Mashable Top Apps for 2011

Mashable features the top 10 apps to watch for 2011. While some don’t seem to be too interesting for me and some to be just „me too“ apps that need to proove that they offer never seen additional value, one looked rather interesting to me: GetGlue

It let’s you checkin into Movies, Books, Shows, etc.

Somehow people got used to „checking in“ to things. And they also got used to sharing experiences. Weird concept though, that you check into a book. But the social aspect is great, because (as with foursquare) you can leave tips, comments, see who also checked in to that particular medium, etc. Does this need to be a „mobile“ app? Think not, as there does not seem to be any location aspect to it.

It also seems to be a cool recommendation engine. I wonder what else people will get the chance to check into? Meals, drinks? And who has the time to constantly update their checkin status for every single detail of life? I already keep forgetting to check in with foursquare all the time.

Googles Advertising Goggles

This seems to be an interesting way to enrich plain advertising.

I just wonder, whether or not people will really „goggle“ print ads? They must be really interested in the messaging, the product, etc.

But once „goggles“ has a real content benefit, it will be easier for Google to stick some context relevant advertising next to the goggled content.

(found here)

Will Apple’s control-fetish impact the success of iAd?

OK, it‘ s a bit of  a strong title. Yet – the latest rumour states that Adidas cancelled their $10 Million contract – due to the harsh „quality“ controls by Apple.

The reason according to businessinsider:

Adidas supposedly pulled its $10+ million ad campaign from the iAd program because Apple CEO Steve Jobs was being too much of a control freak. According to one industry exec, Adidas decided to cancel its iAds after Apple rejected its creative concept for the third time.

The fact that there are such high standards for quality should generally be regarded as a good thing. Once users acknoledge the fact that iAd adverts are of good quality, acceptance – and hence clickrates – of these ads should increase. Leading to higher revenues for Apple and for the App publishers.

But what good is such a quality control mechanism if you upset all the advertisers? Adidas is apparently not the first company – Chanel already stopped their iAd ambitions, too, according to some sources.

Apple is a company with extremely high standards, which is the reason for their success (heck, I am writing this on a MacBook). But if they want to pull in other companies into their iAd System, they should consider, that they are dealing with clients – not suppliers (or employees). Especially, because there are also some other issues advertisers dislike:

In addition to Apple’s unusual control over the ad creation process, advertisers complain about the lack of control over and visibility into where their ads appear, lack of third-party ad serving tools, and other issues. Apple plans to open up the process once it’s more comfortable with the program, but it appears some advertisers have lost their patience.

Mobile advertising is one of the next (if not current) big things. With many strong competitors and antitrust investigations pending (what’s the latest status on that, by the way?), can Apple really afford to be this drastic?

Location based apps developments.

Foursquare and Gowalla are continously improving and updating their services. Latest news:

Foursquare is cracking down on cheaters. If your phone’s GPS determines that you’re not close to where you want to check in, you are not rewarded any points or mayorships.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t work with my iPhone, it won’t let me check into my Office, even though I am sitting in it. Looking at Google Maps, though, it seems that my GPS does indeed place me correctly.

This is a good move nevertheless. In the last month during my trip to Thailand I could well check into locations here in Hamburg whenever I wanted, enabling me to keep up the battle for the mayorship of your office here…

Gowalla in the meantime adds realtime feeds and activity streams based on the PubSubHubbub protocoll. This should enbale much more interesting mashup opportunities (since it is apparently faster than the user-specific RSS feeds that Foursquare uses). If this is the case it could yield an important differentiator for Gowalla, which to me seems to desparatly need something to effectively compete with the larger competitor Foursquare.

2010 technology and social media predictions meta list.

Every year around this time one can find many predictions about the new year in terms of tech & social media trends. So in order to get an overview myself, I have started this post with a collection and summary of the various predictions I could find:

  • Jackie Huba predicts that Social Media will get boring and offers an amusing „in“ and „out“ list. Background fact: Social Media will become a regular part of daily business (and hence boring).
  • Pete Blackshaw wrote in an Ad Age column that social media marketers will need to embrace three critical words in 2010: Serve, Shrink and Simplify. Since you need to log on to Ad Age, you can read some excerpts on Pete’s blog. The main idea: service is the new marketing, our screens are shrinking, make things easer/reduce complexity for your customers.
  • The groundswell team lists 6 predictions, but you get an excerpt. Nevertheless, you can read the topline predictions on the groundswell blog. Overarching theme is, according to the blog, that social technology will be a mainstram part of what marketers do.
  • eMarketer lists 12 predictions for 2010. The insights include „future monetization models, the effect of transparency on advertising, social and search, mobile, social commerce, public relations, social advertising, Twitter, video and mom/pop internet usage“.
  • TrendsSpotting Blog has compiled a list of trends from several social media experts who send their input in 140 characts, hat tipping to twitter.
  • Read/WriteWeb has two different kinds of lists: General predictions and social media predictions. The general predictions consists of the views of 9 contributors from rww and cover a wide variety of topics concerning social media, mobile, cloud computing, Google/Twitter/Facebook/bing, etc. The social media predictions list 10 ways social media will change in 2010, i.e. how it will become part of everyday life, being increasingly used on mobile devices, ROI will become more important (and will be measured), etc.
  • Mitch Joel predicts, that 2010 will be the year that we shift from the advertising age to the marketing age. Strictly speaking, he writes, it’s not a prediction, it is something that is happening right now.
  • The NY Times „bits“ blog writes about 2010 being the year of the tablet PC. Quite a few companies seem to be on the verge of presenting their versions, but everyone is, of course eager for Apple to release theirs!
  • Mashable has a post about 2010 being the year of the data. Data that should and will be used by every profession – journalism, marketing, SEO, Advertising, PR, etc. User data (static and behavioural data, I suppose) is becoming ever more important. Somehow I don’t think this is a trend just for 2010. It has been going on in 2009 already and will stay with us forever…
  • Pete Cashmore of Mashable wrote a special for CNN Tech about the 10 web trends to watch in 2010. the keywords are: Realtime, location, augmented reality, content curation, cloud computing, internet TV and Movies, convergence conundrum, social gaming, mobile payments, fame abundance and privacy scarcity.

As I find more predictions, I will add them (let me know if you know of any).