I love gadgets, particularly new tech toys. Yet, I’m not the earliest adopter. Like many tech folks, I like to buy when the bugs get worked out.
However…it just so happens that several months back, my sister needed a new phone and I told her I’d been hearing great things about the Droid. (As we’re on Verizon, iPhones aren’t an option for us – yet.) They were running a two-for-one special; she got a Motorola and an HTC Eris. She experimented with both and ended up with the Motorola because it had a better touch-screen for typing.
So, I got to play with the Eris. Here’s my short-list summary:
I nearly bailed on the Droid when I couldn’t make a hands-free call when driving. I compromised, only making a call when parked, but that’s not always viable. Loved the other features, though.
What got me the most was the short battery life. It was so bad, I called to ask for a replacement battery. It was sent; no better. I’d leave the house with the phone fully charged (green light) and within a couple of hours, it was dead. I tried turning off the data connection, but then I couldn’t get email messages – which for me is the primary reason for having a Smartphone.
I was in the field this week doing shop-alongs. I realized that if my phone was dead, no one could get ahold of me. So it was bye-bye Droid and welcome back BlackBerry, at least for now.
Manufacturers need to know that Smartphones aren’t toys for many of us – they’re essential office equipment. If it can do more, I’m delighted; but if the phone/email doesn’t have enough power to be on for at least 20 hours a day, I’m taking a step back to my tried-and-true BlackBerry until newer phones solve this primary problem.
For me, cool doesn’t trump utility. Does that exclude me from their target audience? I know I’m not alone (I heard Leo LaPorte talking about this yesterday). Maybe this is just an evolutionary step.
What type of field usability studies did Google/Droid do? Extend the battery life, offer genuine hands-free (Bluetooth) voice dialing, and the ability to turn web-browsing off when not in use, and I’m back…because not-so secretly, I’d really prefer to be using a cool toy – I mean phone.
As a marketing researcher and consumer advocate, I’ve long held that no business would be in business without customers, and that the consumer-brand relationship is paramount in all business activities. The Internet has made these relationships both more intimate and interactive. And selling can be a bit more difficult in this environment. Many of the old “relationship” rules no longer hold up.
“Brand Butlers” – just the clever name – caught my eye recently. Coming out of TrendWatching.com, this opinion piece says there’s a transition underway: “Why serving is the new selling” is their proposition.
The argument is that recession-weary consumers are “jaded, time-poor, and pragmatic” and are looking for “uber-relevant services” offered anywhere, anytime – by companies that show they aren’t in it just for the money (that they care about their customers and their lives).
From a brand perspective, these new, closer relationships allow for greater interaction, more immediate understanding of the customers’ needs (as it directly or indirectly relates to the brand), and greater feedback overall.
Personally, I don’t think is this an entirely new wave or generation of relationship marketing, but rather an outgrowth of a related technology which is allowing for better, softer-sell, sponsored-sell, and generally relationship-building opportunities. (Hence the 2.5 designation.)
Having said that, the Brand Butler paper has some great examples of their new relationship-service proposition. A lot of them are mobile web apps for smartphones and others are web-based or offline. Take a peak.
Obvious Butler: Mastercard’s ATM Hunter iPhone app allows users to find their nearest ATMs by entering their location or using built-in GPS functionality.
In the Know Butler: Nike’s True City iPhone app aims to give consumers ‘insider’ information on six European cities, while also allowing users to share their own tips and delivering exclusive Nike offers and information.
Money-Saving Butler: Sprize, provided by Gap in and around Vancouver, BC, allows shoppers to register online before they shop, and if an item’s price is reduced within 45 days of purchase, their Sprize account will automatically be credited the difference.
“Finding” Butler: Pet food brand Purina offers a branded application that helps consumers to find ‘Petcentric’ locations in their vicinity.
Connectivity Butler: vtravelled, launched by Virgin Atlantic, is a social network aimed at creating a global community of travel lovers. The free service allows members to share travel knowledge, thoughts and photos, and access real time updates about destination events and information.
Health Butler: The Nivea Sun iPhone app is designed to help Brazilians tan safely. The app collects information about the user, suggests the correct SPF to be used on a particular day, and alerts the user when the protection should be reapplied.
Advice Butler: In 2009, Smirnoff held a series of master-classes for men wanting to become ‘Modern Gentlemen’. Three complimentary classes were delivered in London to a limited number of guests, focusing on classic cocktail making, style consulting and grooming.
Utility Butlers: TheZipcar iPhone app allows members of the car-sharing service to find, reserve and unlock vehicles using their mobile device. And ColorSnap is a free iPhone app from US paint brand Sherwin-Williams that allows consumers to match the color of a photo taken on their iPhone with over 1,500 colors listed in the Sherwin-Williams database.
Clearly, the focus is on service (not selling) and supporting a brand by supporting key target groups in ways that go beyond the tried and true.
Inspired to come up with you own Brand Butler idea? These ideas are fun and clever. My only suggestion if you’re developing for smartphones is that you develop for the iPhone, Droid, and Blackberry platforms.
a) Having access and sharing all your information across multiple devices and platforms OR
b) Having a secure computing/digital environment
If you’re like most of us, you want both.
But here’s the catch: when PCs were first introduced, they were local (sat on our desks) and their contents could be kept private (no information was shared). As we became more connected, we were taught safety first – “Get anti-virus!” “Make sure you have a firewall!!” We were living on the left side of this grid.
Then two things happened: cloud computing started to gain traction at the same time social networks came to define Web 2.0. (For those of you who don’t know the expression “cloud computing,” it’s where shared information, resources and software applications are stored and accessed in a “cloud” (the Web). If you use Google Docs, for example, its Office-like programs which store and share documents online are “in the cloud.” The same for its Calendar.)
Where does that leave protecting our files, identities, and the like?
It’s confusing, really. Public info in the cloud? How about Facebook, which has consistently said they don’t believe in privacy – so much so that there are now four senators calling for an investigation of the company and its policies? Have you changed your settings recently so you’re comfortable with the amount of info being shared?
Feeling virtuous because you don’t use Facebook? Doing any online banking? Using GoToMyPC.com to access office files from home? Or sharing pictures via Flickr? You’re in the cloud, whether in public or private.
Why is this comfortable for us? I suppose that for each of these things, we have weighed out the benefits (convenience, accessibility) with the risks.
But in the last few months, as I’ve explored delivering interactive market research reports to clients online, I’ve realized that where I draw the line in the cloud is in storing proprietary client reports in an area where they can have access to them. In other words, I’m not yet comfortable providing my clients with an electronic cloud-based archive of the work I’ve done.
To get there, I’ll need the following:
A private browser-based gateway or portal for each client. (This could include a “secure tunnel” from the client’s Intranet to where their files are stored in the space I’m paying for.)
The platform should be able to support multi-media elements (slides/pages, audio, video, podcasts of presentations, etc.) without software needing to be loaded on the client’s server/computer. (Rather like how the wonderful sales tool, SlideRocket.com, works today.)
Viewing of files must be completely secure – like SSL, with a visible lock in the browser.
Client files can only be uploaded and/or edited by me.
In short, if Carbonite and SlideRocket were to have a baby, I’d be very happy and there would no longer be a need for “drawing lines in the cloud.” I’d have both “a” and “b.”
Know of a solution for me? Think online reporting is moving in another direction? Let me know!
The new Pew Internet and American Life Project report has been issued this week. It won’t come as news to anyone that teens are texting a lot. But here are a few fun facts:
74% of 12-17 year-olds now have cell phones.
72% of all teens (88% of teen cell users) use text messaging.
54% of all teens text daily. This compares to:
38% who make a call on their cell (mostly with parents, they report)
33% who talk face-to-face
30% who talk on a landline
25% who visit a social networking site
24% who IM
11% who email
Boys send/receive 30 texts a day whereas girls send/receive 80.
One of the key implications here is how many more teens text daily than engage with a social media website. Mobility is critical.
Here’s where I get blown away:
Half of teens send 50+ text messages a day.
Roughly one-third of teens send more than 100 text messages a day (3,000 a month).
15% of teens who text (or 11% of all teens) send more than 200 texts a day (6,000 a month). Let’s be generous and say that to send/receive a text takes 15 seconds. That’s nearly an hour a day these heavy users spend texting.
Reading between the lines, the instant gratification of communication via this channel says something important about these teens.
A few days ago, I got the wind knocked out of me with one of those rare “aha” moments. A headline caught my eye: “The State of Linked Data in 2010” by ReadWriteWeb. Being a curious sort, I read the blog post, and then spent the next few hours (days) exploring what Linked Data is. OMG.
Now I realize this may be old news to some, just as the WWW was when I got on board in 1993. But in 1993, I bought the first Mac built for online connection, and the good folks at Apple took days to successfully get me online as it was still such a novelty. So I’m thinking that Linked Data (also referred to as the Semantic Web) may still be an unknown idea to many of you as well.
Last May I was wowed by the concept behind Wolfram|Alpha, and I wrote on it here as it was launching. Since then, I haven’t heard that much about it (it’s a private effort), and I personally don’t believe it works that well.
Linked Data, an open-source movement, is more likely to be the real start of the answer of how inter-relationships between data can be seen and accessed on the Web.
Simple, one-dimensional searches are fine today, but what happens when your query is complex? Here’s an example I saw about football (I know, how unlike me!): you want to know which football players went to the University of Texas, Austin and played for the Dallas Cowboys as cornerback. What you’re really asking is that two databases – UT and Cowboys – talk to each other. But unless they’re connected in some way, they can’t talk. And that’s what Linked Data is all about – forming those connections through shared databases. (To see more – for those of you who are tech-inclined – visit this link.)
Today, it’s a little cumbersome to “code” the data for these linked databases, but when it becomes more automated, it will be quite powerful and I think more people and organizations will participate. Currently, the US government allows all federally collected data – data that we as taxpayers pay them to collect – to be shared across departments. It’s early days, but visit www.data.gov to see what the US government is doing. The Brits are also committed to this effort.
A company called Talis has a great example of how its platform is working for the BBC and I believe if you watch the short video, you’ll get excited about the potential of this new movement as an end-user.
What are the implications for other types of businesses? I can’t imagine they will share their proprietary information, but I do imagine that there will be “intranet-like” Linked Data resources where queries will merge public data with their private data and data from their vendors (such as agency media buys). Internal politics regarding who “owns” which data sources may be the biggest hurdle for full adoption.
I know that there will be more to write on all of this over time, but I would highly recommend a blog post by Scott Brinker. In his visual (below), you can see that he lays out seven business models going from indirect-to-direct revenue models and from ‘raw data’ delivery to ‘as an application’ delivery.
