most of us would rather meet up with friends and do fun stuff in the real-world.  Virtual worlds are dying.  Instead, we use status updates and check-ins to show off how awesome our first lives are:

Mobile, social, real-world games (like Foursquare, Gowalla and MyTown) haven’t hit the mainstream because the “games” aren’t all that fun and the right incentives aren’t there.  In other words, a mayorship and 10% off my next slurpee ain’t gonna cut it.  I want a game with rewards like the NYC Key to the City project, which:

…invests regular New Yorkers or anyone else who happens by with the powers of magnanimity usually reserved for the city’s highest officeholder: to bestow a key to New York on a person of their choice, granting extraordinary access to generally off-limits parts of a no-entry-to-unauthorized-personnel kind of city….

The key… opens locks at two dozen locations in the five boroughs, from the baptistry at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in Manhattan to a locker at Gleason’s Gym in Brooklyn to a very private and humble room (no spoilers) at the Louis Armstrong House Museum in Queens.

This is so awesome.  I imagine an augmented reality future where life is a game, the world is your board, and the points you accumulate for having fun can be redeemed for new experiences. I’m thinking a mobile web powered version of The Game.

Gaurav Mishra and I have recently been discussing these concepts and came up with an idea he coined as gttgthr.com (Get Togther).  He does a better job then I can of explaining it:

Step 1: You sign up using your Facebook ID and indicate your interest in joining different types of get-togethers: meet up for coffee, watch a movie, listen to live music, go shopping, learn how to dance etc.

Step 2: You browse through a list of awesome things to do in the city around your interests. Like Thrillist.

Step 3: You indicate that you will attend a proposed get-together, or suggest a venue for a proposed get-together, or propose a new get-together. Like Plancast.

Step 4: The system will connect you with [friends and] friends-of-friends who have also expressed an interest in attending similar get-togethers. Like Thread.

Step 5: Once a group has decided to attend a get together, they might get a surprise group deal offer from the venue. Like Living Social.

Step 6: Users can be designated hosts for venues, activities, or even cities. Like Foursquare.

After some debate we both felt that although this app had all the overhyped elements of group purchasing, game mechanics and FB/Foursquare APIs, it wasn’t “the one.” 

What do you think?  How can we leverage the mobile web to create fun, real world experiences?  Do you know of other companies like SCVNGR and Geocaching doing cool stuff in this space?

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Part 1: Introduction to Social Media

Part 2: Twitter, Facebook and Social Data Portability

Recommended prior reading:

• Razorfish Consumer Experience Report – Meet the Connected Consumer, Advertising as a Service, How Micro-Interactions Are Changing the Way We Communicate Online, How Tiny Applications Are Remaking the Future of the Web (approx 30 pages)
• Brave New World of Digital Intimacy – NYTimes (approx 8 pages)

The video on the second slide is:

Part 3: Introduction to Online Advertising

Recommended prior reading:

• Put Ad on Web. Count Clicks. Revise. – NYTimes (2 pages)
• Connect the Thoughts – Adweek (3 pages)

Agenda:

• Overview of buying/selling models
• How to compare different models (with examples)
• Intro to Google Adwords
• Intro to purchasing ads on Social Networks (FB/LinkedIn)
• Future of online advertising (social ads)

Note: My collegues did this talk, I will get the slides eventually and post

Part 4: Introduction to Analytics and Measuring Marketing ROI

Recommended prior reading:

• Razorfish – Digital Outlook Report ’09 (Social Influence Measurement – p 137 – 143)

As a course, I would structure this a bit differently, and some of the issues glossed over would receive their own dedicated section. For a longer course I would also include topics like Monetization Strategies for the Web, Data Driven decision making using Analytics (A/B Testing, Optimizing landing pages, SEO), The Future (Convergence, Social Ads, The Importance of Real-Time, The concept of life streaming). Any thoughts? I will flesh out a course outline and post some notes online soon…

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1. Advertising Is Not a Sustainable Business Model for the Web (unless you are a Search Engine)
2. B2B Social Media Marketing
3. The Transition to Real-Time, Social Search

Facebook Connect

Simply put, Facebook Connect allows you to build a Facebook application outside of Facebook. You can integrate with Facebook’s authentication, retrieve profile information about your users, allow your users to find their friends who have “connected” with your site, as well as selectively publish actions to a user’s activity stream.   Developing a Facebook Connect application requires software development chops but gives you access to Facebook’s 200m users.  Digg and CNN both demonstrate different approaches to integration.

CNN
CNN offered a live video stream during Obama’s inaugration.  It included a Facebook Connect application which allowed users to sign in with their Facebook credentials and participate in a live global chat.

Chattin' bout Barry

The participation numbers are staggering.  According to Mashable:

1. 600,000 status updates posted through the CNN.com Live Facebook feed
2. Facebook averaged 4,000 status updates per minute during the broadcast
3. 8,500 status updates were posted during the first minute of Obama’s speech
4. “Millions” of people logged into Facebook during the broadcast

These numbers would’ve never been achievable if users had to register with CNN to participate.  Recently, the Whitehouse has taken a cue and announced a similar application for it’s live video events.

Digg
Digg’s Facebook Connect implementation allows you to link your Digg and Facebook accounts.  Each story you digg, shows up on your activity stream (for all your friends to see).  For Digg, the beneifts are immediate, more people will see that I am digging stories and click back to the site.

Signing Into Facebook Connect

Digg story on my Facebook activity feed

Facebook Connect is now also available for the iPhone.  This is huge and will create a whole new world of mobile social applications.

OpenSocial

OpenSocial is similar to Facebook Connect but allows you to build applications that run in orkut, MySpace, Hi5, Friendster, Ning and Yahoo! and other 3rd party sites.

Virgin Global Row
The Virgin Global Row is a one crazy dude’s story about circling Antarctica in a boat by himself (and raising some money for charity).  OpenSocial integration allows you to login, connect with other people who have joined the site, and push your actions on the site to your various social networks.

Open social options

Google Friend Connect
Google has also release a set of plug n play widgets based on OpenSocial called Google Friend Connect.  Currently there are about 10 widgets available including sign-in, comments, polls, reviews, events and recommendations.  This is cool because it allows anyone to quickly and easily incorporate social elements to their site (no coding required).

Sign in with Twitter

Yep, you guessed it, sign in with Twitter allows 3rd party sites to publish activity to your Twitter stream.  One example of this is Spymaster (the Twitter game which equally amazed and pissed people off).

Spymaster
Spymaster is a game which allows you to go on missions, raise money, buy weapons and attack other spies (Twitter users).  Success is based on how many of your followers play the game and how often you send out updates through your twitter stream.   IMO the game is pretty boring although it is undeniably attracting a huge following and a really nice example of a successful viral campaign.

Bribing you to tweet about your activities

Real time spymaster activity

Conclusion

There’s a big battle over who will become the defacto social OS of the web.  In the future sites/widgets/apps will be social (and location aware), the question is where your data will be sourced from.  At this point Facebook is clearly in the lead, but Google has deep pockets and Twiter is making huge strides.  As Facebook and Twitter launch payment platforms, the opportunity to monitize through social ads and microtransactions presents a huge opportunity.  Got friends?

Related posts:

1. Slides from Social Media Training Sessions
2. Intro to Social Media Videos
3. The Transition to Real-Time, Social Search

A few examples where static search is insufficient:

• Breaking news/current events (we’ve seen many examples where Twitter breaks news stories first – i.e. San Diego Fires, Mumbai Terrorist Attacks, etc..,)  Many times Twitter is able to provide (arguably) more accurate real-time reports that the news that traditional news outlets later pick up on.  While Google is incorporating News Results at the top of it’s list:

It’s still not enough if I want to get a grasp on the current situation/perspective/events occurring now (though interestingly enough the NYTimes ad on the right is incorporating real-time content).

• Finding the amount of times people are searching/mentioning a term – Google Trends allows you to verify the pretty obvious fact that searches for Santa tend to spike at the end of the year, but did you know Canadians were the most actively searching for Santa and that progressively each year less people are asking Google about him?

The equivalent of this is Facebook Lexicon (interestingly no label on the y-axis, not useful for an actual research tool) and Twitter Twist (been down for quite a while).  This is huge for PR and Product companies who want to be able to monitor how much buzz a person/event/product are receiving.

• Product Reviews / Social Shopping – When most people want to buy a product online, they head to Google.  This is why advertising on search is a big moneymaker (as opposed to advertising on social networks which is seriously struggling – people go to Facebook to waste time, flirt, look at pictures of their friends drunk and write each other stupid messages, not buy products).  There have been a bunch of entrants into this market but none so far has provided a compelling product and achieved critical mass.  Hopefully now with Facebook Connect/Google Friend Connect, someone will make this possible.  If I’m looking for a camera, I want to know which camera my friends use and love, then find the cheapest place to buy it.  The first person who makes this easy to do (using my Facebook social data) is going to make a killing.

Google dominates static search, Twitter knows what you are doing, Facebook controls your social graph and Apple knows where you are.  The company able to blend all of these services (static, real-time, social, and location), while maintaining the strictest privacy controls, which will dominate the next era of the web

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There are 13 articles including, Designing Experiences for the Facebook Generation, How Micro-Interactions are Changing the Way We Communicate Online, How Tiny Applications are Remaking the Future of the Web, A Look at Games as Tools Not Toys, and Data Visualization for the Online Era. Below are some key takeaways – this is not meant to be a complete summary, just an excerpt to give you an idea of the contents.

Meet the Connected Consumer

• All signs point to the continuing disintegration of “one-stop” digital destinations… We’ve found that [consumers] don’t want a one-size-fits-all solution for their needs. Consumers prefer using multiple destinations, and then aggregating media and services, via simple tools like RSS, into a highly personalized view of their digital world.
• We were most surprised to see widespread acceptance and frequent consumer usage of Web site widgets… This development reinforces our belief that distribution of content and services will trump destinations, as both consumers and Internet technologies continue to evolve. Additionally, it will provide significant challenges for publishers (primarily media and entertainment companies) who currently have no clear path towards monetizing content distribution across the Web.
• Digital Behavior Defies Age: We found today’s connected consumers equally distributed across all age ranges, with a slight skew to older segments. No longer are we seeing Internet technology adoption rates limited to only certain segments. Our study found widespread acceptance of these new service offering and finds older consumers much more likely to spend money online.

Designing Experiences for the Facebook Generation

• What is happening is that the concept of social networking is evolving and morphing. It’s now about making the entire Web social instead of just creating a ghetto of destination sites where people have to go to socialize (a la Facebook Connect).
• People want to feel special and tend to reach out to the things that make them feel that way. So, it’s no surprise that people flock to social networks in droves; they make users feel like the star of their own lives.
• The most recent rapid expansion on the Facebook and MySpace sites came when they opened up their systems and allowed developers to make applications for their sites
• Design for multiple levels of participation
  • Low-level: rating, poking, tagging, commenting, subscribing
  • Mid-level: writing statuses, twittering, playing games, adding widgets, uploading photos
  • High-level: making videos, writing blog posts and reviews
  • Expert-level: moderating groups and message boards, creating applications, running feeder businesses on the social network’s “economy”

Putting Jakob Back on the Shelf

• Stop launching your design activity around pages as the medium… We need to build frameworks that power both storytelling and answer-seeking to occur.
• Design the new customer experience as a map of interactions. The new experience might be a conversation; it might be a series of decisions made by the user; it might be an interactive storytelling session. Understand what the customer needs, and just design that.
• Let’s not limit our vision to effective Web editorial styles, properly ordered Cancel and Save buttons, and left aligned lists of mixed capitalization blue links. Let’s design customer experiences that start and end with, well, the customers’ goals and needs—and let’s start with a blank slate. Use storytelling and interaction building blocks—not the building blocks of desktop publishing.

How Micro-Interactions Are Changing the Way We Communicate Online

• At the heart of micro-interactions is the belief that immediacy, simplicity, voyeurism and constant communications matter. The success of the tools lend credence to the notion that quick, possibly frivolous, short bursts of communication are just as useful as more measured, reflective communications.
• Web experiences will need to support communication dynamics that allow users to engage in something and report back to their communities in a Twitter-like fashion. Because they have the portability of a social graph, these micro-interactions will take place anywhere on the Web as people interact with their friends in more locations.

How Tiny Applications Are Remaking the Future of the Web

• One could argue that we are seeing a third wave of software properties—propagated by RockYou—that is differentiated from previous waves based on customization, interactivity and viral distribution.
• We believe that widgets provide the purest glimpse into the new, improved networked future. It’s an interconnected world where people will select, personalize, share and consume Web services wherever and whenever they choose. Effortlessly.

A Look at Games as Tools, Not Toys

• Get to know the product by imagining it as a game… Use game-inspired techniques to create a better experience in non-game products.
• People love instant feedback. It creates a sense of reward through a series of small, doable steps. In games, the steps to “winning” are visually represented and easily accessible. This may look like a coin-counting meter, a halo around your avatar or many other things. Mint.com’s dashboard provides instant feedback on your financial goals. It monitors how every swipe of your card affects your budget and net worth, and even how your spending compares to others in the same city.

Data Visualization for the Online Era

• The next time you are tasked with providing users with consumption or performance information, or a way of comparing the past, present and future, think of the questions the users are trying to resolve. Then get creative and provide the answers visually. Consider how quickly they can use the information to decide to buy, change, stop or reconsider. Ensure the style of the visuals reinforces a brand personality. The result? Users who will feel empowered, engaged and appreciative that you have saved them precious time and allowed them to make a decision with confidence.

In case this report isn’t enough reading for you can download last year’ report: Desigining for Constant Change.

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1. Slides from Social Media Training Sessions
2. Advertising Is Not a Sustainable Business Model for the Web (unless you are a Search Engine)
3. An Intro to Social Data Portability

The convergence of the mobile and social web (although over-hyped for years) presents an enormous opportunity.  For a long time we’ve heard rumors of a mystical app where you specify you specify you want some new size 13, white, Nike Zoom LeBron VI’s.  You walk by FootLocker and all of a sudden you receive a message letting you know they have it in stock, in your size, and if you buy it now, you get 15% off.  Or the app that let’s you know the cute chick across the bar is single, and shares your love of Stan Getz and Quentin Tarentino.  Perfect?  Not really, privacy concerns and unwelcome solicitation can quickly ruin this product.  Success with location based services (LBS) can only be achieved by giving users complete control over their privacy, and continuously building trust by providing more useful and accurate services.

I’ve spent some time playing around with the current LBS offerings Loopt and Yelp, but I think there’s a lot more that can be done.  This summer I came across an article in the NYTimes describing Sense Networks.  I downloaded the CitySense app on my blackberry and was floored, absolutely incredible.  It allows you to see in real-time where people are, if the population density is higher or lower then normal in certain areas and recommend places you would like to go based on where you’ve been (currently only for SF).

But this is just a for-fun demonstration of their technology.  Some of the tough questions that Macrosense is trying to answer include:

• Where do people make the decision to go to one place versus another?  Which places in the city are “influence points” versus “stops en route”?
• From where do the most people come from before arriving at a particular location?  Where do most people go afterwards, and how does this change throughout the day?
• What is the demand and elasticity of demand for places, activities and services by income level?  What are the most dramatic increases and decreases?

This is dope and extremely profitable.  The information could be used for marketers and business trying to determine the right location for their store.  The company is backed by hedge funds and I bet are making some scary decisions based on their findings (i.e. economy goes down 10% no one is going into the Apple Store, short the hell out of the stock)

Another great, new product is the Sekai Camera.  The concept is not only awesome, but the video is highly entertaining:

As we continue to make our phones smarter with faster and ubiquitous connections and GPS, we can enhance our real world experience by utilizing the thoughts, opinions and opportunities presented by friends and strangers alike.  Ideas anyone?

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Publishers have the option of attaching a heat map of sorts to their videos. The map shows up below videos as a variously colored bar, which ranges from blue to red and activates when the user types in a particular topic. For example, if you’re watching a clip about a golf tournament, you can enter “Tiger Woods” and the bar will show you where the commentator spends time discussing and showing footage of that famous golf player. The topics are automatically detected by a combination of speech and contextual analysis, so publishers don’t have to break down their videos manually.

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Doesn’t have nearly as many features as the desktop app, but the scaled back flash app is pretty useful for amateur photo editing. Additionally comes with 2GB storage. Check it out…

Google docs showed a powerful example of moving traditionally desktop based apps to the web. But how far can this go? We’ve already seen web based OS’ emerge with varying degrees of success (YouOS, EyeOS, Goowy). Now with Amazon Elastic Compute and Simple Storage it’s easier to develop applications for “the cloud.”

We aren’t far off from the day where all you need is a display, input and internet connection to access your “personal computer.” Privacy concerns anyone?

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