DiDigital

AD AGENCIES STRUGGING TO EVOLVE IN DIGITAL AGE

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 00:53:00 -0500

Clearly, there are many new challenges in the agency business relative to client/agency relationship management, account servicing, performance measurement, and accountability. In addition, a great deal of new contenders are keen to displace ad agencies in taking a strategic leadership role by helping global marketers embrace integrated, multi-channel digital marketing practices that blend both offline and online elements for greater market impact, engagement, and response.

• Agencies are struggling to evolve as marketing and traditional media go digital in all areas of campaign execution and audience activation.

• There is a power shift from master agency control of accounts to a more digitally empowered client wielding new partner and provider connections and resources.

• The advent of informal, viral, and mobile device-driven “developing nation” markets is straining and testing traditional agency capabilities and client relationships.

1. What’s driving adoption of new technology solutions and digital marketing platforms?

• Management mandates for greater accountability, visibility, and yield in marketing organizations

• Demand for deeper analytics and predictive modeling to improve customer economics and lifetime value

• Greater access to customer insight and intelligence, allowing better segmentation, personalization, and efficiency of spend

• Higher response and recall rates from customized communications, improving ROI and driving customer loyalty and advocacy

• End-to-end measurement of campaign effectiveness requiring robust, agile, real-time, on-demand marketing automation infrastructures

• New, digitally driven channels of market access and engagement, including mobile, Internet, social media, online communities, search portals, digital signage networks, point-of-sale output and display systems, etc.

Implications:

Watch for closer integration and collaboration between CMO, CIO, CPO, and CFO stakeholders. Agencies are outsiders to these processes and lack share of voice and credibility. Transformation and re-education of internal marketing groups in digital competencies has become a strategic imperative for chief marketing executives.

2. What’s influencing the power shift in client/agency relationships?

• New hybrid, demand-generation service providers and consumer-powered, experiential marketing models are taking greater share of marketing spend.

• The web-centric world allows marketers to build their own channels of insight, access, and influence rather than paying to reach third-party, controlled audiences.

• Continuous production, packaging, delivery, and tracking of fresh, relevant multimedia web content requires new skills, technologies, and management systems not offered by traditional agencies.

• Customer data integration (CDI) is the new marketing mantra as marketers strive to own the customer experience, improve listening and feedback, retain and grow relationships, and deliver more market-ready products and services.

Implications:

Without ownership or access to customer data and experiences, agencies are disadvantaged. CDI is not an agency proficiency, hence the rise of potential inroads and threats from IT integrators and consultants. Watch for offshore business process outsourcing experts

Click to read the entier CMO council report press release

How To Create A Triple-Threat Content Strategy With Twitter, Tumblr, and Your Content

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 17:26:47 -0500

Written by Lexi Lewtan a blogger in New York City for the Content Strategist.

Any brand with a decent digital strategy is currently interacting with readers on a couple different digital platforms.

But while certain updates, like newsletters, work independently, there are other platforms that work beautifully in tandem. Instead of updating these accounts in isolation, each interaction helps grow the other ones.

Our favorite platform partnership is the Twitter-Tumblr-Content approach. Because the three mediums vary in formality and length, they bounce off each other quite well.

Here’s how to use the three platforms together — and to make sparks fly….Continue reading

Retailers Shut Facebook Storefonts Amid Apathy

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 09:39:00 -0500

Excerpted from Bloomberg By Ashley Lutz - Feb 17, 2012 12:00 AM ET

Last April, Gamestop Corp. (GME) opened a store on Facebook to generate sales among the 3.5 million-plus customers who’d declared themselves “fans” of the video game retailer. Six months later, the store was quietly shuttered.

Gamestop has company. Over the past year, Gap Inc., J.C. Penney (JCP) Co. and Nordstrom (JWN) Inc. have all opened and closed storefronts on Facebook Inc.’s (FB) social networking site.

Facebook, which this month filed for an initial public offering, has sought to be a top shopping destination for its 845 million members. The stores’ quick failure shows that the Menlo Park, California-based social network doesn’t drive commerce and casts doubt on its value for retailers, said Sucharita Mulpuru, an analyst at Forrester Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts…Continu e reading at Bloomberg

Ogilvy & Mather Staffs Up in Social Media and Youth Marketing

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 16:37:00 -0500

By STUART ELLIOTT for the New York Times February 13, 2012, 9:00 AM

One of the biggest advertising agencies, Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide, is starting practice units that are devoted to helping clients navigate two areas that are rewarding but confusing: social media and youth marketing.

Ogilvy & Mather, which is part of WPP, the world’s largest ad-agency holding company, is to announce the formation of the social media unit, called Social@Ogilvy, on Monday morning.

The other unit, Ogilvy Youth, is in a nascent stage, or, in keeping with the vernacular of younger consumers, “in beta.”

The new units join others at Ogilvy & Mather that are devoted to areas like cross-cultural marketing (OgilvyCulture). The formation of the units is indicative of efforts by large ad agencies to adapt to the rapidly changing needs of marketer clients, who must grapple with the seemingly continuous changes in consumer behavior.

“Thinking across the disciplines is critical,” said Miles Young, global chief executive at Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide in New York. “You have to redesign your agency around content and domains.” …blah, blah blah

Click here to continue reading.

For even more laughs, click here to see the “tragically hip” Ogilvy Youth Tumblr

How Americans Use Their Phones to Assist With Purchasing Decisions

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 12:07:00 -0500

Image : DiverseImages

More than half of adult cell phone owners used their cell phones while they were in a store during the 2011 holiday season to seek help with purchasing decisions. During a 30 day period before and after Christmas:

38% of cell owners used their phone to call a friend while they were in a store for advice about a purchase they were considering making
24% of cell owners used their phone to look up reviews of a product online while they were in a store
25% of adult cell owners used their phones to look up the price of a product online while they were in a store, to see if they could get a better price somewhere else

Taken together, just over half (52%) of all adult cell owners used their phone for at least one of these three reasons over the holiday shopping season and one third (33%) used their phone specifically for online information while inside a physical store—either product reviews or pricing information.

Detailed findings—online product reviews and calling friends for purchasing advice

There are a number of demographic patterns in these survey findings. Specifically:

Cell owners ages 18-49 are significantly more likely to use their phones for online product reviews than are cell owners ages 50 and older. Cell owners ages 65 and older are especially unlikely to do this—just 4% did so this holiday season.
Urban and suburban cell owners are roughly twice as likely as rural cell owners to have recently used their phone to look up online reviews of a product they found in a physical store.
Non-white cell owners are more likely than white cell owners to look up online product reviews, and those who have attended college are more likely to do so than those who have not.

Continue Reading the entire report at Pew Internet Research

Brands Want Content Curator Jobs

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 17:26:18 -0500

Digital media has emboldened many brands to consider themselves publishers. After all, American Express has credibility on financial matters and Coke has a network 36 million Facebook fans. Who needs publishers to serve as intermediaries?

The problem is publishing is a lot harder than it looks, or rather it’s a lot harder to do it with the consistency, day after day, that’s needed to build a long-term audience. That’s leading some brands to hook onto the idea that their role lies more in the curation of content.

Curation is the vogue digital term for the ability to not only aggregate and distribute carefully selected information, but also to provide a unique voice on top of the original pieces of information. In the age of Twitter and Facebook, it seems like all the world is curators now. Brands want in on the action.

Brands are trying to establish themselves as trusted sources of information. Hop onto Facebook, Twitter or Tumblr, and you’ll see brands that gather up articles from all sorts of publications and push them out to their followers. For example, look at IBM’s Tumblr, A Smarter Planet, which is a stream of curated content focused on areas of Big Blue’s core competencies. Or there’s American Express’ Open Forum Tumblr (yes, Tumblr is apparently a good platform for curation) that has cultivated a business community online by providing relevant tools and information to help business owners succeed.

“If a brand is an expert in a certain topic, their reputation might make them a credible source of information,” said Neil Chase, svp of editing and publishing at Federated Media. “But if a company that makes toasters gives health advice, they might not be credible. If they’re sending out recipes, that’s a reason to trust them.”

There’s little doubt that brands can amass sizable audiences of their own nowadays. Show me a chief marketing officer who isn’t interested in an owned, earned, paid media model — often in that order — and I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you. It’s been four and a half years since Nike marketing chief Trevor Edwards plaintively said, “We’re not in the business of keeping media companies alive.” Translation: We can build direct connections with audiences, thank you very much.

The devil is in the details. Brands aren’t set up to be publishers. They don’t necessarily understand the editorial process or have the stomach for the length of time it takes to build an audience. Take AmEx’s OpenForum, for instance. It took four years to get 1 million people aboard, and now it gets about 150,000 unique visitors per month. They have the resources to build and cultivate an audience others may not. Additionally, OpenForum was put on the shoulders of the end-user: small-business owners. These business owners are able to communicate and share ideas with one another, but they must be American Express Cardmembers. AmEx recognized the need to provide small-business owners with a connection platform and information that will help their business succeed.

“Brands have a content story to tell,” said Colleen DeCourcy, CEO of Socialistic, a social media agency. “Some brands have data and research they have gathered in the creation of their products that can be contextualized and turned into content — which can give them both real authority on the topic and some real ROI for their effort.”

Publishing content in 2012 can be immensely complex or surprisingly simple, depending on your approach. Curation straddles the line. It can be difficult figuring out not only what tools to use, but also what platforms and, of course, what content to share. The plus side is that once you do figure out how you want to curate — how it becomes part of your broader communications strategy — it’s pretty easy to establish a voice.

Steve Rubel, Edelman’s evp of global strategy and insights, suggests brands start by having an editorial point of view and deciding where the content will live — the brand’s site or aggregation sites like Tumblr or Pinterest.

“The best way to do it is to identify a high-interest topic that you want to be perceived as an expert in,” he said. “Curate that topic and provide some context around it. If you’re curating a lot of content in a topic area, over time that leads to expertise and credibility.”

Brands need to be careful in not only what, but how much they curate. There can’t be articles that make the reader question why a brand is sharing it. Also, brands need to make sure they’re not just regurgitating content, but instead offering readers/followers valuable information, as readers will quickly determine the curated content — and thus the brand — is not worth their time. Since consumers have their own tools for curating – Storify, Storyful, etc. – brands have to know each of their customers and have the credibility in their field to get consumers to trust the content they spread.

“It takes time to build that reputation, whether creator or curator,” said Chase. “It might take faster if you’re good at what you do, but you still have to get it up and running. You’re competing with a lot of other stuff in people’s in-boxes.”

There’s also a limit to what curation can do. At the end of day, if brands want to be publishers, they need to put in the hard work, warns Jonah Bloom, KBS+P’s executive director of content strategy.

“It’s more likely that original content changes minds than just being a filter,” he said.”

Source: DigiDay, Josh Steinberg

Tweets still must flow. Maybe.

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 15:40:00 -0500

Twitter announces a new policy in a statement published on their blog, below, whereby they can withhold tweets in markets that a local government may deem its content to be offensive. Seems like a slippery slope for a social networking system that prides itself in being an open free flowing source of information, entertainment and the freedom of speech for all…

Thursday, January 26, 2012

One year ago, we posted “The Tweets Must Flow,” in which we said,

“The open exchange of information can have a positive global impact … almost every country in the world agrees that freedom of expression is a human right. Many countries also agree that freedom of expression carries with it responsibilities and has limits.”

As we continue to grow internationally, we will enter countries that have different ideas about the contours of freedom of expression. Some differ so much from our ideas that we will not be able to exist there. Others are similar but, for historical or cultural reasons, restrict certain types of content, such as France or Germany, which ban pro-Nazi content.

Until now, the only way we could take account of those countries’ limits was to remove content globally. Starting today, we give ourselves the ability to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country — while keeping it available in the rest of the world. We have also built in a way to communicate transparently to users when content is withheld, and why.

We haven’t yet used this ability, but if and when we are required to withhold a Tweet in a specific country, we will attempt to let the user know, and we will clearly mark when the content has been withheld. As part of that transparency, we’ve expanded our partnership with Chilling Effects to share this new page,http://chillingeffects.org/twitter, which makes it easier to find notices related to Twitter.

There’s more information in our Help pages, both on our Policy and about Your Account Settings.

One of our core values as a company is to defend and respect each user’s voice. We try to keep content up wherever and whenever we can, and we will be transparent with users when we can’t. The Tweets must continue to flow.

Tablets: the perfect shopping device

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 10:26:00 -0500

Modern tablets have only been on the market for less than two years, but they have quickly become potent shopping tools that generate an outsized effect on online commerce. Last year was the year that the tablet became an online retailer’s best friend as it emerged as the preferred device for many shoppers to make their purchases.

The latest data came earlier this week from Adobe Digital Marketing Insights (pdf), which found that tablet users spend over 50 percent more for each transaction at an online retailer compared to smartphone users and 20 percent more than traditional computer users. Adobe found that the average order value for tablet users was $123 on average per purchase, 54 percent more than smartphone users ($80) and 21 percent more than computer users ($102).

Adobe also found that tablet users were three times more likely to buy something than smartphone users and nearly as likely to convert to a purchase as traditional computer users. Tablet users now make up 4 percent of all total web visits to retailers, up from 1 percent a year ago. Adobe gathered the data from 16.2 billion visits to the websites of more than 150 retailers in 2011.

The data is consistent with other findings in the previous months that indicate just how tablets are able to create a bigger commerce effect despite its smaller reach. Last year Forrester reported that tablets accounted for 20 percent of e-commerce sales, even though only 9 percent of shoppers own tablets.

Source: GiGAOM

Home Depot looks to Silicon Valley for growth

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 01:44:00 -0500

Home Depot’s history of acquisitions has run toward building products companies and home services, not Silicon Valley start-ups. But the home improvement retailer is showing that it is trying to be more innovative and forward-thinking with the purchase of online home services marketplace Redbeacon.

The deal though shows that big retailers are increasingly looking toward Silicon Valley for ideas and inspiration about how to grow their business. By buying Redbeacon, Home Depot can get some lessons on how to tap users through online and mobile channels. And it helps them become more of a resource for people looking to remodel and improve their homes. Home Depot is not simply about being a physical store to sell goods and services but being a brand that people turn to for all their needs, including labor.

Home Depot has also been working closely on PayPal’s first trial of its in-store payment system. PayPal just said today that it expects to roll that out to all of Home Depot’s more than 2,200 stores by March. That’s another example of Home Depot getting with the times. Increasingly, retailers have to think about how to handle the changing needs of consumers, who are buying online and through mobile devices.Partnering with PayPal gives Home Depot a chance to be first with a new form of payment, but it also means it will likely get first crack at many of the other services PayPal plans to roll out, such location-based offers, in-aisle purchases, scanning products for inventory checks and other in-store services.

Big retailers are being forced to look this way. Walmart bought Kosmix and established Walmart Labs to help it evolve as mobile and social change the way people shop. Walmart Labs has turned around and started acquiring start-ups to help it get up to speed. The Gap has done a bunch of deals with mobile and social start-ups to try and get ahead of new buying patterns. Rival Lowe’s equipped its workers with iPhones last year, in response to Home Depot’s deployment of Motorola devices to help answer consumer questions.

Continue at GiGAOM

Google's Response To Censorship: End Piracy, Not Liberty

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 01:48:00 -0500

Millions of Americans oppose SOPA and PIPA because these bills would censor the Internet and slow economic growth in the U.S.

Two bills before Congress, known as the Protect IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House, would censor the Web and impose harmful regulations on American business. Millions of Internet users and entrepreneurs already oppose SOPA and PIPA.

The Senate will begin voting on January 24th. Please let them know how you feel. Sign this petition urging Congress to vote NO on PIPA and SOPA before it is too late.

15 Reasons Why Twitter is #Winning

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 14:13:00 -0500

“Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.” - Oscar Wilde

1) Anonymity is still desired by web users. Twitter allows you to be yourself or whomever you want to be. True to the original roots of the Internet.

2) Easy sign up process. User Name and login is all you need to get started

3) Fewer design choices which helps a user base that is overloaded with options.

4) Less curated and more spontaneous than facebook

5) Open web based system that doesn’t require a login or a download to participate

6) Uncensored

7) Feels free from “Big Brother style ” Data mining , targeted advertising and tracking methods

8) Devoid of a hidden agenda

9) Low bandwidth needs

10) Concise - 140 characters or less

11) Complements your online presence. Doesn’t create the kind of redundancy of content between your website and your Facebook.

12) Mobile

13) Search tool for breaking News

14) #Hashtags

15) Most websites are pretty staid; they tend to take the safe route and end up looking and sounding alike. Tweeting enables you to reveal more of your brand’s distinct personality to followers and others, separating you from your competitors.

iPhone Now Officially The World's Most Popular Camera

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 14:37:52 -0500

As early as last summer, the iPhone laid claim to having become the world’s most popular camera, when it transpired that more of the photos on picture sharing site Flickr were taken on one of Apple’s devices than on any single “proper” camera.

Because the camera does not lie, we now have hard data to illustrate this trend. Sales of mass market, budget digital cameras are in freefall. In the UK, they were down 30% by value on the previous year from January to November 2011, according to the latest figures from research firm GfK.

That month, famed photographer Annie Liebovitz, whose images have graced countless Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair covers, was asked which camera she recommended to Friends. In an interview on America’s NBC News, Liebovitz declared the iPhone the “snapshot camera of today”.

Why did that moniker come to be applied to a machine designed for making calls and surfing the web? Convenience has played its part. With a smartphone in the back pocket, there is no longer any need to remember to charge the digital camera and then make room for it in a handbag.

It is bound to be the phone, not the camcorder, that is nearest to hand at that surprise moment when a baby sits up or takes their first steps.

And camera phones increasingly deserve the name. Gone are the pixelated, blurred approximations of visual reality, at least from high end models.

When launching the latest iPhone, Apple made almost as much of its camera quality as its processing power. The 4S has a resolution equal (at eight megapixels) to the mid range snapshot cameras of a couple of years ago. It takes crisper, more colour-balanced images than the Panasonic I paid £100 for in 2009.

And as Liebovitz pointed out, “it’s the wallet with the family pictures in it”. Phones now have enough memory to be miniature albums. A recent visit by a once-close cousin began with a ritual exchange of phone camera rolls. Within minutes images had filled the blank space left by years of absence.

The urge to see and share instantly is irresistible. How else could a camera that took photos as poorly as the Polaroid have become a household name?

It is all too easy to forget images inside the memory card of a digital camera without ever printing them. The phone is both a lightbox on which to instantly view, and a means of disseminating snapshots through email or sharing sites.

Having begun life as a substandard Swiss army knife of a gadget, capable of tackling any number of tasks badly, the smartphone is evolving into a multi-category killer.

With Google and Nokia now offering free navigation on mobiles, the paper map and the satnav are not must-haves. Any number of Angry Birds and Super Mario apps mean portable games consoles could soon be extinct. Responding to email or checking the web on the move no longer requires a laptop.

If Google and the UK mobile phone networks have their way, this will be the year the phone begins to replace credit cards. Just remember to bring your charger.

Source: The Guardian

App Taps Your Twitter Network to Find You A Job

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 14:30:10 -0500

The infographic PSFK featured last month demonstrated the high likelihood of landing a job via social media sites. Nearly 8 million Americans claimed that Twitter got them their current job. A new web app called WorkFu has caught onto this and plans to tap into your Twitter connections to help you find jobs that are relevant to you. Each opportunity is given a relevance percentage rating and shows how well connected you are to the job poster. Applying for the job is as easy as clicking a button to register your interest, without the need to submit any resumes or cover letters.

Adam Martin, co-founder of WorkFu, explains that, “400 jobs are posted on Twitter every minute. We’ve built a web app that orders each job posted via WorkFu to Twitter by its relevance to you and lets you apply with one click.”

The site is due to launch in early February in beta-mode. In the future, WorkFu hopes to add more social networks to its platform.

Source: PSFK

eBay CEO, John Donahoe: “eBay Mobile GMV will surpass $8 Billion in 2012”

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 09:28:00 -0500

John Donahoe, eBay CEO, announced that eBay is projecting 2012 global mobile gross merchandise volume (GMV) to surpass $8 billion. PayPal projects that its global mobile total payment volume (TPV) will be $7 billion in 2012.

“Mobile plays a significant role in how eBay Inc. is enabling commerce and using technology to connect consumers and provide new ways for them to shop when, where and how they want,” said Donahoe. “The success of eBay and PayPal mobile in 2011 surpassed our expectations and we’re confident that this success will carry into 2012 as more shoppers turn to the convenience of shopping and paying via mobile at the moment shopping inspiration hits.”

eBay Inc. anticipates continued growth in mobile sales and payments in 2012 as shopping on smartphones and tablet devices becomes increasingly common among shoppers around the globe. eBay’s global mobile GMV reached $5 billion in 2011, more than doubling 2010 global mobile GMV of nearly $2 billion. PayPal global mobile TPV was $4 billion in 2011.

Source: eBay Ink

Visa Reveals payWave-Compatible NFC Smartphone List

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 00:08:00 -0500

Trying to keep track of the current state of mobile payments via NFC on smartphones can be enough to drive you nuts. What should be a thriving development community is instead hampered by restrictions largely imposed by carriers. While they’ve hemmed and hawed about compatibility issues (and a cynical mind might just think they’re desperate to monetize the feature), we’ve seen some very slow progress towards a workable payment system with enough support to stand a fighting chance. One of the players still trying to come out on top is Visa, whose payWave system has been on our radar since last Spring. Today, Visa announced which phones will be the first to see payWave compatibility.

The initial batch of NFC-equipped smartphones to receive Visa approval consists of the Samsung Galaxy S II, LG Optimus Net NFC, BlackBerryBold 9900, Bold 9790, Curve 9380, and Curve 9360. There are some interesting names missing from that list, like the Galaxy Nexus and Nexus S, but we’re optimistic it will grow in time.

So, let’s say you have one of these supported smartphones; how do you get Visa’s app and start making wireless payments? That’s not entirely clear. Visa has said that now that these phones have been certified, it “paves the way for mobile device manufacturers, mobile operators and retailers to partner with financial institutions to offer Visa mobile payment functionality”. Sadly, that news isn’t very empowering for the end-user, and it looks like you’ll just have to wait for a company you do business with to offer to set you up with payWave.

Source: Visa
Via: Pocket Now

Texting Profits at Risk as Users Look Elsewhere

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 01:00:00 -0500

IMAGE: DI

SMS — short message service — is no longer all the rage, but it still generates an estimated 12 percent of service revenue for U.S. operators.

Now, with many consumers turning to low-cost alternatives like iMessenger, BlackBerry Messenger and Facebook’s mobile messaging service, operators like Verizon Wireless, AT&T Inc and Sprint Nextel risk losing a steady, superbly profitable source of income.

Customers using the new crop of messaging services must still pay for mobile Internet access, but the cost per message is much smaller than a monthly SMS service plan or per text charges, particularly as U.S. carriers charge both the recipient and sender.

U.S. operators still carry a lot of text messages on their networks, but they are seeing warning signs ahead…

Craig Moffett, an analyst for Sanford Bernstein, said carriers have a huge cause for concern as he described text messaging as “the most profitable service known to man.”

At current rates SMS brings in $1,000 for every megabyte of data transmitted compared with the 2 cents to 13 cents per megabyte generated by a typical wireless Internet data plan, according to Moffett, who notes that this revenue is virtually “100 percent profit.”

AT&T and Verizon Wireless have moved to stem a texting revenue decline by eliminating cheaper options for smaller buckets of texts. AT&T eliminated a $10/month plan for 1,000 texts in August and now offers only a $20 unlimited plan or pay-as-you-go texts for 20 cents each.

Verizon Wireless followed suit in November by dropping a $5 per month plan for 250 texts. It offers a $10 plan for 1,000 texts a year on top of its $20 unlimited plan.

The push toward higher service fees may end up backfiring and hastening a move to alternatives, as consumers have become particularly vocal in their rejection of fee increases. Verizon Wireless ended up abandoning a new $2 payment fee last week after a consumer uproar.

“They risk alienating a certain portion of their subscriber base by forcing them to pay for higher-priced unlimited tariffs particularly if they don’t provider a more affordable option,” said Informa analyst Pamela Clark-Dickson…Continue at Reuters

Codecademy : A Fun Simple Way to Learn Computer Programming

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 09:40:00 -0500

Mayor Mike Bloomberg says his New Year’s resolution is to learn to be a programmer. At least, that’s what the outspoken CEO of New York tweeted to his 208,000-odd followers on Thursday.

“My New Year’s resolution is to learn to code with Codecademy in 2012!” he (or one of his handlers) wrote.

Codecademy was created out of the frustrations Zach and Ryan felt with learning how to program. Tired with less effective text and video resources, Ryan and Zach teamed up to create Codecademy, a better, more interactive way to learn programming by actually coding.

Visit the Codecademy site

Global Social : US And EU Mature, Emerging Markets Show Lots Of Activity

Fri, 06 Jan 2012 01:30:00 -0500

Last month George Colony, CEO of Forrester, talked about a “Social Thunderstorm” at the LeWeb conference in Paris .

In the six years that Forrester has been collecting data, a lot has changed in the world of social media. Social networking has morphed into a global phenomenon. Today, 86% of online US adults and 79% of European online adults engage with social media. And consumers in emerging markets are also on social media — not just catching up. In fact, they lead the world in social media usage and engagement.

Comparing social behaviors in the US and Europe, we see that the majority of online Americans and Europeans are Spectators — meaning they consume social media content but do not necessarily create it. In fact, less than one-quarter of these consumers are Creators — the individuals who generate social content. We also found that while Americans and Europeans take a more passive approach to social media, this is different in emerging markets. For instance, more than two-thirds of online adults in metro China and India create social content. The message is clear: Companies can’t afford to take a “one-size-fits-all” approach with social media.

Text Message Economics Boosts Farmer Income In India

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 12:39:00 -0500

IMAGE: FLICKR USER CIAT

The story behind Intuit Fasal, a free SMS-based service that provides rural farmers with real-time price information, which has blossomed into a program with more than 500,000 users and huge effects on the lives of Indian farmers.

“How can technology help the places I grew up in?”

That’s Deepa Bachu, describing her personal mission. Bachu was born in Bangalore, India, but spent a decade at Intuit’s Mountain View headquarters developing flagship products like Quicken. She returned home several years ago, for family reasons, and after becoming the director of emerging market innovation at Intuit, set out to build products for many of the neighbors she grew up with. “It’s so motivating,” she says. “It’s just so awesome.”

If Quicken is the product she felt most passionately about stateside, then Fasal—which she developed in India—has certainly become the pride of her hometown. Fasal is a free SMS-based product that connects rural farmers with buyers and provides them with real-time price information. Roughly 70% of India’s economy is tied to agriculture, but it’s a market fraught with obstacles. “The problem is that farmers didn’t know how to get the best price for their produce, nor what markets to go to and when,” Bachu explains. “Nine times out of 10, farmers didn’t know if they were actually getting a fair price. ‘Wow,’ we thought. ‘This is a huge unmet need. Let’s see if we can iterate and find a solution.’” The result is a service that has blossomed to more than 500,000 users who earn an average of 20% more income because of the technology…Continue reading in FC

A Tweeting Cabbie's Growing Business

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 15:19:00 -0500

Temuri checking his Twitter and texts for new bookings

By Jacqui Cheng | special to arstechnica

“Can you pick me up at my place in 15 minutes? Text me when you get here.” No, this isn’t a text message to a friend or a call to a car service—it’s a direct message sent through Twitter to a driver of a Chicago cab. Rashid Temuri, who goes by “Chicago Cabbie” online (@ChicagoCabbie on Twitter) has taken what would otherwise be considered a traditional taxi business and integrated it with social media in a way that is still exceedingly rare in the service industry. How much better can it be interacting your clients through Twitter, FourSquare, Facebook, or Google Latitude? Apparently a lot—Temuri is not only seeing success from his social media strategy, he’s building a loyal repeat customer base because of it.

Here’s how Temuri works: he, like most other licensed cabs in the US, works through a dispatching company (in this case, Flash Cabs). Normally he would put himself “on call” when he’s on duty, meaning the company can send him to pick someone up when the client calls in. But instead of doing that, he has been posting when he’s available on Twitter—for example, here’s one of his recent tweets:

“Good morning #Chicago!! It’s a wet wet day here. 41°. Take $5 OFF the meter from now till 2PM to any airport from anywhere. :-) #ORD #MDW”

In addition to tweeting, he also allows clients (or potential clients, as the case may be) to follow him on Google Latitude or Find My Friends so that people know wherever he is at any given time and can contact him when they need a ride. He offers free WiFi within his cab for iPhone and iPad users (“Don’t use your limited data!” he says), and plans to soon offer free WiFi for regular laptop users. Sometimes, as seen in the tweet above, Temuri gives discounts for his social media followers, and he always remembers who everyone is.

Temuri’s iPad- and iPhone-using customers get free WiFi via his Clear iSpot, and he might even let you charge your phone if you ask.

“Honestly, I never looked at it as marketing nor I had that in mind when I started @ChicagoCabbie account,” Temuri told Ars. “I started Twitter thinking I’ll talk to people about taxi industry of Chicago. I feel there is a gap between taxi drivers and customers and there are lots of misunderstandings. They both are in such a defensive mode. They both feel like they have to protect themselves from the other and it’s just so wrong. I joined Twitter to eliminate the gap between a taxi customer and taxi driver.”

What started out as an earnest attempt to bridge the understanding gap between cabbies and clients has since flourished into a successful Internet-based business—one that Temuri says can sometimes be overwhelming, even to an old-school geek like himself. (Temuri told me about his days as a professional video editor, adding that he has a Mac Pro at home and uses his iPhone and iPad regularly.)

“It’s been working out way better then I ever expected,” he said. In fact, it has been working out so well that Temuri estimates his clientele is 90 to 95 percent repeat business—something that he thinks gives him a major leg up on the competition, not to mention that he’s making genuine friends out of the fact that he’s so easy to reach via “new” media methods. “I’m loving the fact that, not only will I be picking up somebody I’ve met several times, we sometimes start our conversation where we left off.”..Continue reading at Arstechnica.com