Three Minds On Digital Marketing @ Organic

I'm not much of a User Interface geek (that is, I enjoy a pointless but entertaining way of getting around a site as much as anyone), but as a web designer I'm always interested on how to convey maximum amounts of information/direction to users as simply and cleanly as possible.

So I thought this was a pretty cool blog post sent by colleague Craig Ritchie, about how icons become less effective as they become more "realistic." It's like as humans we have this sweet spot with symbols: too much detail, or too little, and they stop becoming useful to use as clues to their meaning. The challenge for us as visual communicators is finding that sweet spot.

Anyway, I liked that in itself. But then right below on the same blog was this demo (above) of a 3D style computer desktop. Unintentionally, it kind of proves the point of the article above it. Really, do I need a 3D representation of my desktop in order to use my computer better? It has some cool tools, I'll say that, but there's a point in the video where the guy has all these stacks of documents there, and I couldn't help thinking, "I don't need a computer to replicate the stacks of crap everywhere, that's what real life is for!"

Who knows, maybe it's the future and I'll have to adapt. After all, my father still puts up a spirited defense of the superiority of the Command Line Interface over these stupid "icons" all over his iMac screen.

Do you think 3D representations like this go too far?

Elliot Smith

Reading Traci's post on the Kindle, a gadget that I have never even thought about buying, despite being an avid reader and a total tech geek, made me ponder: Why have I never considered the Kindle?

The real answer is much for in the vein of... well... vanity.

Shelf Envy
I have already switched to storing most of my music on my computer instead of on a shelf (with the exception of my small record collection). If I stop reading, and therefore collecting, actual books, I will have no way to quickly show my varied interests to my houseguests.
How will they know that I have read a wide array of both classic and contemporary fiction? That I am interested in vintage interior design and National Geographic books? That my book collection shows what an urbane, interesting and well-informed person I am? HOW? HOW WILL THEY KNOW THAT I AM WORTHY?

Likewise, it terrifies me that I won't be able to judgmentally peruse the book collections of others. I have a friend who is often at the same parties as me, and we inevitably end up standing together as we silently stare at the bookshelves of the party host, too socially awkward to be talking to other people. Please, don't force us to talk to people.

Spinal Tap
The closest solution that I've seen was a distinctively analog one: A friend of mine made color copies of the spines of all of the library books he read for several years, artfully arranged them on paper, and framed them. It was like the flat-screen version of the home library.

In terms of social networking, there have been some soft attempts addressing the desire to broadcast one's tastes in hope of favorable judgment. There are online book clubs, and there are apps that let you share what you're reading or your favorite books on Facebook. But I hate Facebook apps; they clutter the page and rarely look good.

But none of these can be displayed in my home. So it comes to this: The majority of my social networking, thank goodness, still takes place in the offline world. I need to hang on to something so I can update my real-life profile.

Jordan Miller

Since the OS 3.0 release for iPhone last September, the number of available mobile augmented reality (AR) apps has grown quite a bit.
 
We've talked about a few of them on threeminds throughout the year:
• Yelp's app 
• Nokia's Point and Find 
• Virtual Tennis 

AR is a new type of UI (and user experience), so bugs and features are changing rapidly -- similar to web browsing back in 1994. Remember that?

One cool piece is that Layar's AR app now supports third party 3-D objects. That means that technologists can now build in overlays. And users get new controls that allow them to select multiple layers and control the radius better -- all in a new, less-cluttered interface.
 
It will be interesting to see how these types of interfaces (Yelp, UrbanSpoon, Twitter 360, etc.) are refined and expanded in the future.

Still, there are a few things that might make these interfaces really take off.

1. An aggregator.  A service that aggregates (and filters) content from multiple providers would allow AR to take off - as a publishing platform (similar to the ease of access and standards for Google Maps).

2. Standards.  APIs that make it easy to create AR content, as well as standards for AR interfaces will make AR more of a must have app versus a novelty. A good example is the horizontal gridline seen when using the UrbanSpoon app's AR feature. Instead of AR content moving up and down in the frame as you change the angle of your mobile device (being handheld, sensitive mobile devices will translate all movement into the UI), all content snaps to that horizontal line. 

3. Accessiblity.  AR doesn't necessarily require a visual interface - applications like HearMe are audio-based A' and could work very well for visually-impaired users, as long as the menu systems to get to the AR feature are very easy to use or voice-based.  Conversely, AR content rendered visually could be very empowering to hearing-impaired users looking for information about their immediate surroundings.

What would you like to see?

Jay Bain

Editor's Note: Congratulations to Jonathan Cohen on the birth of his daughter

In the past few years, numerous businesses have popped up offering innumerable products and services for the Internet catering to the business traveling set. As a pretty frequent business traveler, I have benefited from services like GoGo inflight wireless as well as Wi-Fi from a variety of providers inside airports. I can buy books via wireless, check my Facebook profile, send emails and even watch videos on YouTube via my iPhone. And I do, frequently!

The problem is such constant Internet connection inevitably leads to the need for electricty, and as most computer and wireless device users know, there's never enough. You might be able to access Wi-Fi on Virgin America, Delta or American (not everywhere), but you'll probably have a great challenge with a drained battery.

In fairness, Virgin offers 110V outlets - 2 per row of 3 seats - but if you're last to break out your device, you have to delicately ask to "power share". At most airports, it's often a struggle to find power (though I must give kudos to US Air at LaGuardia, which has power stations at each bank of seats); in other airports, I've seen countless travelers sitting on the ground, connected to an outlet most likely placed to power cleaning machinery. This is not particularly convenient, even if you're fortunate enough to spot a free one.

Having spent 3 days at the hospital after my daughter was born, I was struck by how such a great hospital (NYU - amazing doctors and nurses!) lacked outlets in patient recovery rooms. I have been in ICU units where the use of wireless devices are prohibited, but not in a maternity ward, where moms and dads are constantly connected via mobile phones and email devices. I was able to find an outlet next to the area which piped oxygen to patients in need. [Again, I know this is low priority to having the best in healthcare.]

There are other examples where access to power is lacking and definitely more in demand: restaurants, coffee shops, etc. where one might want to connect.

Nice observation, strategy guy. So now what?

I think that there is an as-yet unmet opportunity for individual businesses, electricity utility companies and maybe these Wi-Fi businesses to partner to develop an offering that will undoubtedly be an ever-increasing consumer need. The demand for broadband access might be unquenchable, but knowing that devices will have finite power and require an electric umbilical cord, I believe there is an amazing opportunity to develop an offering. I'd first work on business travelers whose livelihoods often depend on connectivity while on the road.

Jonathan Cohen

Google recently released Goggles which is arguably the broadest reaching AR program available to date. If you are not familiar, it allows you to do two things:

1. Snap a photo of anything and automatically search for results based on images and text within the photo
2. See location and direction specific google maps results by pointing your camera in any direction

The potential of this tool is that of most augmented reality: quick, easy and highly relevant information. This is also another avenue (along with voice recognition software) for mobile devices without a keypad to access search functionality. To see Google's description of benefits check out the video here.

From my tests the text processing works well so things like book covers, business card, and anything with a URL on it return useful results. Goggles was able to identify flat logos but had much more trouble with 3D object logos, for example it immediately identified a Dodge logo on a sticker, but was not able to identify the Dodge logo on the grill of a Nitro.

While many augmented reality apps have been released recently, Goggles is the strongest indication that augmented reality is coming to the masses quickly. If using the camera on you mobile device to gather information and navigate on foot becomes a commonly adopted behavior this has significant implications to marketers.

How Google Goggles Could Impact Marketing
Many things can be done (or not done) with regard to products and storefronts to provide more value to customers and make shopping easier. An analogy is the way natural search, paid search, and search engine optimization work in concert. Users will see naturally occurring results regardless of where they are.

At some point in the future those results could have paid listing next to them or could be enhanced in some way. For example if a person is walking down the street looking for a place to get a coffee they see a Starbucks .25 miles away and next to that appears an ad for Mom and Pop Coffee Shop .5 miles away. So the person is made aware of a local option just a little further away.

Finally products and store fronts will be able to be optimized to better market themselves. For example logos could be optimized to be easily photographable (make them 2D not 3D). Search results could be specific to a model number to provide end users the most important information. For example if I were in market for a new car and saw one that I liked on the street photographing the trim level/logo could return results of fast it accelerates, the mpg and the cost if search results were properly optimized.

My guess is that Layers on Google maps will offer a lot of opportunities for augmented reality marketing through Goggles. Definitely a product to watch over the next year.

Russ Hopkinson
@rhops

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

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
 

This post is in follow-up to an earlier post titled "RIP: Why We Don't Need QR Code Campaigns." Several critical points made by commenters merit further examination. These are:

Many URLs are too long to be easily input, even with a QWERTY keypad.

In the end this will go down to individual comfort levels, but there is some powerful anecdotal evidence to the contrary. If we consider SMS messages, the average length of which is approximately 25 characters, combined with the fact that the average American sends over 300 every month. It follows that Americans are quite comfortable typing on their phones, QWERTY or otherwise, and that in the US thumbs are tapping out well over 7k characters each month.

Based on SMS volume, it stands to reason that if marketers can get their URLs down to 25 or fewer characters, US audiences will not balk at being asked to type it into their browser. To help with this, there are services like Budurl that enable branded URL shortening.

There are more mobile phones with cameras than there are devices with QWERTY keypads.

Yes it's true that mobile phones with QWERTY keypads account for a minority share (18-25% depending on where you look) of the US market, but it's also true that that minority accounts for over 75% of all mobile web traffic. The truth is that the majority of users aren't likely to use their phone for much more than making calls and sending SMS messages. On top of that, many of the feature phones used by the majority, that don't have QWERTY keypads, also do not have cameras with high enough resolution sensors to be capable of decoding a 2D barcode.

Use of 2D Barcodes allows the passing and/or capture of channel, tracking, location and personal data that URLs do not.

Yes and no. In theory, with a specialized reader, a redirect from a barcode scan could pass data about me, and where I'm coming from - name, location, phone number, basically anything stored on my phone - into a form on a mobile optimized site. However, doing this would require a specialized reader and form. There aren't any open standards that are used widely enough to make this more than proprietary functionality. So, the tradeoff really becomes untenable for marketers when we consider drop-off associated with requiring audiences to download and install a proprietary application.

It's also worth noting that much of the aforementioned data can be captured with a shortened URL redirecting to a mobile site. Several mobile browsers already allow location data to be passed to a mobile optimized website.

Generally, 2D barcodes make for a better user experience than URLs.

The process of decoding a barcode is not as straightforward or error free as many of the technology's proponents seem to believe. Current reader software/hardware combinations suffer tremendously high failure rates. This is especially true of software/hardware combinations that require users to take a picture and then decode it, as opposed to decoding through an active camera.

Moreover, putting the onus of driving reader software adoption and educating a target audience on a brand detracts from the delivery of primary campaign messaging. Between education, download, and install the use of 2D barcodes in place of URLs adds too many friction points to be worthwhile.  Marketers should be doing everything possible to get their message across. Using a barcode instead of a URL distracts from clear expression of that message.

QR codes and 2D barcodes have other uses beyond directing users to a URL.

This point was conceded in the initial post: "there are other uses for 2D barcodes that make sense." Clearly 2D barcodes can be useful, but integration with mobile platforms for specific utilitarian purposes will likely require specialized reader software for each unique purpose. The critical point to recognize here is that the use-case that popularized the technology in Japan, easy input of URLs, does not translate to the North American market. In NA, the trend toward QWERTY keypads eliminates the need to use 2D barcodes as a URL input mechanism. Smartphones are not widely used in Japan.

It is too early to proclaim the death of 2D barcodes for any and all mobile uses, but expect to see image recognition and NFC give barcodes a run for their money. That said, it is worth considering interesting ways to use QR and other 2D barcodes with mobile phones, that can't easily be replicated with a URL and mobile-optimized site? 

2D barcodes can contain as many as 4,000 alphanumeric characters depending on size and type. Using barcodes to transmit data in spaces that lack network connectivity could provide significant value for both marketers and consumers. For instance, print ads in subways might use barcodes to allow people to save or receive additional information about a product or service directly to their phone.

Barcodes have been widely used in inventory management infrastructures since they were first introduced. Starbucks' use of QR codes in their gift card iPhone app is more an extension of infrastructure capability than a marketing play. Although it does have important implications for its marketing and advertising.

Dan Neumann

Twitter and the web at large is up in jubilation over the release of Google Wave today. So much so that the beta invitations have run out and the opportunity to take a "test drive" is selling on eBay for $70 a pop. If you don't already know what Google Wave is Mashable offers a really nice "Complete Guide to Google Wave", which after using can only be experienced not described.

Google Wave is a real-time communication platform with some huge UI bugs to overcome. In order to test out the platform, I started a wave with some of the best minds at Organic and threw them a series of questions to answer, debate, and co-edit. Extracts of which are below:

QUESTION #1: Do you think the "revolutionize e-mail" hype is justified or even accurate for Google Wave?

Kai Wright: I'm expecting a revolution. It's definitely a cool way to send AIM and have group chat. It's hard to learn though - where's the simple Apple-like tutorial?

Dan Neumann: You can't quote me on this, but Wave is waay to complicated for older people. if this is going to replace email my parents will need to be willing to use it

Marta Strickland: My parents are confused by the different functionality within Facebook... what's a comment, what's a wall post, what's a private message. I don't know how they would handle something like this. Even I am a bit confused.

Craig Ritchie: but I remember when email was difficult to understand for people too... it's all about your previous experiencse and how to apply them to new ones. And what's a "poke" for anyway? we'll never know.

QUESTION #2: Is Google Wave going to be relevant and in use by the "mainstream" or at least early adopter mainstream in 2010?

Dan Neumann: relevant yes. useful? maybe not

James Vreeland: i think that it will hit a point where people stop thinking about using it and its just "how you post photos and comments on the site". This UI is way too much for day to day use for most folks, but the underlying engine is way to potent to fade away quickly.

QUESTION #3: Is Google Wave a wiki? an e-mail platform? a chat window? a whiteboard tool? Which one does it have the most opportunity to replace in our daily lives?

James Vreeland: 1 part subethaedit, 1 part basecamp, 3 parts campfire

Craig Ritchie: worst thing you can do is try to bucket new concepts into old buckets. that's why we have such trouble selling these things to clients.

Derek Scott: I'm looking forward to seeing what new collaborative tools are created using the API.

FINAL ASSESSMENT: Lots of quirks and lots of potential. Potential to confuse, potential to revolutionize... if not e-mail or chat or whiteboarding, than at least the ability to get a few co-workers across offices riffing on an idea for half an hour.

Thanks to Craig Ritchie, Kai Wright, James Vreeland, Derek Scott and Dan Neumann for participating in today's experiment. A snapshot of the full dialog can be seen below.

Marta Strickland

image credit: Wessex Archaeology

That appears to be Google's tactic. A few days ago they announced a new plugin for IE 6, 7, and 8 called Chrome Frame. It's available now as a developer preview so you have to prepend "cf:" before the "http" in all URLs, but for a first release it's admirably cohesive and powerful.

Creating a Better Experience
What it does is replace IE's decrepit page display code and javascript code with Chrome's. Everything else about IE stays the same, appearance, bookmarks, history, options, tabs, everything. It's simply that suddenly IE is as fast and modern as Chrome.

And it really is as fast as Chrome. "Notably, IE8's SunSpider scores with Chrome Frame running equaled Google's Chrome browser, a solid indication that the plug-in effectively turns any version of IE into the speed equivalent of Chrome itself."

Users can install the plugin with a single click, without relaunching the browser, and even without administrator privileges. Websites can go so far as to present visitors with the ability to do just this. (More info is available on Google's Dev FAQ.)

Using the Competition's Downfalls To Their Advantage
The beautiful irony here is that this uses an old Microsoft technology they built in the '90s to make IE more flexible than Netscape Navigator. And yet, here it is a decade later being used by one of their biggest competitors to help usher their dilapidated browser into bygone history. Even better, that same feature is what powers most IE toolbars so it's not going to be closed any time soon.

Fixing What's Holding Them Back
Everything Google makes could be made more easily, more quickly,and with better features if they didn't have to support any version of IE, but especially IE 6 which is still the most popular browser globally (by age it would be in second grade now). GMail uses HTML 5's local database features, GMaps and Latitude use the new GeoLocation javascript spec to locate your position. In doing these, they've shown that they can code around IE's nuisances as we all must, but this takes time, costs money, and is really, really unpleasant. Imagine if Reader, Docs, Calendar could work offline such as when you're on a plane and then when you get connected again they would then sync all of their changes to the server. IE8 finally caught up to all other browsers and introduced support for this (yet IE6 and 7 clearly are not going away). Or what if Picasa let you edit your photos via HTML 5's <canvas> feature? This is already supported to degrees in everything except IE.

Google's stance is that which many developers feel: IE is very literally holding us back and it needs to stop.

Late To The Game
It wasn't until last month -- August 7 -- that Microsoft finally issued a public statement with meat on their thoughts about HTML 5. A whopping 5 years after developers and browser makers started the process! This complete silence had an awful lot of us worried about the thorns IE could present in the future and probably was no small part of Google's decision to undermine IE's stranglehold on its stalwarts.

Giving Us A Choice
IE is not going to die by attrition. No one action or event is ever going to make two-thirds of everyone on the internet give up on the browser they use. This will help for sure, that it doesn't require administrator privileges for installation is an unbelievable coup d'état. Three out of four people on Digg who use IE6 use it because they don't have a choice. Well, they've got a choice now.

I know that from now on all of my personal work is going to include the simple code from Google to use Chrome Frame if installed, and offer to install it if it's not. It's too easy and nightmare-reducing not to!

Phil Dokas