Last week @Marcus_Andrews asked me to be a guest on his weekly live podcast at Cone. Here, we talk about SocialSmack, the new Twitter layout and Foursquare’s entry into the university space.
“Mad Men” in the Twittersphere: The Future of Entertainment is Interactive
I stumbled across an interesting sub-culture of the “Mad Men” phenomenon. Someone–actually, several someones–appear to be running Twitter accounts for all of the “Mad Men” characters. Yes, all of the characters. Even the vending machine has a Twitter account. The accounts interact with each other seamlessly, despite the fact that there are like ten Don Draper profiles.
A separate example:
My first thought is, “What the hell is going on here?” And then I see this:
So fans can interact with these characters (who I assume are being run by fellow fans) to create an interactive experience that goes beyond the 10p.m.-11p.m. time slot during which the show runs. Twitter gives these characters voices on an even playing field with fans.
This video by Ideo talks about the future of books. These folks believe that fiction literature will be interactive in much the same way as the “Mad Men” characters are living on Twitter. What’s the takeaway for entertainment marketers? Plan on making your content interactive in social spaces. If you don’t, your passionate fans will do it for you.
My question is do people always want to be active participants in everything? Is passive consumerism dead? Won’t there always be a small corner of humanity that just likes to curl up with a book and read? We’ll see.
Check out the rest of the “Mad Men” characters:
http://twitter.com/dondraperSCDP
http://twitter.com/Carla_Madmen
http://twitter.com/BethanyVanNuys
http://twitter.com/MisterDraper
http://twitter.com/HarryCraneSCDP
http://twitter.com/PeteCampbell_NY
http://twitter.com/_TrudyCampbell
http://twitter.com/The_Don_Draper
http://twitter.com/MsMeganSCDP
http://twitter.com/StanRizzo_SCDP
http://twitter.com/_BettyFrancis
…and I’m sure I’m missing a few.
SCVNGR has BIG usage numbers, but they’re keeping quiet.
The biggest question marketers have about location-based services is adoption. Forrester’s report in July found that about 4% of adults use an LBS. Since then, Foursquare has grown from two million to three million, Facebook announced it’s new Places product and Gowalla has been boasting of record numbers since the end of August. In short, it’s really difficult to tell exactly how many people are using location-based technology. But what makes it even harder is when location companies keep their usage numbers under wraps. That’s exactly what SCVNGR has been doing.
By my estimate, SCVNGR has about a million downloads, which would place it as the #2 location-based social network (ignoring Brightkite and Loopt since we’re unclear on how many active users they have) behind Foursquare, but ahead of Whrrl and Gowalla.
Here’s how I came to that number:
On August 2, SCVNGR released an update for the iPhone application.
That second point from the bottom prompted my buddy @djcap to tweet about the creative Rickroll. (That twitpic link is what you see above.)
SCVNGR CEO Seth Priebatsch responded:
I was raised to believe that “several” meant anywhere from three to five. So we’re talking about numbers in the 300,000 to 500,000 range at the beginning of August. Since then, Facebook Places appeared and SCVNGR got access to the APIs in advance of public release. The company has also been featured on Mashable at least ten times (my rough count). Last week, SCVNGR announced it surpassed 100,000 downloads in 48 hours! That’s massive growth during the month of August.
Let’s take the middle ground on Seth’s tweet: 400,000.
Add that to the 100,000 at the beginning of September: 500,000
Add the insane growth during the month of August, take into account the users who play via SMS and don’t download an app, and you’re closing in on a million. Now with local businesses diving into SCVNGR and featuring window clings and informational cards about how to play, if SCVNGR isn’t at a million users yet, they will be soon.
I asked a SCVNGR employee about their usage numbers. He just smiled and said, “We’ll let you know when we pass Foursquare.”
#LBSchat Recap: The Platforms are Starting to Notice!
@mrahmey and I have been organizing a weekly chat focused on the location-based services industry. It’s been a nice little Thursday night jaunt around topics like small business, gaming and location-features across the web. We never expected the location platforms to jump in on the discussion so quickly!
So far we’ve had Where and SCVNGR join the discussion, the TriOut team on board from day 1, and promotion from some really interesting Foursquare resources such as 4squarebadges.com, aboutfoursquare.com, @FoursquareHelp. Yesterday I spoke with Whrrl creator Pelago’s VP of Product/Marketing John Kim at length about the product’s roadmap and strategy after he noticed how much we were tweeting about Whrrl on #LBSchat!
This chat is quickly becoming a kind of focus group for the location industry. If you’re reading this and taking part in the chat, thank you! If you want to get involved, we chat on Twitter on Thursday nights at 9pm EST with the hashtag #LBSchat. Check out last night’s transcript.
#LBSchat Recap
Last night we held our first ever #LBSchat. @mrahmey and I co-designed the idea over the past couple of weeks. Our goal is to open people up to new possibilities with location-based technology beyond the mundane discussions of Foursquare vs. Facebook Places. So last night we talked about how location applies to Groupon, Zynga, Starbucks, Chatroulette and Twitter. Here are some of the most insightful tweets from the night:
Cudos to the TriOut team for joining in. Having a platform perspective on these issues really enhanced the discussion. See the whole #LBSchat transcript here. If you’re interested in more location chatter, check out @waynesutton’s #GEOchat Tuesdays at 2pm EST.
Next Thursday at 9pm EST, we’re talking about gaming elements in location on #LBSchat. Don’t miss out!
How Facebook Can Solve The Duplicate Venue Problem
I’ve been thoroughly confused by location-based services that allow the users to create venues. Many times, this practices leaves the LBS with a ton of duplicate venues. Facebook just announced they have partnered with Foursquare, Gowalla, Yelp and Booyah to bring the location experience to the world’s largest social network. The Places feature on Facebook will allow businesses to claim their Place and merge it with an existing Facebook Page. Okay. Cool. But what happens when there are duplicate venues that already exists not just within a single platform, but across platforms? (Facebook answered a lot of questions in its FAQ section on Places, but this one remains unanswered.)
Here’s what Facebook has the potential to do. It can solve the duplicate venues problem once and for all.
At point A., if Facebook allows business owners and managers to merge multiple LBS locations with a single Facebook page, it can solve one of the biggest problems in the location industry. That would allow the location-based platforms to better track and merge duplicate venues.
But another issue occurs at point B. What happens if not every location has a Facebook Page? Do they have to make one? Some corporations don’t allow franchisees to manage individual Facebook Pages for their branch. What happens to those locations on Facebook? Is the corporate site allowed to merge multiple Facebook Places into a single Page?
To be honest, I’m a little overwhelmed by the Facebook press conference tonight. I may have missed the answers to these questions, but then again, Zuck did say, “There’s a lot we aren’t doing…yet.” The possibilities are there. Will Facebook and the LBS networks follow them up with actions? And if so, when?
Old Spice Embodies New Trends in Social Media
If you’ve spent any time on the Internet this week, you seen the Old Spice video responses campaign marathon. It’s a marketing ploy so invasive, it’s incredible; so unbridled, it’s unnerving. The brand’s YouTube channel now hosts almost 200 videos, most of which are customized responses to brand mentions on Twitter and YouTube video comments featuring Isaiah Mustafa, the actor and current face of Old Spice. Is this a showcase on the future of conversational marketing, or is merely testing the limits of how much we love when comedy covers stabs at our privacy? It might be both.
The idea is not anything new.
Remember the viral video sensation of 2007? Two kids made a YouTube video of a glitch in an EA Sports Tiger Woods Pro Golf video game.
EA responded with a YouTube video that ran on television as an ad with a claim that there was no glitch; that Tiger Woods was actually was good enough to walk on water. The video received almost five times as many views as the user-generated parody:
Wheat Thins will hunt you down
Last month, Wheat Thins started hunting down Twitter users who comment about the the popular crunchy product. The Wheat Thins squad physically tracks down the people in their homes or when they’re out at a restaurant leaving one victim bewildered, glancing nervously at the cameras and wondering aloud, “Don’t I have to sign something?”
The Old Spice campaign is no doubt miles ahead of other viral marketing attempts. Take a look at Visible Measures’ statistics from the video series’ first few days: 
To me, this campaign was really eye-opening. It signifies two major trends happening in the new media world right now:
1) A business-driven convergence of popular social media platforms.
Think back to 2009. Which two emerging trends went crazy that year? Twitter usage was the biggest upward trend. The other was online video, which, with the help of Hulu, took huge strides.
2) Advertising taking some control over social media
The Old Spice campaign was organized by Weiden + Kennedy, and it was an aggressive move from the advertising firm. Having graduated from Boston University with a PR degree, I’ve been told PR departments should control social media. Now, I’m being exposed to some different points of view. While I still think PR skills (notice I didn’t say “firms”) are best to handle day-to-day “conversation management,” I’m seeing advertising disciplines (again) taking the lead in creating social media campaigns.
If you want to read more about the Old Spice campaign, see the following articles:
http://mashable.com/2010/07/15/old-spice-stats/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1295266/Old-Spice-adverts-masculine-ever.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
My New Job
This week, I start my full-time position as Emerging Technology Strategist at Allen & Gerritsen. It’s the end of one chapter in my life and the beginning of another. I decided got creative with YouTube Search Stories tool (made popular by Google’s Superbowl commercial) to recap the last few years of my life:
I would be nowhere without the wonderful mentors, friends and colleagues I had through the years, especially those who helped me with my job search. I want to take some time to thank them now.
Above and beyond everyone are my parents, who have supported me emotionally and financially my entire life. Thanks, Mom and Dad!
(Everyone else is listed alphabetically.)
Jacqui Barrett-Poindexter for showing me that resumes don’t have to fit into a box
Meghan M. Biro, founder of TalentCulture and career mentor for me
Scott Farmelant, for showing me the power of good pr
Tony Figliola, my old high school speech coach and good friend
David Goldstein, for trusting his marketing to my creative ideas
David Jordan, for staying in touch post-internship and always looking for opportunities for me
Megan Peet for supporting me through my final years of college
Professor Gerry Powers, for teaching me the good writing is universal
Ellen Rossano, who took my job search on as a personal mission
Rachel Sprung and the entire PRSSA executive board
Professor Steve Quigley, for believing in me and helping me break the traditional PR graduate mold
The loyal crew of insideBoston
The 4th Floor Digital team
Thanks to you all (and anyone I’m forgetting). I would be nowhere without you!
The Portal in Brookline
This week, I had one of those rare moments when I saw something so remarkable, I had to stop and stare. It was a true Purple Cow in Godin’s terms.
If you take a stroll down Harvard Street near Coolidge Corner in Brookline, MA, you’ll pass a black hole portal that leads to Roxbury. Just before you take your running start to jump through a la Platform 9 3/4, you’ll stop for a closer look and realize that what you see is not in fact a black hole. It’s a large screen linked to a camera that is live broadcasting a street corner in Dudley Square. A set of microphones and speakers links the two locations with audio. You’ll soon discover you’ve stumbled across a virtual street corner. The description of the “digital media public art project” from Virtual Corners.net is below:Beginning in June 2010, a storefront in Coolidge Corner, Brookline, and in Dudley Square, Roxbury will be transformed into large video screens, providing pedestrians of each neighborhood with a portal into one another’s worlds. Running 24/7, life-size screen images and AV technology will enable real-time communication between residents of the two neighborhoods.The neighborhoods we have chosen to connect are transportation and cultural hubs with rich and intertwined histories. They are only 2.4 miles apart and a city bus runs directly between them, yet very few people from either neighborhood visits the other. Using technology developed to bridge geographical distances, Virtual Street Corners instead traverses the social boundaries that separate two important neighborhood centers with significant historical connections.
I took a brief video of an encounter I witnessed:
I’ve got to give credit to the creators of the project/experiment, listed on the website as “John Ewing, in collaboration with Carmen Montoya, Kevin Patton, Christopher Robbins and Minotte Romulus.” They’ve created something really cool that’s centered around the human connections we can make when geographic boundaries are torn down. No, it may not directly serve a business purpose. Sure, it uses technology that’s been around for ages. But it got my attention (something increasingly more difficult lately) and got me thinking about the invisible partitions we live with every day.
If you need to reach me
- Email is the best way:
EricLeist@Gmail.com
Call if it's urgent:
(215) 869-6489Text if you're in an Emoji kind of mood
