Tuesday
29Dec2009

Foursquare and changing behaviors

DateTuesday, December 29, 2009 at 2:26PM

I don't always like to post on the newest, shiniest technology out there.  It makes me feel like a front runner -- like rooting for the Dallas Cowboys, New York Yankees and Duke Basketball.  But Foursquare has led me to it.

With the holidays and a general sense of busyness, I haven't been up on the techiest of news.  Despite that, it's hard to ignore the noise that Foursquare and other location-based apps are predicted to make in 2010.  When Foursquare exploded onto the scene earlier this year at SXSW, I was unimpressed.  New products like this launch so frequently, they feel like a dime a dozen.  I did join eventually, using the product in an echo chamber that consisted only of "tech friends" and no actual ones.  Because I use social technologies to enhance existing off-line relationships (and rarely to build new ones), it took the addition of a few good friends to Foursquare for me to appreciate the service.  One of its key features was what I deemed to be the missing piece for mobile social networks early this year.  And once my friends showed up, the thing that makes a product truly innovative happened: my behavior changed.

Here are a few examples:

  • Planning a pub crawl with a friend that uses Foursquare, with the goal of trying to win the Foursquare points battle in my city
  • Actually dragging myself off the couch to meet friends, with some motivation coming the fact that I would be tallying checkins on Foursquare
  • Getting heckled by a friend due to a series of "effeminate" [sic] checkins, then making a point of checking in at more masculine places
  • When meeting friends, relying on checkins to replace texting the location to meet

The highest compliment your product can receive is: "It changed the way I ________".  Congrats to Foursquare for making me feel that way.

Authoradam stewart | Comment1 Comment |
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Tuesday
27Oct2009

Back to the now: Ads in Marty McFly's 2015

DateTuesday, October 27, 2009 at 7:24PM

I used to think of the future of advertising as the one portrayed in Back to the Future Part II.  Y'know, the part where Marty McFly is in the futuristic downtown area of Hill Valley, bombarded by ads and startled by a 3D hologram of Jaws 19.  Advertising was satirically presented to be omnipresent and intrusive.  We thought it was funny, but in reality, we knew it would probably be annoying if it ever actually went down that way.

Fortunately, we haven't quite reached that saturation point.  (Although with the average person viewing up to XXX ads per day, it's easy to make a counter argument that we are already annoyed.)  But as we approach Marty's future, this post from Justin Foster reminded me we aren't too far off:

Think about this ... a single person with a camera phone can post video, photos, and written content to a blog, Facebook, Twitter, and hundreds of other web platforms.  This content, depending how viral it is, can spread to hundreds or thousands of other people. Now combine that times billions.  What happens to the influence and reach of traditional media when The People become The Media?  It profoundly effects the way We the People consume information and entertainment.  This is not just disruptive to media business models such as selling ad space based on eye-balls.  It changes the rules for what "news" is, what a brand is, message control, the roles of government, and more.  Properly harnessed, it can make a young company the world's #1 brand without spending a dime on advertising (Google) or it can lead to the demise of established brands and traditions.
For those versed in the evolution of social media, this should sound pretty familiar.  People embracing brands, becoming advocates and spreading the word through new media, etc.  But for the first time, I had a bizarre futuristic vision of people driving the saturation, vs. the brands themselves.
Authoradam stewart | Comment1 Comment |
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Sunday
11Oct2009

NYT Front Page, 80 Years Ago Today: "Please Don't Call Us For World Series Scores...We're Busy!"

DateSunday, October 11, 2009 at 10:54AM
via nytpick.com

Imagine if this were posted anywhere online today. There would be a typhoon of Twatred! (Hatred + Twitter)

Posted via web from the minidisco

Authoradam stewart | Comment1 Comment |
Thursday
08Oct2009

The evolving face of networks

DateThursday, October 8, 2009 at 2:07PM

What is the likelihood of people forwarding on items that they receive in a social network such as Facebook (news items, links, video clips)? What is the likelihood of people responding to messages, or re-tweeting other people's tweets on Twitter?

"The idea we need to explore is this: what is the likelihood that a particular stimulus within a social network leads to a particular response?" says Lieberman.

via guardian.co.uk

One of earliest in-depth studies of how social networks function as an ecosystem of influence. As these studies advance, we'll be seeing more science (and proper monetization) behind reaching the influencers.

Posted via web from the minidisco

Authoradam stewart | Comment1 Comment |
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Thursday
01Oct2009

This is not a social media blog

DateThursday, October 1, 2009 at 11:24AM

I have been struggling for content a little on this blog recently, despite having more time on my hands. As I write in my bio, I have never felt that social media is the only topic worth discussing, despite the fact that I am increasingly positioning myself as an expert in that space. But it's not the only space I have worked in, unlike anyone who has "guru" or "ninja" attached to their title. And that's why this blog needs to be more than social media. There are enough blogs out there discussing it, and most of them are redundant. As Rebecca Thorman writes:

Stop writing about social media. Talking about how Twitter is or isn’t an effective networking tool is boring. Really, freaking boring.

I read a lot of posts on social media hoping someone will say something new, but that never happens. We need to stop masturbating to what the tool is and start using it to see how it works.

This blog post is from March, by the way. And still relevant. Anyone who blogs should strive for something that is readable and relevant months (even years) later.  How many blog posts were wasted on "Twitter-killer" Plurk? How many will be written on Google Wave? Just this week, even Amber Naslund reached out to her readers for ideas that matter to them, due to the circular nature of the social media conversation.

My goal here is to write something different than everyone else, rather than recycle the same conversations and adapt them to whatever new technology emerged in the last week. I've have always believed in the difference between Soundbytes and Solutions, and I'll continue to apply that ideology to this blog. If I'm not writing, it's not because I'm not paying attention to what's happening in marketing, new media, etc. It's because I'm waiting to write something that I think is interesting, rather than just creating noise.

So bear with me as I continue to re-think the types on content I write about here. And stop by my Posterous blog, which is one of the top reasons I don't write here as much nowadays.

Authoradam stewart | CommentPost a Comment |
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