Neighbor dining for energy saving

A rather peculiar new idea by Creative artist Luong Lu and Vattenfal, one of the largest utlitity companies in Germany, if not Europe.

It is about the idea, that people living alone waste a lot of energy cooking meals for just one person. But, rather than choosing the obvious solution (ordering pizza), here is a much more original solution:

(neighbor dining is) a community website integrated with Foursquare that would detail the daily menu of all users. Interested folks would simply send a request to that user and join them for dinner. And what’s in it for the host? Members who serve the dinner get a discount on their energy bill when the guests ‘check-in’ to their place using Foursquare. We think its an excellent way to cure loneliness and save energy at the same time. (thanks)

A social network for sharing credit card transactions?

Now how is that: you just purchased new shoes from Zappos, books from Amazon or anything else from the mall nearby. Wouldn’t you just love to tell everyone about whatever you bought with your credit card? No? Yes? If so, here is the perfect social network for you: Blippy. Mindsproutmarketing explains the new kid on the block:

In a nutshell, Blippy is a service that lets members automatically share their credit card transactions as they make them. Not only will members see the amount of your purchase, but they’ll also be privy to the place of purchase and items included in the transaction.

I am just not sure, why anyone would want to do this? Nevermind data privacy or simply modesty about one’s purchases. How about data security?

According to a 2009 study conducted by Javelin Strategy and Research, there were 10 million victims of identity theft in 2008 in the United States. Nearly half, or 43 percent, of all identity theft observed was through stolen wallets and physical paperwork, whereas online methods had accounted for only 11 percent. However unsettling these figures are they haven’t stopped the thousands of people who are clammering to become members of Blippy. Founders insist that their state-of-the-art encryption will protect data from being stolen or reused.

So what is it good for?

Instead of gasping at prices or snickering at purchases, members are actually exchanging details about great finds and super bargains. Even more common, is discovering places to shop that are off the beaten path and alerting others to special discounts to be found. Blippy can really be described as something similar to a tweet-feed based on shopping.

Along these same lines, stores could alert shoppers about local deals and make recommendations based on items previously purchased. Marketing firms could review spending habits to understand consumers and deliver targeted products and services that would be more appealing to them.

In the meantime, trend experts predict that Blippy is the next big thing. Giving the world a sneak peek inside your wallet is definitely a way to channel discussion on spending habits and connect with other people with similar interests by way of spend pattern.

Somehow I am not convinced. Consumers in the US might be willing to share their purchase history. It is the nation of credit cards (and credit crisis for that matter), but I can’t see that kind of social network take off, at least not anywhere else. Not everything that can be done, should be done or is a good idea.

From a marketers perspective, it seems to be a fantastic idea. Many companies are very eager to get their hands on information on spending patterns well beyond their own product range. So I assume that the business idea of blippy is very much focused on reselling the data of the social network participants. But this is, of course, just my 2 cents.

So, what did I miss?

After 3 weeks of vacation, I am slowly digging through my RSS Feeds to catch up with whatever happened during my absence. Here are a few links of stuff I dugg up:

  • A new study with 1,500 consumers shows the influence of social media participation on buying intent: „over 50% of Facebook fans and Twitter followers say they are more likely to buy, recommend than before they were engaged.“
  • Will it blend? Of course the iPad also blends: http://bit.ly/9lXbOB (and you can fold it, too, apparently). Tom Dickson of BlendTec is at it again. It hurts, to watch that!
  • John Bell offers an interesting definition of community manager vs conversations manager.
  • Google goes from „fan“ to „like“. I don’t like this. The reasoning: users click on „i like“ more often than „become a fan“. Of course they do. My opinion: once Facebook changes that, users will click on „i like“ less often, because of the fear of too strong committment.
  • Trying to plan the next social media campaign? Let the social media planner help you.

I am sure that there is lots more, the arrival of the iPad and all the craze about it, for example. Or the hundreds of other news items about facebook, twitter and/or foursquare, that are surely still waiting for me in my RSS reader, but I am very much tempted to just press „mark all read“…

Campaign sites vs social media: the shift is starting.

There has been a lot of talk about the end or decline of the destination sites. Mainly about the big portals as well as brands sites – the decline in daily visitors happens at the same time as visitors to social media sites are steadily increasing. Here is a blogpost that nicely visualizes this effect for a few famous brands and social media sites.

Coca-Cola and Unilever now announced that they’ll start shifting their online campaign activities from dedicated microsites to sites, profiles or channels on social media sites. Makes sense, considering the users are already there and they can tap into a ready community:

The FMCG giants are moving away from sites created on a campaign-by-campaign basis in favour of investment in existing communities.

Coca-Cola: “We would like to place our activities and brands where people are, rather than dragging them to our platform,”

Unilever: “You’ll see fewer brands creating a site for one campaign and then throwing it away. Certainly we won’t do that at Unilever any more. It’s natural online to go to the place where people are already consuming media,” she added. “It’s less effort to ask people to leave an environment they’re already in.”

They won’t do that for all campaigns, and certainly not immediately, but given the current change in the media landscape it does make a whole lot of sense for some brands to move closer to where their customer are.

change.gov – how Obama keeps the community involved.

I just wrote a fun post about the post election hang over many supporters allegedly face according to „the onion“, and just two seconds later I see this hint in one of Jeremiahs tweets: http://www.change.gov/

The team of Obama just launched a new site. A site that will run (at least) until the time of his presidency. It features a blog, information about his main agenda points, as well as a platform for his supporters to tell their story:

The story of this campaign is your story. It is about the great things we can do when we caome together around a common purpose. We want to hear your inspiring stories from the campaign and Election Day.

It’s amazing the way Obama, Biden and their team leverage the web and hence involve „their community“. If Obama continues in the same perfectionist way with all the other items on his agenda, then the USA will be on a very good path during the next 4 years.