Networking In The Cloud

By Dane Troup

At the consumer level, cloud computing allows access to personal files, applications and communication from any Internet enabled device – anytime, anywhere. As more applications and services become available online, more of our lives move online with them. Everything from online banking to social networking is grabbing more of our time. As the number of applications grow the number of user profiles we juggle grows with it. Most of us are probably using the same login for every account but wouldn’t it be nice to have a single profile for every account? It’s probably not that far away.

If we look at The Run Around, The Insider or Chirp we see they are using Facebook Connect to leverage our Facebook ID and password to sign-in to third-party web applications. This integration with the sites extends the networks of both platforms and allows the information to be posted and shared throughout. For instance Chirp, a social site centered on TV watching, allowed me to login with my Facebook account. Chirp was then able to pull all of my profile information and image in from Facebook and all of my friends from Facebook that are on Chirp appear in my Buddies List. So when I am commenting while watching TV programs, the comments will post right to my Facebook wall. This is just the beginning. When a site extends its reach to a user’s Facebook network it has the ability to leverage trusted referrals. A site could have a “Share With a Friend” button that pulls up all of a user’s friends on Facebook and could shoot a message straight to them from a third party site.

“Our users love to consume our content and engage and share their opinions. We love the idea of enabling them to do this on theinsider.com, but also with Facebook’s over 150M users, many close to our core demographic. It enables users to have more meaningful engagement with our content, and is great exposure for our brand.”

–Debbie Gathard, Product Manager, theinsider.com

This may bring up privacy issues but as more consumers are entering the market having used the Internet for daily tasks and communication their whole lives, the safety issue seems to fade. As the consumers become more trusting and standards and integration of sites expand, we will see the ability to tap into and leverage a visitors network and online habits in order to provide targeted, relevant content and services.

Gone are the days of locking down sites in self-contained systems, never leaving their domain. Facebook claims that early adopters of Facebook Connect have seen a jump of 50 percent in user interaction. As more sites open up their data for integration with outside content, they will start to see the rewards that come with it. By interweaving content and assets throughout multiple services, sites will be able to leverage each other and the community.

FACEBOOK CONNECT CASE STUDIES

Playfish
Causes
Insider

How to Avoid Information Overload in Social Media

By Brian Wendel

Sometimes, you can over complicate things.

Sometimes, less is more.

There are so many times when people tell us about their social media background and experience.  They know about Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Delicious, Flickr, TinyURL, etc and we always respond with the same questions.

How are you using these tools and what is the result?

The answer is usually the same – otherwise we wouldn’t be on the phone.

There is a huge pool of elements you can choose from and an infinite variety of combinations you can create.  Twitter + sharing + commenting will give you a different result than blogging + LinkedIn + Flickr.   Nothing is set in stone and there is no strategy that is full-proof.

You might just need to simplify things.

It is time to bring it back to basics, and focus on execution instead of complex formulas that may work some of the time.

Determine how you want to engage with social media channels and then determine the best venues to accomplish a few of these tasks:
•    Listen
•    Friend
•    Share
•    Converse
•    Customize
•    Engage

This is a strategy that works well in helping you get proof of concept. Then you can begin to mix and match and customize the tools to achieve your goals.

It even works in professional football!

The Arizona Cardinals had their best year in franchise history. Quarterback Kurt Warner had one of the best passing seasons of all time.  When asked what made such a difference this year, Warner replied the Cardinals simplified the playbook. Instead of focusing on hundreds of plays as they had in years past, they focused on 25 to 50. They toned it down and worked on the execution.

The results were evidence that it worked.

Warner threw the same three passes to Larry Fitzgerald over and over and defenses couldn’t stop this dynamic duo.  This winning strategy and solid execution brought them to the Super Bowl.  Then in the big game against the Steelers they went away from their winning strategy.  Fitzgerald caught one pass in the first three quarters and by the time the Cardinals went back to what was working, it was too late.  Although Fitzgerald did have more than 100 yards and two touchdowns in the fourth quarter, it wasn’t enough.

The message is simple: Find out what works and stick with it.

Our goal is to bring the information overload to a halt, and help get clients going on a simple strategy that is easy to execute and results driven.

Are you ready?  Let’s do it.

It’s a steal!

By Kate Thompson

Who doesn’t love a good bargain, especially during these tough economic times? Since their inception in 1887, coupons have acted as a mutually beneficial tool – savings for the consumer and effective advertising exposure for the retailer. Coca-Cola Company catapulted the popularity of their namesake beverage by distributing complimentary coupons – a new and innovative advertising technique at the time. According to Wikipedia, an estimated one in nine Americans received a free Coca-Cola between 1894-1913, and the soda went from being an “insignificant tonic” in 1887 to being served in every state of the United States by 1895. Clearly, they were on to something.

Coupons have maintained their popularity and are estimated to generate nearly 3 billion dollars each year in transactions for consumer packaged goods within the U.S. alone. However, retailers today have new challenges thanks to the Internet that their predecessors were spared; a common problem today is the fraudulent sharing of coupons and coupon codes online.

One recent example of this involved fast food chain Carl’s Jr. The company planned a promotion at a LA Lakers’ game, where 276 winning contestants were texted a passcode and a time-sensitive URL on the Lakers’ website that listed out participating locations honoring the free burger prize. Within a day, the passcode and URL hit hundreds of websites dedicated to sharing discounts, and the burger chain posted signs on their doors, alerting the public they would no longer be giving away their free $2.75 “Famous Star” hamburger to winners. A spokeswoman for Carls’ Jr. said, “We’re wanting things to go viral, just not free offers.” She also said that would be the first and last attempt to give away food in that manner.

On a personal note, I too came across the impact of fraudulent sharing of coupons via the Internet. Inkubook.com is a great, user-friendly site that allows you to quickly create beautiful scrapbooks with much less effort than their traditional counterparts require. I had ordered a scrapbook for my husband for Christmas, highlighting the best pictures of our recent honeymoon. To my dismay, the book was delivered well beyond the assured shipment window of 5-12 days and didn’t make it under our tree. After a few emails inquiring on my book’s status, I was sent a note apologizing for the delay, acknowledging that many holiday gifts were likely missed due to their back log of orders, and offering a coupon code for a free book to make it up to those receiving that email. I eagerly planned another book, but found the code invalid when I checked out a few weeks later. I received the following reply from their customer service rep, “We were forced to inactivate this coupon early due to fraudulent use after it being posted on the internet for everyone to use. If you are ready to order a book using this code I will place the order for you if you could let me know which book you want to order and the address to ship it to. We are very sorry for the inconvenience this causes legitimate users such as yourself but felt we had no other option. “ I was able to get my free book since I had the original email as proof that I qualified, but clearly the company wasn’t expecting others to share the love with the whole world wide web.

Out of curiosity after reading several similar stories, I googled “online coupon codes” and received 5,960,000 results. One site, Retailmenot.com, exclaims, “Find and share coupon codes and promo codes for great discounts at thousands of online stores!” Clearly the idea has caught on and people are looking for deals they may or may not qualify for normally – and looking to share those they know about. You can even become a fan of the site on Facebook, further spreading the word and helping coupons go viral.

The question remains how retailers are to deal with this issue. Some have stopped accepting printable coupons, since there is often no assurance that the person actually qualified for the coupon or hasn’t printed out another copy before. However, in this economic climate it’s hard to deny that consumers will look favorably on retailers that offer coupons, and that these offers are as powerful of an advertising tool as ever. As the Internet only continues to dominate most people’s day-to-day lives and act as their foremost resource, retailers must discover a way to embrace the Internet and its ability to spread the word without becoming overwhelmed by coupon fraud.

Got Buzz?

By Paul Sekerka

Doing cool things on the web is an integral component to getting your brand recognized. As marketers, it is up to us to get the most out of our clients’ advertising dollar – we’ve got to generate those clicks, increase brand awareness, or generate those leads. Whatever the metrics for success are in the respective campaign you are running, you have to push the envelope a bit. It is, however, equally important for clients to be accepting of having their envelope pushed. Put the brand out there and take a chance, you might be pleasantly surprised with the buzz created.

Burger King® is not only home of the Whopper®, but also home of some pretty clever ad campaigns. For better or worse, one thing is certain, they put themselves way out there – from the “Subservient Chicken,” which allowed users to have chicken the way they wanted it… literally, to their “Whopper Freakout,” campaign that informed BK patrons that their beloved Whopper was no longer on the menu, to their latest marketing endeavor “Angry Whopper,” where users sent “angry-grams” to friends that sacrificed their friendship on FaceBook for a Whopper. All of their campaigns (see links to others below) fall in line with a simple strategy; Burger King will generate buzz.

Another buzzworthy occurrence on the web was the recent pairing of FaceBook and CNN for the live coverage of the inauguration of our nation’s 44th President. Co-branded efforts have their own inherent risks (Will it be perceived by the brand faithful on both sides as a positive or negative? Will it be unbalanced, or do both sides have something of equal value to contribute? etc.), but this union yielded record numbers. FaceBook averaged 3,000 comments per minute, and CNN.com delivered 5.3 million streams for the day.

Whether you go it alone like Burger King, or partner up like CNN and FaceBook, the point is that you can’t do anything buzzworthy unless you’re willing to step outside of the comfort zone and take a risk. You may catch some flak for one thing or another, but you can’t please everyone, all of the time. Opinions are what they are, and everyone has them.

Relevant Links:
Subservient Chicken
Sacrifice A Friend
Angry Whopper
Whopper Virgins
BK Body Spray
Whopper Freakout
Western Cowboy
FaceBook and CNN: The Power of the Social Web Revealed

We’ve got spirit, yes we do…

By Kate Rumore

For over one hundred years my alma mater has participated in a traditional Thanksgiving day football game. The Easton vs. Phillipsburg game is one of the oldest and most heated high school rivalries in the country. In 1993, the game ended in a 7-7 tie leaving a smack-talking void for the players and nearly 20,000 fans that attended the game.

Gatorade has recently approached both schools to challenge them to replay the game for an online documentary— yes, the original game. The first ever Gatorade Replay game will take place on April 19th at Lafayette College’s Fisher Field with the original teams. It’s been over 15 years since the tie. Gatorade is in the early stages of meeting up with players and coaches to recruit and enroll the thirtysomething team members into the 8 weeks of training being offered to get them back into shape.

While the folks at Gatorade haven’t yet fully launched the Replay program, they’ve stressed to the participants that it is as much about the community as it is athletics. With just a few sneak peaks into the early stages, the online community has already established a formidable presence.

How is it all coming together? A Red Rover and a Stateliner, each one of the first contacted by Gatorade, thought it would be a good idea to start Facebook groups for their respective teams. In less than two weeks and before Gatorade even began publicly promoting the program, nearly 500 alumni, players and fans have reconnected.

It begs the question— can the online community resuscitate a 15 year old local community? How far can social networking take it? Could the cheerleaders and marching bands reunite? Twirlers? Dare I say- the homecoming court?

Take a sneak peak at the site that made it’s way into the discussion boards at www.missiong.com/show/Replay. Check back here at Momentum for updates on this social (networking) experiment and share your thoughts and predictions.

Go Rovers!

Visualizing your lunch hour

By Sacha Mohabeer

When the people of FD kinesis are not hard at work planning and creating the next best thing to sliced bread (which takes up a majority of their day), they shop—online mostly. Online shopping is a very technical thing to do. It may be even harder than coding a landing page. Figuring out sizes, cuts, colors, patterns and shapes can become very painstaking, making it a very meticulous and nerve wrecking process.

Websites provide a very simple and established way to refine a user’s search to make it a bit more manageable. This can either be by color, price, material, etc. But, what if there was a different way to search? What if there was a way for the online shopper to search and be served up results based on responding to images?

I recently discovered a great site called Like.com. Like.com is a product aggregator that allows users to visually search for products. They have generated a very intuitive and unique way to search for things, specifically clothing, shoes, and jewelry. By utilizing “Likeness Technology,” it allows users to search for similar looking products. Users are able to search for clothing, accessories, and home goods.

This technology can be utilized in a number of different ways. By conducting an initial search, users can select an item that they like, isolate it and refine the search to color, shape, or even both. The search results are then refined to your specifications. The results are very accurate and provide other options at all different price points.

A second and very useful way to search is via their “likethis” tool. This tool allows you to upload an image from a website or that you have taken of any shoe, handbag or dress and the software matches the image as closely as possible. The results are emailed to the user.

For you iPhone users out there, Like.com has developed their “likethis” tool into an application. On the go users can snap pics of items they might like, upload it and have results for similar items at their fingertips.

This is a great example of how visual search is being used in a very innovative way. This method of search can provide consumers with many different options. Whether it is shoes, clothing or homes. There are a few sites like searchme.com that are providing visual search results, but have not become very popular yet. Visual search seems to be the next upcoming Web 2.0 execution.

Shopping on your lunch hour isn’t such a bad thing after all. It provides great fodder for a blog entry, and red shoes for your closet. It’s like killing 2 birds with one stone. It’s that simple.