know too much. I live for that first step into an unfamiliar city, when everything is new, a discovery, a first encounter. I relish the mystery of it all.

Sure, no one's forcing me to use the Internet to research the living daylights out of my vacation destinations, but that's hardly my point. How can I control the amount of information I see inadvertently?

EXAMPLE 3:We've all Googled ourselves, right? You haven't? Go ahead - take a minute. I'll wait...

...what did you find? If you're lucky enough to have a really unusual name, you probably feel OK right now. But, if your name happens to be a little more common, say like, um, I dunno, Sandy Marsh, you might have found some social networking links, my Google profile and some bits and pieces about me at Organic (honesty, yup; privacy, maybe). But, you might also have found an actress from the Patrick Swayze hit "Roadhouse", someone in Florida selling a condo, and a 57-year-old former police officer in the middle of a harassment suit (honesty? not so much.)

Shouldn't I be able to tag content in the digital ether as belonging to me? And shouldn't Google be smart enough to know when I'm searching for a person's name to give me a list of possible matches before anyone assumes I'm a cop from Florida who moonlighted as a strip-joint bartender in a cheesy 80s movie?

--

As an Experience Architect, I'm making it my professional mission to do my small part to resolve the battles between these sacred things. Find a way for honesty, convenience, privacy and discovery to coexist - to be handy for those who want them and controllable for those who don't. To keep sacred things sacred.

And, if I should fail, I can always take solace in the fact that all the technological advances in the world won't create digital experiences that taste as good as chocolate.

At least, not yet.

What do you think? Have you heard of any advancements in the works that solve for these dilemmas? Have you come across any digital experiences that strike a fine balance between honesty, convenience, privacy and discovery? If so, please do share.

Sandy Marsh

It's not hard to get consumers into the holiday spirit this time of year. Still, with all of stores vying for the same attention, it could be tough for brands to stay top of mind when it comes down to picking where you're actually going to shop.

It's been two years since we've see a cast of pretty people dancing in Gap clothes to a catchy holiday jingle on television. Well, they're back -- this time with newly created "cheers." And they've created a microsite to help spread the holiday cheer.

You can pick one of 10 cheers, personalize it by entering your friend's name, then send it via Facebook, email or Twitter. I created one for my college-age daughter and one for a colleague. They were fun and easy to use. I only wish they had more geared towards college students. Seems like a miss on their part.

On Gap.com you can shop by the clothes that appear in the TV spots. These digital cheers enticed me to take a longer look at their clothes and even got me excited about visiting their store. There's a small "shop Gap.com" link at the bottom of the microsite, but they should let me browse the clothes that appear in the cheers I sent as a direct link. Even better would have been a printable wish list straight off the model's backs.

To encourage sending, they send you a coupon via email. Though I didn't need encouragement. They were inspiring enough to want to share.

Beth Bica

image credit:

quinn.anya / CC BY-SA 2.0

My friend's father says that people who use a lot of swear words only do so because they have a limited vocabulary (a comment that has prompted my current attempt to stop swearing).

I feel the same way about abbreviations.

I can't abide an LOL, a j/k, or, especially, a ROFL LMAO when there are so many beautiful words you can use!  I was thrilled by the advent of QWERTY keyboard mobile phones, since it meant I no longer had to slowly type out every word in my stubbornness. And hurrah for the iPhone, which lets me go on and on using words like "abhorrent" and "incubator" (okay, I've never texted the word incubator, but I like knowing that I could).

The same goes for Twitter. Those 140 characters present a challenge to get a message across as succinctly as possible. And it is possible. An entire day can be summed up by saying "The cheeseburger I had for dinner makes up for the fact that I drove into a pond this morning. Sort of." It's compelling, it's amusing, it's thought-provoking.

Compare that to this: I drv my car in2 a pond ths mrning, now have 2 pay 3k 2 fix, total #fail LOL. But hving awesome cheezburger now @TGIFridays w/pickles #ftw
I don't even want to try to read it. It makes my eyes sad.

The point shouldn't be to fit as many words as possible into a tweet by abbreviating them into oblivion. Twitter is an exercise in brevity; an exercise which I, perhaps masochistically, love. Probably because a good portion of my work life has included trying to fit my thoughts into a character count.

Some abbreviations are a necessary part of using the platform. Writing RT is both courteous and necessary, and typing "re-tweet" would take up too many valuable characters. And, in the same way that no one calls E-mail "electronic mail," no one actually types out "re-tweet," so RT doesn't even feel like an abbreviation anymore. And we can't avoid the jumble of shortened URLs which, while practical, are distracting and cryptic to read.

Still, even too many re-tweets, mentions and URLs can be distracting unless there is original content intermixed. I'm excluding niche feeds, like NYTimes, which consists solely of links to New York Times articles with short headlines. But, you'll notice if you follow that feed, they never abbreviate in those headlines. They even put periods between the letters in N.F.L.

So, the question: Do abbreviations save time and space, or are they just... irritating?

Jordan Miller

Last week was a pretty big week for gamers. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 had record opening sales. It made $310 million in one day. I'll repeat that. It made $310 million in one day. Activision, the maker of Call of Duty franchise, attributes the success to the CoD brands uniquely engaging experience-a combination of compelling story line and rich cinematic feel.

That was the second time last week that I heard "cinematic" being used to reference a video game. The other being PS3s Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. I've been hearing a lot about this game over the past few months. It's won 15 gaming awards. IGN.com rated Uncharted 2 at 9.5 (it's also an editors choice). And I also read one article where the writer bought a new TV just so he could enjoy the full visual splendor that Uncharted 2 unleashes.

So how amazing is Uncharted 2? Well, after playing for two hours and switching back to television (in HD no less) I thought my cable was broke because the picture looked so bad. Now, I'm not trying to compare the look of Uncharted 2 to Iron Chef, that's not fair to the production team behind kitchen stadium. I guess I'm just saying Uncharted 2 is gorgeous and one of the best looking video games I've ever seen. Oh, and it's fun as hell to play too.

Brands are smart to encourage consumers to take photos using, wearing or consuming their products and share them. But how they do this is the key to getting good user-generated content.

Burberry recently launched a new social photo site that asks customers to upload shots of them or a friend wearing one of their infamous trench coats. The aesthetics and user experience are beautiful. But it has one major hurdle. Owners. And to make it more complicated, owners who will take the time to do a photo shoot and upload their image.

I didn't see one picture that didn't look like it included a model and was taken by a professional photographer. 97 of them were taken by professional fashion blogger The Sartorialist. That could be all of the photos on the site. And to make it tougher there are strict rules around what they'll publish.

Tough Rules:
1. Portrait
2. Outdoors
3. Person must be wearing a Burberry coat
4. Both person in photograph and photographer must consent

I understand that Burberry is a luxury, aspirational brand. Who doesn't wish to own one of their glamorous trenches? I'm sure they want to maintain that status quo. But if they want to encourage user-generated content, they need to make it easier. Or don't bother.

I must say I'm impressed by the number of "likes" and comments on some of the photos. I wager that they're coming from Facebook. (The Burberry Fan Page updates their status with new photos to the Art of the Trench site.)

Here are some ideas of how they could inspire more user-generated photos and more sharing:

1. Expand the criteria to Burberry accessories. More people might be able to afford or desire a scarf, purse or shoes over a coat.
2. Allow people to choose one of the photos and post it on their Facebook wall as a wish list item.
3. Host "Try On" days at stores where consumers can go in and try on trenches at no obligation. There'd be a photographer on site where they could have their photo taken in a coat. Burberry could use it on their site and they'd email it to the consumer to share as they like.

Brands calling for user-generated content should remember these simple guidelines themselves:

1. Make it easy. Give users easy tools for connecting and uploading.
2. Give suggestions, but minimize rules. Users need some guidelines, but they should be more inspirational, not intensely restrictive.
3. Show diverse examples. It's good to have the site seeded with your own content to give users a feel of what you're looking for. Asking your team to help out by uploading amateur shots helps diversify what you launch with.

Can you think of any other ways brands like Burberry could inspire more UGC?

Thanks to Fang Yu Lin for sharing the site with me.

Sarah Jo Sautter

What's Been Happening This Week?

Brands + Social Media = A Happy Marriage?
In the same week that Obama admits that he has never used Twitter, a study was released that shows that he's not the only one that doesn't get it. 50% of the Fortune100 twitter accounts have less than 500 followers, and many brands still view the service as another platform to push their "newsfeed".

Despite the not-so-perfect partnership of brands and social media, 40% of all Facebook users admit to friending brands on Facebook. And brand-related content brought up by search engines is dominated by user-generated content. So even if brands still don't "get it", it sounds like that is not stopping users from talking about them, writing about them, or friending them. Maybe the Salesforce launch of new Facebook-like and Twitter-like features will help get the out of touch brands up to speed with the social world today.

Location, Location, Location
Not that we need to give teens any more reasons to text while driving, but announcing your location to your social circle and the world at large is a growing trend. Twitter launched geolocation tagging to tweets, making it possible to understand not just the WHEN but the WHERE of "what's happening". Meanwhile, developers are excited over Foursquare's API going live, and the bevy of applications already created for it from Wordpress plugins to location-based games. And finally Google Latitude has added location history and location-based alerts.

Then again, for some people... the best location is right in their own living rooms. Hardcore gamers will be excited to know that both Xbox and Playstation 3 announced integrations with Twitter and Facebook.

Marta Strickland

A few cities have turned to digital tools to help them manage infrastructure or customer service. Now, more cities are seeing the benefits and following suit.

In June, we told you about how San Francisco is using Twitter to help solve city complaints faster. They're currently up to 4,600 followers.

The mayor of Chicago recently unveiled his plans to use GPS sensors and surveillance cameras to help manage snowy streets this season. His goal is to cut down on the number of supervisors working at once and control how much salt is being used. Ultimately, he's looking at cost and efficiency improvements.

The upstart costs might be hard to swallow, but the long-term benefits are tremendous.

I can think of tons of ways cities could be using digital technology to be more efficient and help its residents. Here are just a few:

1. Email water bills and allow residents to pay online.
2. Bill taxes electronically and allow online payments.
3. Allow people to sign up for alerts when there will be snow removal, leaf removal or anything else that might affect street parking.
4. Cameras installed in parks to monitor and deter kidnapping, loitering, vandalism, unauthorized use or any other criminal or shady behavior
5. Allow residents to take photos of unkept yards with their camera phones and email them to the city manager
6. Implement a version of Google Maps to alert the city of potholes and other needed repairs

And some cities are already doing some of these. My Toronto colleague can pay his city utility bills online and set up automatic withdrawal for his property taxes.

Here's what would be nice to see on every city website:

1. Park facilities including photographs
2. Park and any other facility rentals, prices and calendar showing existing reservations so you can see availability and book online
3. City ordinance searchable database. Can my neighbor really install that on his front lawn?
4. School performance data
5. Recycling, yard waste and trash how-tos, restrictions and pick up days
6. Submit request and payment for building permit electronically
7. List of recommended builders, landscapers and contractors
8. Agenda and minutes of city council meetings and any other city business

These are not only helpful to current residents but might help lure prospective residents. What are some other ways cities should be adopting the digital mentality?

Thanks to Bridget McKinley, Elliot Smith and Fang-Yu Lin for their ideas on this topic.

Sarah Jo Sautter

I am currently singing the praises of the Livescribe Pulse Smartpen. It ranks right up there with my iPhone, mino HD Flip videocamera, and TechSmith's Morae software .... in making my life simpler; yet, significantly more productive. If you aren't familiar with it, you can see a full demo of its capabilities at www.livescribe.com.

Key features of the pen include but are not limited to the following:
- Capturing what is written in a Livescribe specific journal via an infrared camera
- Capturing audio via a speaker
- Allowing users to upload their notes to a desktop application via a usb cradle
- Giving users the ability to review their notes and the corresponding audio post-session
- Providing users with a friendly approach to sharing session notes (pdf) and/or the corresponding audio publicly or privately
- Providing uploading capabilities for users to share their session with their Facebook friends

How Is It Making Life Easier?
1. Brainstorming Sessions. This allows me to capture team meetings and then share the notes + audio immediately after the session (vs. our current approach of taking a picture with a smart phone, typing up the notes and then emailing them).

2. Usability Testing. It allows me to take notes while moderating usability tests and then share them with team members immediately after each interview. It also makes it easy to search my notes for specific consumer quotations.

3. Doctors' Appointments. It allows me, with the preapproval of my Mom's physicians, to record appointments with specialists that my mother sees for some chronic health issues. As her caretaker and legal guardian, these visits can be stressful and prior to now I was always worried that we might not have caught everything the doctor had to say - compromising her care in some way. On my personal blog, I give some additional tips on how the pen can be used by caregivers.

4. Radio Programs. At lunch today, I heard a great program on Sirius radio about happiness. I took notes in my Livescribe notebook and was then able to load the audio onto my computer when I returned to the office so that I can hear the program again.

I can't wait to see what they come up with for future versions. I recently allowed Russ Hopkinson to play with it. He commented on how nice it would be if there were whiteboards with the same functionality? Think it's in the works....?

So far, my only regret is that I didn't purchase the 4GB version!!

Laura McGowan

Notes: I would like to send a special "thanks" to David Berney who familiarized me with the Smartpen at Forrester's Consumer Forum. You can follow him on Twitter @dberney.

Many smartphones have for years featured front-facing VGA quality cameras, in addition to the better back-facing cams for snapping (more or less) better photos. However, there aren't very many places in the world where video calls between mobiles have really taken off, and bridging video calls between phones and computers has been virtually impossible.

Fring is one of the pioneers of VoIP on mobile, and first launched its app for the Nokia, Samsung and SonyEricsson supported Symbian S60 OS in 2007. Over the years they have extended the app's functionality by adding support for Windows Mobile, the iPhone, and earlier this month for Android, and for several PC VoIP applications including Skype. So far, however, there has been no support for Skype video calls either in Fring or in the native Skype app available for the iPhone, Android, and a few other devices.

The latest version of Fring for Symbian S60 changes that. By offering full video support for Skype, it has the opportunity to leverage the global, widespread userbase of Skype and finally make front-facing cameras useful, particularly to those on networks like AT&T and T-Mobile that don't offer video calling themselves. Fring works on both 3G for, depending on your data plan, inexpensive calls, and WiFi for virtually free video time. Is this what will finally make mobile video calls popular?

Update: And it didn't take Fring long to add video calling to the iPhone app as well. Because of the lack of a front facing camera, it's 1-way only.

Demo: Video calls on Fring for Symbian devices (YouTube)

Karri Ojanen

Luxury goods is a heated topic on the web lately. First Burberry's new "Art of the Trench" campaign became a heated discussion on threeminds and last week the New York Times published two articles pointing to the allure of luxury online.

One discusses how luxury goods retailers are reducing inventories and discounts and are still selling through a variety of high priced items. An example is given: you want that $5,000 Brioni jacket...well, there's just one left, so you better hurry up and get it! (It doesn't say how many were originally ordered, so that fact might not be as impressive if Saks only had two...) The article reports that retailers are wising up to the ways of the affluent; they became their own sort of bargain hunters, waiting for things to go on sale. Well, after 100 years of being in business, Saks realized that if you purchase less inventory and sell through what was purchases, you don't have the nightmare of having to continually reduce prices and then create a whole other retail outlet to get rid of what you over-purchased.

Luxury Shouldn't Be Abundant
In other words, in luxury, it's better to limit supply. Who'd a thunk besides those with elementary understandings of business, microeconomics and readers of Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster?  I have to laugh at it all.

The Web is Your Friend
The second article discusses how technology, including the Internet and material technology (carbon fiber, etc.), have opened new doors for the creation, marketing and selling of luxury goods. That sports brand Oakley (I remember them from their more BMX roots) now offers a pair of $4,000 sunglasses. Gucci has half a million Facebook fans. The very fast paced dissemination of information - between fashion show and store arrival - is making the clothes' arrival seem a non-event. Consumers have already seen these fashions online via media and blogs, so there's not much surprise. Apple realizes this, and even though it's not a luxury brand in the same way Hermes is (well...maybe it is), it guards its latest offering until the last minute, unveils them in a fashion show of sorts introduced by a guy who wears mock turtlenecks, faded jeans and New Balance sneakers, and gets them into stores, usually within a month.

Promotion vs. Aspiration
I have been of two minds with regards to luxury and social media. On the one hand, any promotion is good promotion, and the fact that so many people can participate in being next to the dream is appealing. It's all about aspiration, even though many of those 500K fans probably aren't buying many Gucci products.

On the other hand, there is still something to the exclusivity of knowing, and this still exists in youth culture: witness the limited edition sneaker business, a mass business that masquerades as being really exclusive. The dynamic is pretty simple: Jake knows which blog to look at to find out where and when Reebok is releasing those 100 limited edition Michael Chang Reebok tennis shoes made out of tennis ball material. Not everyone knows where to look for this information, and that gives Jake (and Reebok) quite a bit of cache. When everyone knows what a brand is up to, the knowledge becomes mass, and I have to think that "mass knowledge" diminishes the luster of luxury brands to some degree. I think this is pretty interesting, because the psychology is not strictly for the ultra affluent; people of all demographics are caught in its allure.

With all this, I'm not sure what the solution is. I think it's pretty cool that millions of people can know what a luxury brand is up to, even if it's still out of reach. That's part of the allure of luxury brands. I obviously feel that luxury brands need to figure out a way to shorten development and distribution cycles, so that what is on the runway can hit retail much more quickly. I also feel that there is an incredible opportunity to use digital to test the waters. What are consumers most responding to?  What's not working?

If you can figure that out, you might be able to assess demand and NOT meet it.  After, luxury at its most basic level must keep people waiting and wanting.

Which luxury brands do you follow or buy online?

Jonathan Cohen

Personal branding is a big buzz term. And I totally agree that it's important. How you present yourself across various social media and other online platforms will make a big difference in your work and personal life. We first wrote about being your own Community Manager on threeminds back in May. And ReadWriteWeb recently talked about where a domain fits with personal branding.

But we're forgetting a key piece of this: The way you behave in your online life, just like in your offline life, will brand you more authentically than any prime username or great thumbnail photo.

Let's look at some online behaviors and personality types.
1.  The Facebook friend who fills your newsfeed with Farmville updates. This person (I'm going to say it, this is probably a woman) also invites you to join causes related to saving puppies.

2.  The Facebook friend who constantly invites you to become a fan of his business or the place where he works, even though said business in no way relates to you or your life, and is quite possibly in another state.

3.  The person who always has links to interesting political articles and comments on current events on Twitter, and posts something every day.

4.  The person who fills you in, via Twitter, of every new location throughout her day (including "Eating lunch at Cosi" and "Going into a meeting").

5.  The person who complains about her boss. Often. Seriously. There is someone in my Facebook feed who does this almost daily. Maybe this post is my way of telling her in an anonymous way that this is a BAD IDEA.

6.  The couple with matching Facebook profile photos.

I can pretty much guarantee you that the only one of these people that I would want to be friends with in real life would be number three. And, if I were looking to hire someone, this would most likely be the only one of this group that I would seriously consider.

So here's an easy way to solve your Personal Behavioral Branding (I just made that term up, but I'm using it from now on) issues: Before you post anything on a social networking site, ask yourself if anyone cares.

Five photos of your new baby: Lots of people care!

Five hundred photos of your new baby: No!

A funny thought about the state of our government: People will probably care!

A Youtube video you found of a 1984 German workout video: Thank you!

Quoted lyrics from a John Mayer song AGAIN: I will hide you!

Facebook quiz results: I learned more about you by the fact that you're filling up my feed with these stupid quiz results. I will hide you as well!

And remember, too, that the comments that you leave on blog posts count, too. It's fine to disagree constructively. Conversation is good. But if you're a jerk online, people (including me) will assume that you're a jerk offline, too.

You can be all up on the latest technology. You can have the coolest picture, the best personal URL. But the way that you behave online determines how many people follow you on Twitter, how many people comment on your Facebook posts, and, quite possibly, if you get a job.

Jordan Miller