The Social Media Blog - Methodical Madness

Why The Daily may be the future of newspapers

Wednesday saw the unveiling of the first-ever, iPad-only newspaper—The Daily. And this newest member of the Newscorp family might be the game changer people have been waiting for. 

Newspaper and magazine publishers have struggled with their online approach. For years major newspapers and magazines have provided their content free of charge to online readers. Some tinkered with the idea of pay walls, like the New York Newsday, only to take them down after online subscriptions failed to materialize. Recently, the New York Times announced that they were instituting a pay wall. Unfortunately, most of the data shows that these pay walls don't work very well. Add to the mix that recent studies have also shown that iPad magazine subscriptions are on the decline.

So why will this new newspaper fare better than the rest? Three reasons: timing, price, and technology. 

As there is more and more talk about pay walls and paying for content, people are beginning to come around to the idea and their resistance to paying for content is eroding. Last month a study conducted by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, which we highlighted in a previous blog post, showed that people seem to be willing to pay for content online. So it seems that The Daily is striking while the public sentiment is swaying towards a payment model. 

As for price, The Daily's subscription model is only $0.99 per week, or $39.99 a year. This is far lower than what the New York Times will reportedly charge—a monthly subscription rate somewhere right under $20. The $0.99 price point is also well within the parameters people have stated that they are willing to spend on online content. Murdoch also stated at the press conference that the cost to run The Daily comes out to a mere $500K a week. This means that The Daily will only need 500K weekly subscribers to break even. That's only 6.5% of the roughly 7.5 million + iPads that were reportedly sold between its debut and the end of October. Murdoch mentioned that they will be creating The Daily for other tablet OS. This also bodes well for The Daily's success considering that Forrester Research is predicting the tablet market in the US to grow to 24 million units in 2011 and 82 million units by 2015. 

 

However, the biggest reason that The Daily will succeed—and what makes it different from any previous publishing attempt—is how it was developed. The Daily was created specifically for the iPad. As Murdoch said in the press conference (which is also reiterated on The Daily web site "it was built from scratch." As such, it has been able to take advantage of the iPad’s amazing technology incorporating interactivity, videos, and gaming applications. It even uses the iPad's orientation feature to bring readers stunning visuals in landscape mode and with a flip to portrait mode it brings up the article. It's not a retrofitted newspaper trying to bring its content online. It had the luxury of reimagining the idea of distributing news content to an online audience. It also didn't have the burden of transitioning an established newspaper brand. It can create its own brand. Subscribers won't see this as having to pay for content that they can get for free because they can't get The Daily's content anywhere else. 

And considering that The Daily became the number one free app in its first day out with over 1450 ratings within its first 12 hours it was available, I'd say that The Daily has at least gotten off to a good start. 

What do you think? Will The Daily be a success? Will this change the publishing landscape forever?

 

 

 

 

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An Internet guide to Thanksgiving

In the United States, Thanksgiving is this Thursday, November 25. It's a holiday that is rife with overindulgence, football, and family (and all the unhealthy dynamics that family represents). It falls between Halloween and Christmas and like other middle-children, it seems to get ignored and forgotten—especially on the Interwebs. So I thought we should shower some deserving attention on this gastronomic holiday with some Thanksgiving related things I found around the 'net.

Can you feel the spirit of giving thanks?
 

And don't forget to leave a comment and share your Thanksgiving traditions.

Apps

• Top iPhone apps dedicated to the Thanksgiving bird
  
  
• Top 10 best free Thanksgiving iPad apps
  
  
• 6 best Thanksgiving apps for iPhone
  
  
• Top 5 android apps for surviving Thanksgiving
  
  

Fun and games

• Turkey ShootOut 3-D game
  
  
• Thanksgiving eCards from Jib-Jab
  
  
• Wild Turkey Gobble
  
  

Food related

• A listing of savory and sweet Thanksgiving side dishes
  
  
• Turkey recipes from Butterball
  
  
• The best way to roast a turkey
  
  
• How to carve a Holiday turkey
  
  

Misc.

• Weird Thanksgiving day facts

Will QR Codes Change the World?

Links are what makes the Internet the Internet. It's a simple idea and one we all take for granted. Click on a link and go from one area of the Web to another. Now imagine living in a world where the hyperlink is brought out of the online world and applied to the real world.

Quick response (QR) codes, those funny looking square symbols beginning to appear on some goods, are the mechanism that bridge that gap and bring "linking" into the real world.

 

Originally developed by a subsidiary of Toyota and used to track parts in vehicle manufacturing, QR codes are beginning to pop up more common places. In fact, consumer electronics retailer Best Buy started employing QR codes on their in-store fact tags. Using their smart phones, consumers can scan the QR codes on the fact tags and access a site where they can read consumer reviews, compare features with similar products, and e-mail details to a friend.

There are even some QR readers for smart phones that help you compare the price of the item you are looking at with other retailers. This has the potential for being an amazing resource for consumers and potentially a nightmare for smaller retailers who must now compete on price for virtually everything.

Real estate brokers are starting to put QR codes on signs outside their properties that give home buyers the opportunity to take a virtual tour of a home.

MarketingProfs published a story on Thursday about a Russian company that used QR codes as a scavenger hunt game by embedding the QR symbols throughout Moscow. The event was to promote their energy drink. 

However, these applications are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to using QR codes. In an article posted yesterday in Mashable, some potential uses for a brave new QR world were outlined. Imagine these applications:

Your are sitting in a hotel lobby waiting for your friend. You glance over and see a great looking lamp on the hotel coffee table. Thinking it would look great in your bedroom, you scan the object's QR code with your phone and your instantly brought to a site where you can buy the lamp. If manufacturers QR code everything, then everything can be for sale. 

For those particular about the origins of the food they buy, imagine scanning a cantaloupe, for example, to find out when it was picked, where it came in from, and how it was grown (pesticides use, etc.). Something similar is already being done in smartphone-obsessed Japan.

Of course, for QR codes to gain wider acceptance, the availability of the networks they need to run (3G and wireless) has to expand. However, research by Nielsen shows that by 2011 51% of all Americans by will be carrying a smartphone. So the equipment and infrastructure for support of QR coides is developing.

It seems like the uses of the QR codes are only limited to our imaginations. This blogger can envision a day when we can wear special glasses that not only scan bar codes but also employ augmented reality cues to form a new layer of data instantly accessible through the lenses of our glasses. Think the movie The Terminator, but better and with less cyborgs.

What do you think? What are some of the best uses you've seen for QR codes?

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5 Reasons why you'll want to try RockMelt, the social web browser

RockMelt launched in private beta on Sunday and so far the reviews seem to be mixed. Maybe that's because so many of us were burned by the promise of Flock. When Flock entered the market it was touted as the web browser to finally melt social media and web browsing into one seamless experience. Except that it didn't. I found Flock to be heavy and awkward, so I switched back to IE after a day or so.

RockMelt is backed by Marc Andreessen, the developer of Netscape, and is heavily Facebook centric, mostly because of the way it works. Although it is built with Chromium, a Google-developed open toolkit that is the foundation of the Chrome browser, the social elements of RockMelt are actually powered by a Facebook app, which launches when the app is loaded.

Now, in the spirit of full disclosure, I have not yet tried RockMelt, as I am still waiting for my invite. However, from everything I have read and seen, this looks like a great new tool for the socially active user. Part two of this story will come after I use the browser for a week and provide a more in-depth, hands-on review. But for now, let's look at some of the reasons you'll probably want to try out RockMelt.

1. Twitter and Facebook integration
   From the right-hand navigation bar, you can easily check out and interact with your Facebook and Twitter accounts. You can also share information on Facebook and Twitter within the context of the browser window with the simple "Share" button next to the URL field.
   
    
2. Cool RSS feed integration
   Another nice feature is how it integrates your RSS feeds. An indication icon lets you know that an RSS feed exists for a page. When you subscribe to a feed, it places an icon in the right hand navigation bar. It also uses push notifications to alert you to new stories.
   
   
3. Your Facebook friends at the ready
   The left hand navigation bar is populated with your online Facebook friends. This allows you to instantly share and chat with them within the context of your browsing session. This immediately makes browsing a more immediate, more convenient, and a heck of a lot more social.
   
   
4. It's fast
   According to reports, if you like the speed of Google Chrome, you'll love RockMelt. Although the social elements are powered by a Facebook app, the system is built on Chromium and benefits from the speed of the underlying code.
   
   
5. It just looks cool
   RockMelt seams to overcome the awkwardness with a sleek interface that compartmentalizes your social media worlds without overwhelming the browser. In other words, it doesn't seem to bite off more than it can chew. Case in point, the beta-launch natively integrates with only two social media sites, Facebook and Twitter. By not trying to tackle every social media application on the planet at once, it makes sure the two applications it does integrate with serve up a great user experience. Plus, the design puts the two main social media elements in thin venues on either side of the main browsing window. In this way, it maintains the look and feel of a traditional browser.

RockMelt doesn't seem to be a contender to take over the Web browsing crown. People are fiercely loyal to their browser of choice, and there is a lot of inertia to overcome. Maybe it can be a really interesting niche player. Maybe this is the realization of promise of a truly social web browser. And maybe RockMelt will be more than just a flash in the pan.

What do you think? Do you have any interest in trying out RockMelt? Are there features that you think are missing, or that you wish RockMelt had added?

 

Kevin Duffy is the Creative Director for The Duffy Agency's Boston Office.

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7 Ways Smart Phones are the Wallets of the Future

Remember what it was like in the old days (circa 2000)? You needed multiple arms to juggle the myriad of electronic  gadgets and accessories we all carried around. You had your laptop, cell phone, PDA, and other bright, shiny accessories. Nowadays, everything is just consolidated into our smart phone. So why not your wallet?

The trend is starting to take hold and major retailers are coming on board. Here are 7 ways that mobile payments are hitting the mainstream.

Last week, Starbucks expanded their mobile payment option to almost 300 locations in New York. The app was developed to take the place of the Starbuck's payment card and allows users to simply scan & pay with the barcode scanner-friendly design on their phone.. 

PayPal has developed a two-click mobile payment system called mobile Express Checkout. Many of the merchants using the beta-test version of the application have reported great success—doubling sales in some instances.

Earlier this year, Twitter creator, Jack Dorsey, developed a new mobile payment application and portable card reader called Square. that allows users to accept credit card payments with their  mobile phones. Simply swipe the card through the gadget that attaches to the phone's headphone jack and money is transferred from the card to your Square account.  

Another swipe device that came out in August is the Complete Credit Card Solution from financial software giant Intuit and Mophie, makers of the JuicePack battery for iPhone. Unappealing name aside, it's similar to the Square device. though little has been heard or seen of the device since its unveiling.

Mobile point-of-sale (POS) is another technology that retailers are investigating. Bling Nation came out with a new Mobile POS product a few months ago. The technology uses a sticker, or BlingTag, embedded with an RFID device and near field communication (NFC) to authenticate transactions  between your phone and a Bling Nation payment console. Simply hover/swipe your tag-emblazoned smart phone over the console and your purchase is completed. 

Late last week, AT&T announced deals with several mobile payment providers that would allow AT&T mobile users to buy online goods and services with their phones, the costs of which would then be added to  their monthly cell phone bills. Deals such as these could pose huge threats to the VISAs and Mastercards of the world—essentially turning telecommunication providers into financial brokers and payment processors. Verizon and T-Mobile, seeking to establish the aforementioned efficiencies, are also rumored to be looking for a deal.

Now you can buy the stuff you really want

At the end of August, the young startup Cimbal announced the launch of its software-based NFC Payment Network, which seeks to satisfy all the above. A consumer- and merchant-friendly software-only approach to mobile payments, the company is currently working with department stores and grocery retailers. CEO Christopher Boone tells Mashable that they aim to make Cimbal’s mobile payment solution available at these merchants as soon as Q4 of 2010. 

The process of morphing your smart phone and your wallet has  really hit its stride over the last few years. Finally, timing and technology seem to be in sync. It doesn't hurt that a report from Juniper Research shows that mobile payments  are expected to be over a $200 billion market by 2012.

Have you tried a form of mobile payment? What do you think?  

 

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4 reasons the new Twitter rocks

As the new face of Twitter continues to roll out across the web, we finally received the new interface and we have to admit, Twitter is moving in the right direction. For too long, the best way to access Twitter was  through the use of a third party client (Tweetdeck, Seesmic, Hootsuite, etc.). Twitter took a huge step into that market with their face lift. It still doesn’t have multiple account support, so the third party apps can still breath easily on that front, but when it comes to basic interface, they’ll have to step up their game.

The re-jiggered Twitter has a fresh, new site smell that is certain to have basic users returning to the site to enjoy the new possibilities. With all the additions, we have four that make it a winning redesign.

Dashboard layout - The doublepane window gives much more information than ever before. In one click you can switch from your timeline to @mentions to retweets to searches to lists. You can view trends on both a worldwide and local level and see where you’ve recently been listed. 

Adding media - It’s even easier to embed and view photos and video in Twitter. They have partnered with DailyBooth, deviantART, Etsy, Flickr, Justin.TV, Kickstarter, Kiva, Photozou, Plixi, Twitgoo, TwitPic, TwitVid, USTREAM, Vimeo, yfrog, and YouTube, which means you can grab almost any online media and easily embed it in within Twitter. Thanks to the new doublepane window, when you click on a photo or video, it appears in the right side pane. Unlike Tweetdeck, it doesn’t use a light box so you can still do other functions within Twitter while viewing your media.

Related content - Twitter now provides more details about your Twitter followers. You can see other Tweets by the user, geotagging of the Tweets and replies to the tweet. The mini profile allows you to get to know your followers more quickly and easily.

Search - Searching for a hashtag or person is better than ever. Twitter will show you any tweets related to a search term. It will also break out any tweets by tweets with links and tweets closest to you. You can also search for people and save the search in case you want to reference it later.

Once Twitter adds the ability to login to multiple accounts and reply to multiple people at once, it will pose third party apps like Tweetdeck and Hootsuite a serious challenge. For now, if you aren’t a power user, the new site design means users have a lot more control over their experience in a logical and intuitive way. And that’s a win for everyone.

Do you have the new Twitter interface? What do you think about it?

 

Stefan Halley is the Digital Project Leader for The Duffy Agency. He loves to talk about social media.

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Is Twitter biting the hand that feeds it?

 

We’ve been watching and writing about Twitter for over a year now and a recent Mashable article highlights some of the concerns we’ve seen with recent Twitter developments. Earlier this year, Twitter held its first developers conference, Chirp. It was there that the microblogging site announced its first app – an iPhone app called Tweetie. 

 

With this announcement, Twitter said loud and clear that they aren’t just going to sit back and let others dictate how their site is used. Overnight, Twitter killed a whole burgeoning development segment. Third party app developers went on alert and some were sent running scared. Venture capitalist took notice as well and funding for Twitter based apps dropped from $21.6 million between June 2008 and May 2009 to $10.4 million between June 2009 and May of this year. That’s a 50% drop in early-stage investment over the past year.

 

Twitter has seen rampant site growth and third party app development over it’s short life. If it wasn’t for the company allowing anyone and everyone to build on top of their system, they wouldn’t be the powerhouse site they are today. The microblogging site owes its success to the independent developers that created applications to make the user experience more rewarding. 

 

Twitter has added Android and BlackBerry apps to the smartphone mix, effectively cornering the market. Their iPad app has all but killed development in that area and the addition of the Tweet Button ousted Tweet Meme and other sites that do the same. So far, we haven’t seen Twitter purchasing additional apps, but we wouldn’t be surprised if they develop more location based systems a la Facebook and Foursquare, purchase an official url shorting system and photo sharing app, as well as better use of analytics and trending topics. All of these areas seem natural for Twitter expand into. 

 

With less focus from developers on Twitter apps, we could be coming to an end of the golden age of the site. If developers perceive the site as a direct challenger, the site will be left to develop their own apps and this will stagger innovation and creativity that has, to date, been one of the defining characteristics of Twitter. Could this be the beginning of the end of Twitter’s market dominance or is this just a bump in the road we try to figure out Twitter’s next move?

 

Google one step closer to communication dominance

With Google Voice, the web giant crams most of your communication needs into one browser

Given their recent track record with the likes of Google Wave and Google Buzz basically tanking from the word go, it’s difficult not to feel skeptical when Google releases a new “revolutionary” product. But where Buzz and Wave failed, Voice has every chance to succeed. The former services were entirely new communications platforms. Their use wasn’t communicated clearly and as such people didn’t know why they should bother putting the effort into incorporating yet another networking tool into their lives. Voice is back to basics, offering a service everyone understands and needs.

But why should you rethink your calling habits? Web services like Skype and of course mobile phones work pretty well for you already. Well, there are some pretty nifty advantages to making calls from your browser. Advatages like:

• having one universal phone number
• being able to call all of a contact’s phones at once
• listening to voicemail as a caller leaves a message
• transcribed voice messages that appear automatically in your Gmail account
• text messages that go to both phone and email
• send texts for free online via Gmail
• mobile app lets you call and text for free
• low international calling rates.

It’s the coming together of all our major communication needs in one toolbox that makes the launch of Google Voice especially intriguing. If Voice takes off, Google will add calling to the list of successful communication platforms that cover email, video and photo sharing and chat. All of which are browser based, making them easier to access from anywhere than app-based platforms that need to be downloaded and installed. With the advent of HTML5 and the ever increasing array of functionality of web browsers, the future might be a lot less app-centric than we think. 

The major mountain left to climb for the search giant is social networks. Google has tried to break into the space with the aforementioned Wave and Buzz, but have fallen flat on their face so far (GoogleMe may or may not change that). But Voice could at least put them at the top of the heap in non-social network communication.

What do you think: is Google Voice going to change the way you call, or is it another miss from Google’s throw everything against the wall and see what sticks strategy?

Jason Ross is a copywriter for The Duffy Agency. He loves working on both traditional and social media projects and speculating on the future of the ad industry.

 

 

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5 ways businesses can use Facebook Places

Location based services just hit the mainstream. Here’s how you can capitalize on it.

Foursquare was doing very well for itself. It was marching along at the head of the location based services (LBS) trend with almost three million users having fun by “checking in” to restaurants, stores and other places via their mobile phones. Yesterday, a bombshell dropped on the LBS movement as Facebook gave its 500 million users a similar service. Foursquare may live on, but it’s suddenly dropped into a distant second after being the long time leader.

If its users take to it, Facebook Places will vault LBS into the mainstream. As marketers, we couldn’t be happier because this unleashes a new array of creative possibilities for brands to get in touch with fans and have fun doing it. Here are 5 ways you can use Places to get your audience involved. Bear in mind that some of these depend on future developments of Places and just how open Facebook are with its information. Knowing Facebook, it’ll be pretty open.

Reward users for check-ins and loyalty
Foursquare’s major advantage over Places is its reward system where users get badges, points and “mayorships” for their checkins. But there’s nothing stopping you from creating your own rewards for users who checkin to your location, which isn’t that difficult to track as each Place has its own page. This can also be real world rewards where users take their phones to locations like shops and restaurants and show their Facebook stats to get free stuff. This is a big draw as it essentially turns day-to-day life into a game where ordinary tasks become accomplishments.

Reach out through your Place Page
Speaking of each Place having its own page, you can go into Facebook and claim your business’s location as your own by uploading proof in the form of a business license or the such. You can then send messages to the people who “like” the page with updates, offers and contests. You can get users to talk to each other about their experiences and provide reviews. If they’re positive, they can be extremely effective.

Networking
When you go to conferences and events you can checkin and see who else is attending. You can then check out their profiles and decide which ones are worth reaching out to. You can also keep an eye on what competitors are up to by seeing what events they attend. 

Create checkin based apps
Facebook has opened up the Places API, which means you can create apps that use the checkin data gathered from Places. This has the potential to bring together and reward people at events by checking in through the app. You can also create location based games or contests like scavenger hunts that send people around cities to find specific locations and complete tasks. An app could also come with auto-notifications that send a message when a user nears a specific location. There are loads of possibilities with this one.

Create a friend for fans to hang out with
I’m not sure this feature will be around forever as it has loads of potential for blowback, but why not have fun with it while it lasts? You can tag friends when you check into a place, and said friend may or may not actually be with you. Creating a humorous brand profile that people can check into locations with could be a fun way to get people to interact with you to earn rewards and status, while giving you greater exposure as your profile shows up in news feeds.

Those were a few of our initial ideas. Any lightbulbs going off over your head? Let us know. Here are some more thoughts on the future of location based advertising through Facebook from eMarketer.

Jason Ross is a copywriter for The Duffy Agency. He loves working on both traditional and social media projects and speculating on the future of the ad industry.

 

 

 

 

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Twitter “Who To Follow”: Great idea or total mistake

 

 

If you’re like me, you use Twitter every day but never go actually go to the Twitter site. In the past week, Twitter has upgraded a feature on their site. On the right side bar, Twitter has now added a feature called “Who to Follow.” It works two ways. If you’re very active, it’s able to show more people that share the same interest as you. If you aren’t very active, it shows you the most popular people on Twitter.

 

Reactions from the web have mixed. Over on Tweetsmarter.com, Aman Sharma voices his dislike, “I loathe the ‘who to follow feature’”, while just below him Tim Baran says, “I’ve been known to criticize Twitter but I like the new feature...I even find it useful.” The cooking blog, Kitchen Mage, posted a step-by-step guide to blocking the feature. It’s proved to be very popular.

 

While I can understand why people are reticent to use the new feature. Twitter has added a feature that it believes will create a better user experience without seeming to understand what its users want. The site has had this feature for a while. It’s been under the “Find People” tab, where it still resides. Why does bringing this feature front and center on a profile feel so intrusive? We didn’t mind it being there before. It’s like going to a high school dance where the chaperones force everyone to dance wether they want to or not. Now that it’s a constant reminder on our profiles that Twitter is shoving people in our face, it takes away the organic nature of growth that people have grown to love . 

 

Reaching out to new people and finding new people to connect to is one of the most important things to do on Twitter. Networking is one of the fundamental uses of Twitter. There are scores of websites that help you with finding new people. Individuals have registered with these sites and identified themselves under different categories. The difference between that and Twitter’s suggestion is Twitter doesn’t know me. Most people don’t identify all of their interest in their profile. Twitter is doing a random guess of people to recommend.  It suggests people that they think I would be interested in. 

 

There are several features people would like to see added to Twitter such as tweet search, editing published tweets, finding your Facebook friends to follow, link shortening and translation of foreign language tweets.  Of course there is every present request for Twitter to be stable enough to handle traffic surges and reliable use of their API. If Twitter would address some of these issues, maybe people would migrate back to the site over third party apps.

 

Really Twitter, why do you think I would care about Justin Bieber? 

Stefan Halley is the Digital Project Leader for The Duffy Agency. He loves to talk about social media.