This is an interesting example of how you can leverage a location based service like foursquare to make your billboard ads more engaging: every time you check in at the billboard location, a dispenser – part of the „interactive“ billboard – releases some GranataPet dogfood.
Of course, you could have chosen SMS or Bluetooth as a way to interact with the billboard. But in that case, there wouldn’t have been any connection with the social network of the target audience. Using foursquare, the dog owners could inform not only their foursquare friends, but also their facebook friends and their twitter followers of the new way to access GranataPet dogfood…
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.
Steve Rubel has an embedde scribd in his lifestream, as well as a short video about 4 of the main points underlying the 10 ideas mentioned in the paper:
Global (technology, consumers, applications, etc.)
Mobile (mobile devices, use cases, etc.)
Companies (can’t stand on the sidelines any longer)
Data (driving everything, smarter decisions, data privacy).
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:
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“.
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.
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).
You know it’s getting closer to a years end, when people start forecasting trends for the following year. This time it’s really early. It’s only the beginning of November and the first selection of six trends is already online.
David Armano writes about these 6 trends:
Social Media begins to look less social: as more people contribute ever more content on social networks, updates-fatigue sets in and people filter out other users for reduction of clutter. I agree, and I would like to add: social media will have less farmville and mafia wars…
Corporations look to scale: companies leveraging social technology to better serve customers, e.g. Best Buys Twelpforce
Social Business becomes social play: playful social (mobile) applications with a competitive component for users are used for (local) marketing.
Your company will have a social media policy (and it might actually be enforced): the title says it all.
Mobile becomes a social media lifeline: Due to the IT departments locking down social sites, people will increasingly turn to their smartphones during (or instead of) coffee breaks.
Sharing no longer means e-mail: Well, that is kind of obvious in times of facebook and twitter…
Wo ich sonst so bin...