Tag Archives: tech

My Third-Party App Pinterest Wish List

I always say the reason foursquare was able to beat out so many early competitors in the location-based space (Gowalla, Facebook Places, Whrrl, MyTown) is because it welcomed open source development on its platform. Foursquare’s API is its most valuable asset. And everything from the careful documentation to the hackathons foursquare has hosted screams “We want you to use our technology to make awesome apps!” In today’s development environment, APIs are sort of like the famous line from Field of Dreams: If you build it, they will build with it.

Right now, developers can’t wait to get theirs hands on the yet-to-be-released Pinterest API. Here are some app features I’d like to see developers build.

1. Scheduling

Pinterest creates amazing opportunities for brands to have fun with their customers, drive

traffic to their website and even gain insight into their customers’ wants and desires. But like most social networks, marketers can’t just “set up a Pinterest and let it do it’s thing.” The newsfeeds are based on recency, so Pinterest requires constant updates and maintenance.

Third-party apps like Hootsuite, Tweetdeck and CoTweet have made social marketers’ lives much easier by providing the ability to schedule posts. Pinterest needs the same type of feature.

2. Selective Unfollowing

Every new social network struggles with the “my friends aren’t here” complaint. Pinterest addresses this challenge by having its users automatically follow all of the boards users’ Facebook friends create. That’s great when the Pinterest party is small. But as this network becomes more mainstream, users won’t need as much help finding a critical mass. The result of the auto-follow feature for me has been a newsfeed crowded with wedding dresses and interior design. I’ve spent a lot of time unfollowing those boards (not the users) to get the newsfeed I wanted. The automatic following is leading to manual unfollowing, and that’s a problem.

A third-party app could automate this. I would log in and indicated that I want to follow my Facebook friends on Pinterest, but I only want to follow their boards about comedy, infographics, photography, latte art, Star Wars, and dancing gorillas. An app could take that input and, based on the tags and descriptions of my friends’ boards and pins, ensure that my newsfeed only gave me content I wanted to see.

I want to follow my friend @MShahab, but some of her boards don't interest me.

3. Recommendation Engines

The search function on Pinterest is really weak. It appears to sort only by recency, not by popularity. That’s great if I’m looking for the latest pins, but not if I’m looking for great boards to follow. There are a lot of recommendation engines out there for other social networks; Pinterest needs one too.

4. Data Visualization

My favorite third-party app for Instagram is Statigr.am. It’s a site that visualizes your activity on Instagram in ways a basic visual feed style doesn’t. Statigr.am lets you see your most used filters, what days of the week you typically post, your biggest fans, most popular photos and more in an infographic-esque style.

I’d really like to see a Pinterest data visualization tool. It would be great for helping brands optimize their content on Pinterest, and it’s a lot of fun for consumers to look at too.

There’s some speculation about when Pinterest will release its API, but when it does, I expect there to be an onslaught of third-party apps taking Pinterest to the next level.

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March 31, 2012 0 Comments Short URL Advertising, Foursquare, Social Media, social media marketing, tech Social Media, Technology

Why the Checkin is Alive and Well

Last week a controversial-for-the-sake-of-controversy article appeared on ReadWriteWeb. It was called 2011: The Year The Checkin Died. It stirred up a lot of conversation and has sparked a debate about the future of location-based services. Mark Watkins, the CEO of Goby and guest author on the article rips checkins as useless and uninteresting in many ways throughout the article. A lot of people have been asking for my response.

Here it is below in an audio except from the AboutFoursquare podcast:

Of course several days after the article was posted, foursquare logged their largest checkin numbers in a single day to date with over 3 million. Several of those were mine.

My Top Five Reasons Why The Checkin Is Still Alive

Checkins are not about broadcasting. They’re about telling an app what you’re doing. Private checkins are growing because of the fact that use of the LBS services is evolving.
Checkins are useful for tracking behavior. Services like Scoville and foursquare points system enrich your life by helping you remember when the last time you saw your friends was and when the last time you went somewhere was. Post checkin experiences are like reminders of fun times and good memories. You can’t have those post checkin experiences without the checkins.
LBS deals DO influence decisions if they’re done correctly. You can’t blame the technology for the way people are abusing it. Eventually best practices will arise, just like other marketing channels.
Checkins DO aid discovery. They are data points that are valuable for recommendation engines, but they work in tandem with other data points. Without checkins, you have no verification, you rely on shaky self-reporting and aspirational data.
A service they relies sole on checkins will fail. Yes. It will. But there are not services that rely only on checkins. Checkins are always paired with other interesting data, and that’s what makes them so powerful.

What do you think? Are checkins dead? Are they useless? I think the definition of a checkin will change, and eventually the icky experience of having to go through five or six screens on a mobile device will give way to passive checkins.

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April 17, 2011 7 Comments Short URL Foursquare, Future, lbs, location-based services, SCVNGR, tech, whrrl Location, Location-based Services, Technology

My Top 10 Strangest Foursquare Friend Requests

Location sharing is the hottest Internet privacy topic these days. Generally, my counter-argument to the whole you’ll-get-robbed-if-you-use-foursquare craze is, “If people want to rob you, they’ll do it when they know you go to work…probably every weekday between 9am and 5pm. They aren’t going to track you on foursquare.”

Even still, I’m careful about who I share my location with. At the same time, I’m curious about the social norms forming around friend requests on location-based social networks. Since I’m on the AboutFoursquare podcast, I get a lot of really off-the-wall friend requests. Here are some of the strangest requests I’ve ever gotten.

UPDATE: Since publishing this post, I’ve gotten another strange request from the Ministry of Bacon. I’d put these guys at #2.

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January 3, 2011 8 Comments Short URL Facebook Places, Foursquare, gen-y, lbs, location-based services, tech, transparency Location, Location-based Services, Social Media, Technology

What I didn’t get to say at #MASStalent

Monday night I was part of a panel of Gen-Y digital marketers and innovators that made up the first event in a movement called #MASStalent. From what I understand, #MASStalent aims to bring students and young professionals together for conversation about the future of all things digital. The kickoff was nothing short of awesome. It was headed up by Hill Holliday’s DJ Capobianco and organized by Emerson’s Zach Cole, BU’s Maurice Rahmey and Northeastern’s Aaron Gerry. Kudos to those guys for putting it on.

[Watch video of the panel here]

I got to speak on a few topics during the panel including the role of social media in a campaign and why SCVNGR isn’t the “next big thing.” But I noticed a few questions posted on Hill Holliday’s windows that did not get answered. Here’s the rest of what I would have said, but never got a chance to.

Augmented Reality

Right now, it’s too early to look at AR as a whole. Pieces of it are developing on their own. So if you want to know about where AR is going, study up on where location technology is going, where image recognition is going, and where hologram tehcnology like GE’s Ecomagination Smart Grid campaign is going. It is a combination of these things–location, image recognition, 3D objects–that will make up instantaneous, design-oriented access to information. That is what AR will be, but it hasn’t all come together quite yet.

This is sort of what I’m talking about (except it will be optimized not to be so overwhelming):

The Education System is Broken

One goal of #MASStalent is to help students understand what they can do before graduation in order to be ready for work in digital industries. My advice is this:

Recognize that your professors are ignorant of new technology. I am overgeneralizing, but not by much. In my time at BU, I might have had two professors who knew that they actually did not know everything.
Read Mashable and TechCrunch as much as you can. Test as much technology as you can. Learn as much as you can outside of class.
Shut up. Don’t point out to your PR professor that a blogger will think you’re nuts for trying to pitch them via snail mail. Just keep your head down and do it. You’re never going to convince them that the ways they have known and loved their professions are now irrelevant, so spend your time and energy worrying about more important things. It’s a sad reality, but it’s true.

The Hardest Part

One student asked what defines success for Gen-Y in digital industries. If you can convince people to say “yes” to new ideas about technology, you will be successful. That’s a lot harder than it sounds, and it’s something I struggle with daily. That goes for fellow employees, clients, customers, consumers, everyone. Humans are creatures of habit, and their initial instinct is to reject the unfamiliar. Get them to break that habit, and you will win.

Next Trend in Digital

I saw a post-it asking, “What’s the next trend in digital besides group buying and location?” Yes, I really do believe that group buying and location are the two most important trends right now. I also believe in the following equation:

Foursquare + Groupon = beautiful rainbows and baby bunnies

But since that isn’t the question, I’ll say that collaboration is the next next big trend. There are so many mobile applications and so many social networks that at some point we will need to see more collaboration. TriOut is a thought leader in this respect. It’s an iPhone app and web app that lets you check into multiple location-based services at the same time. It adds its own features as well, but the collaboration piece is key. More developers will be using more APIs than ever before as time goes on. Platforms will encourage third-party apps, knowing that they are crucial to success.

Our panel at #MASStalent

That’s it. I’m given away all of my knowledge. Stay tuned into the #MASStalent hashtag for future brain orgasms like Monday night’s.

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November 17, 2010 4 Comments Short URL Advertising, gen-y, internship, SCVNGR, social media marketing, tech Technology

Location-based Services in the Travel Industry

On Thursday, we held our weekly Twitter #LBSchat and discussed opportunities for the tourism and travel industry. I’ve compiled some of the most interesting points of the conversation and added a bit of my own commentary here.

Question 1: How can Foursquare drive foot traffic to travel destinations?

As I mentioned here, it’s obvious Foursquare is moving toward a Whrrl-like model with it’s new 2.0 upgrade, which places To-Do’s and Tips in a much more prominent role. This change is the first of a two-step process:

Foursquare will take a main-stream tactic by spoon-feeding its users. First, Foursquare is introducing the core users to the idea of tips.
Second, Foursquare will implement more updates that will personalize and categorize the Foursquare user experience. Right now, tips are a dead end. If you leave a tip at a location on Foursquare and someone else completes your tip, you get no notification when happens. Whrrl has completed this loop with its influence scores and societies, but hasn’t yet penetrated past the iPhone platform.

Question 2: If you could only take one location-based app with you on vacation (domestic), which one would it be?

Dan Parks raised an interesting point here. Once Foursquare starts mining the To-Do and Tips data, they will be able to show which Foursquare users are more influential in certain verticals. The sushi expert’s tips will be displayed more prominently on location pages for sushi places. Same for wine connoisseurs, mommy-bloggers, urban socialites and more.

Question 3: How can an online travel sites like Orbitz and Expedia integrate LBS? What about drive revenue?

Alicia Collins raises an interesting issue here. When the reality she’s talking about comes to fruition, we will have real-world affiliate marketing. Right now, affiliate marketers get paid by how many clicks they get on certain links, or how many Amazon purchases are tied to their designated link. In a short while, affiliate marketers will be paid based on how much real-world action they are driving.

Question 4: Mobile application EpicMix lets skiiers track physical activity on the mountain. What’s more beneficial: specialty apps like EpicMix or LBS like Foursquare?

I have long been preaching the fact that location elements will become common features across almost all media, especially mobile media. In a few years, we won’t think about what location-based app we’re using. When we’re drinking beer, we’ll check into Untappd (and Foursquare along with it). When we’re running, we’ll use RunKeeper. You get the idea. Every app we use will have a location tie-in.

Question 5: How can LBS help travel marketers and content providers deliver audio and video content?

[Disclosure: One of my freelance clients was curious about the topic and asked me to include it in the chat.]

Maurice Rahmey’s point at the end is a good one. There are content creation companies already involved in LBS, or looking to get involved in LBS, but have no way of delivering their content on the LBS platforms! That’ll come soon, I think. SCVNGR will be one of the first. Stickybits is already dabbling in video and audio.

Discussion about Facebook Places

As per usual, #LBSchat skewed off onto a side discussion about what the hell that Facebook Places thing is supposed to be.

Question 6: Gowalla is partnering with Four Seasons to offer $100 gift certificates for users who complete local treks. Success or failure?

Here we have two opposing sides to the issue, and yet, I agree with both.

Want to join in #LBSchat? Head over to Tweetchat.com and plug in the #LBSchat hashtag on Thursday nights at 9pm EST. See you there!

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October 3, 2010 1 Comment Short URL Future, Marketing, new media, Social Media, social media marketing, tech Location, Technology

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.”

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September 15, 2010 2 Comments Short URL lbs, SCVNGR, tech Location, Technology

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?

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August 18, 2010 0 Comments Short URL business, Future, new media, Social Media, tech Marketing, Social Media

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.

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June 15, 2010 3 Comments Short URL Communication, new media, tech, transparency Communication, media