Republican Candidates Will Debate on Twitter (Social TImes)

Republican Candidates Will Debate on Twitter

We cannot argue that social media is not influencing our politics based on the recent activities in the media. We’ve seen a Twitter scandal, the GOP debate impact on Twitter and who ended up being the best, as indicated by Facebook. We will see a major influence in the 2012 Election campaigns as witness today. It was announced that a Republican presidential candidate debate will take place on Twitter on July 20, 2011.

Regular Twitter users will be able to follow the debate and an extra site will be maintained during the debate for people to follow with separate column streams while tweets appear from moderators, the debaters and others who want to tweet their views. So, you can mark your calendar with this site: 140townhall.com. You can even go to the site now while it is in demo mode.

A separate and distinct Twitter account @140townhall will be set up to receive all related tweets to the Republican debate. Once the debate is over, users will still be able to review stats and tweets. They will be able to determine how the debate evolved and concluded.

According to Adam Green of 140 Dev, who developed the website for the Twitter debate, presidential candidates, instead of their representatives, have never taken part in this manner of debate. That means the process is a system of debating that candidates will have to practice in order to maintain a strong foothold.

Green said, “We realize that debating on Twitter is something that no candidate, no politician has ever done. It seems they’d want to practice that.” The Twitter debate will be hosted by Rusty Humphries. The Republican candidates such as Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain are taking part in company with other major candidates.

It will be interesting to see how the candidates fare on the social network with only 140 words per tweet.

First Look at the Google Plus social network: The Top Secret Demo (MediaFile)

One thing that’s clear about Google is that they’ve mastered the art of subterfuge.

At a time when leaks about product launches, acquisitions and potential hires are rife, Google resorted to extraordinary measures to ensure that word of its new social network, Google Plus, did not slip out ahead of Tuesday’s official announcement.

The company reached out to Reuters late on Friday about a special briefing related to some undisclosed YouTube news, even tasking a YouTube PR-man with a curious sartorial style to coordinate the meeting, to complete the red-herring.

So it was surprising to discover a grinning Vic Gundotra, Google’s head of social, and VP of Product Management Bradley Horowitz, in the meeting room at Google’s headquarters.

Clearly we weren’t here to talk about a new YouTube media partnership.

The pair quickly revealed what they had up their sleeve and proceeded to give a tour of a new social networking service that’s been one year in the making.

So what is Google Plus like? And why would you want to invest the time and effort to create another social network if you’re already using Facebook and Twitter?

Google is betting that its approach to privacy and extensive controls over who you share information with on the network will set Google Plus apart.

The service revolves around a concept of “circles,” (presumably not the same circles that Dante visited). You can create as many circles as you like, for whatever categories you want: for example family, co-workers or biking friends. Above the circles are a slew of thumbnail images of friends and contacts which Google suggests you might want in your social network. To add a person to one of your groups, drag the name into a circle.

If you decide to remove someone from a circle, you simply drag their image out of the circle, at which point the image will explode into a cloud of smoke – one of several whimsical touches in Google Plus.

To use Google Plus you need to create a Google profile. At the very minimum, Google requires that you use your real name and include a photo. Beyond that, you can furnish the profile with as much, or as little, detail about yourself as you want.

You can control how much of your profile is visible to other folks on the network: your name and occupation for some folks; relationship status for others.  Type a person’s name into a box, and you can see what your profile looks like through their eyes.

In a sense, Google Plus combines the Facebook and Twitter models of social networking: You can have friends in your social network with whom you share information, and you can also simply follow certain people, say a movie critic who you don’ t know personally, a la Twitter.

Nearly all Google websites, such as its flagship Google.com search engine and the Google maps site, will have a special toolbar running across the top of the page.  The toolbar has an icon of your face alongside your name in the top left, to remind you that you are currently logged on to the Google Plus network. Click on your name and you can quickly log off the network, or switch to incognito mode.

Google is also weaving video conferencing into social networking with Google Plus. You can let people in specific circles know that you’re available for a video conference (that you’re available to “hang out” in Google Plus parlance) by clicking on a button. Up to ten people can join a video conference.

While social networking is all about real people sharing information, such as interesting news articles and videos, Google believes there’s room for its algorithmic muscle in the social world too. A feature called “Sparks” serves up Web content on various topics, say sports or fashion, which Google’s technology has determined are popular. You can subscribe to categories of interest, or create your own custom category, and you’ll receive links to the latest content in your news feed.

Google is also releasing mobile apps of Google Plus for Android smartphones and iPhone, with special features like group messaging and cloud-based photo storage.

Google is referring to its new service as the Google Plus Project, to make clear that’s what’s available now is only the first installment of several more features it says it has in the pipeline.

Despite a checkered history in social(see Google Wave, Google Buzz and to some extent Orkut), Google has not given up on trying to conquer the social networking market.

Right now the service is only available as a “field trial” to a limited number of people. Since social networking success depends on critical mass, it seems likely that Google will open the service up to more people sooner rather than later.

So in the coming months we could have a better indication as to whether Google has finally cracked the code for success in the social networking market.

(Screenshots from Google Works)

Flurry: Time Spent On Mobile Apps Has Surpassed Web Browsing (Techcrunch)

Jun 20, 2011

Mobile app analytics firm Flurry is releasing a new report today comparing the daily engagement of smartphone users on mobile apps vs. web browsing on the PC. For web analytics, Flurry used data from comScore and Alexa and for mobile application usage, the startup used its own analytics, which now counts 500 million aggregated, anonymous use sessions per day across more than 85,000 applications. Flurry says that this accounts for approximately one third of all mobile application activity. While this is an imperfect methodology, it does point to the rise of mobile apps in our lives.

Flurry says that daily time spent in mobile apps has now surpassed web consumption. The average user now spends 9% more time using mobile apps than the Internet. In June users spent an average of 81 minutes daily on mobile apps, compared to 74 minutes on the web.

This compares to 66 minutes on mobile apps daily in December of 2010, and 70 minutes spent daily on the web. And June, the average user spent just under 43 minutes a day using mobile applications versus an average 64 minutes using the Internet.

Flurry says that the growth in mobile app usage is a result of more sessions during the day per user, as opposed to an increase in session length. So basically, users are checking Twitter and Foursquare more often as opposed to spending more time in the apps in any given session.

Flurry also took a deep dive into where mobile app users are spending their time. Flurry captured time spent per category from May 2011 across all apps it tracks (more than 85,000). Games and Social Networking categories dominate, capturing 47 percent and 32 percent on consumer time spent daily, respectively. Combined, these two categories control 79 percent of consumers’ total app time. Time spent on news apps follows with 9 percent share, with entertainment capturing a 7 percent share.

Flurry didn’t include information about time spent on the mobile web, which I’d also find interesting compared to time spent browsing the web on a computer. But the stats above certainly put Facebook’s mobile strategy and Project Spartan in context. As smartphone usage continues to grow, we’re going to see more tech companies pursue aggressive mobile strategies. What it will come down to is who will take a bigger piece of the pie when it comes to user engagement.

Wireless, Chipless Tech Transfers Cash from Your Smartphone Using Ultrasound By Dan Nosowitz

Zoosh Wireless Payments Naratte

We're excited about NFC, with all its wallet-replacing, house-unlocking, Wi-Fi-password-remembering potential. But NFC does require a hardware chip, and that means we're at least a few years from real adoption. The recently announced Zoosh is a wireless protocol that can handle many of the features we're so anxiously awaiting in NFC--but without any new hardware, you could theoretically get Zoosh on your smartphone with a mere app download.

You can read our full primer on NFC here, but as a basic summary, NFC is a short-range wireless tech similar to RFID, in which small chunks of information can be passed among devices like smartphones and all sorts of other appliances like point-of-sale units, subway entry points, and even less mechanical items like movie posters. There's only one major NFC-enabled smartphone--the Samsung Nexus S--in the U.S. at the moment, and the infrastructure is in its infancy, but other countries have robust NFC or NFC-type setups and all signs point to a North American embrace as well.

But NFC is a few years off, and Zoosh is here right now. Zoosh, coming from a small Silicon Valley startup, is a software solution that uses the audio hardware found in phones to communicate. As every phone is necessarily equipped with a speaker and microphone, Zoosh saw an opening to use that hardware, rather than create something new. To send data (whether it's a URL, a phone number, or payment information), Zoosh broadcasts ultrasonic audio in a frequency not audible to human ears, around 20,000Hz. A speaker in another phone (or, later, a point-of-sale unit, which the startup claims can be upgraded for only $30) picks up that audio and translates it back into the intended data. You can see it in action in this wholly Silicon Valley video.

Getting Personal with Variable Data Printing (VDP)

This is just a little information about Variable Data Printing, which we do here at TLF Graphics.

All potential readers of your printed marketing communications are not the same, yet in mass marketing the message is, so the response or interest rating of these pieces is dismally low. If you’re selling golf bags, and you have 200 to sell, you may need to print 20,000 brochures to reach enough people to sell them, because you are limited to a marketing approach that demands you send only one message.

Print Only What You Need

Variable data printing allows you to print only what you need for a marketing campaign, with the message in each piece tailored to fit each recipient. Now Michelle from in Oregon working as a lab assistant doesn’t have to read the same message as Joshua from Washington working at Ikea.

You can tell them both about the golf accessories that are right for each of them, in their price range, in their favorite colours, sharpening the focus of the message to suit their likes and dislikes, their buying habits, their budgets. Significantly, you can also eliminate Joshua from your target list if he doesn’t buy golf equipment. Or only target him in the summer when he does. Targeting the customers with the most potential reduces the quantity of pieces produced.

Reduce the Size and Scope

The size and scope of the printed piece can also be reduced by only including that information that is pertinent to that particular recipient, thereby eliminating the text and graphics that have no interest to the reader. Not only does this reduce the amount of printing required; it automatically makes the communication piece more interesting by focusing the reader’s attention on items of interest, without getting lost in a wealth of irrelevant information.

In business, we all work towards finding the best return on our investment, or ROI. Often when purchasing print communications, the print buyer is charged only with finding a printer that can successfully produce the piece at the lowest cost. Does this really suit the goal of the company who buys the printing? Shouldn’t they really look for the most effective communications tactic?

Dramatically Increase Response Rate

Historically, the effective response rate for generic communication pieces tends to be in the 1% to 3% range. When customized versions are introduced, the response rate increases to 4% to 7%. And when personalized variable data printing is incorporated, the response rate jumps to as high as 25% and, in some cases, even more. That’s performance. That’s return on investment. That’s effective communication!

(Article By www.stillcreekpress.com)

QR Codes Spreading through the area.

Every now and then I want to point out different ways people are using qr codes. I think it is great to pass ideas along to spark creativity. Here is an article I found from Seth Johnson for the Fergus Falls Journal:

QR codes spreading through area [UPDATED]

Published 11:18am Monday, June 6, 2011Updated 11:24am Monday, June 6, 2011

This isn’t an impossible maze or a tiny crossword puzzle. This is a QR code, and although they have been slow to catch on in the U.S., they have the potential to revolutionize mobile communication.

“The QR code is pretty amazing,” said Fergus Falls Public Schools Technology Specialist Jesse Thorstad. “The QR code makes it super easy for someone with a mobile device to access information.”

These two dimensional codes can contain URLs, text and phone numbers. This information can be accessed by scanning the code with a mobile device.

Smartphones including BlackBerrys, iPhones and Droids have QR code scanning capabilities. A QR code scanner application must first be downloaded. There are many free QR code scanner applications and most work very well, said Thorstad.

The application uses the mobile device’s camera function to scan the code. Once the code is read, the device will open a web site, call a phone number or display text.

This process can be much faster than typing a URL into a Web browser, said Thorstad.

The Fergus Falls AmericInn has used QR codes in some of its local advertising.

“We’re sponsoring the races out at the I-94 speedway in a couple of weeks,” said AmericInn Managing Director Keresa Schultz. “We will actually be putting the codes on the T-shirts.” Schultz said she plans to continue to use these codes to promote the AmericInn.

The QR code can contain much more information than the standard numeric bar code. Thorstad expects QR codes to start popping up all over in the near future.

Restaurant menus, business cards, resumes, advertisements and brochures are some of the places QR codes are starting to show up, he said.

“I’m always thinking about education,” said Thorstad. “I want to figure out how we are going to use these in school.”

There are QR codes posted next to some of the student artwork on the walls of the school. These codes will send viewers to Youtube videos of the artists talking about their work.

“When I look at art, I always have questions in mind,” said Thorstad. “You get a deeper sense of appreciation for the artwork if you can see the artist talking about their work and their inspiration for it.”

Social Networking Vending Machine

Great article from the Print CEO Blog:

Social Networking Vending Machine

By Richard Romano on May 18th, 2011

Really?

Witness PepsiCo’s Social Vending System, a network-ready, touch-screen interactive vending machine designed to foster greater connection with PepsiCo brands.

…

The machine allows beverage buyers to purchase drinks as gifts and to offer them to friends, or anyone else, in the form of redeemable codes delivered via text messages. The buyer simply enters the recipient’s name, mobile number, a personal message, and an optional video message, and then sends the gift code into the ether. The recipient can then obtain the paid-for beverage at his or her convenience.

…

Those bestowing beverages have the option to engage in what PepsiCo is calling “Random Acts of Refreshment,” which involves buying drinks for unknown parties that meet certain criteria. PepsiCo suggests, “a consumer could send a symbol of encouragement [to] someone in a city that has experienced challenging weather, or a congratulatory beverage to a student at a university that just won a championship.”

4 Printing Trends for 2011 (Allegra Marketing)

The printing industry is rapidly changing, as are many industries right now. We've all seen services and products that shaped our lives fall by the wayside as technology improves, and as our culture becomes more "on demand."
That doesn't mean print, or the need for print, has disappeared.  Certain aspects of print are declining, but there are other segments that are growing.  Here are some of the ways print will be changing in 2011:

• We will continue to see a decrease in offset printing for four color printing.  The reason is because more people are looking for "short run" 4 color pieces.  Short run printing is primarily defined as small quantities of print materials produced at an affordable cost.  It used to be that traditional methods of print (offset) were less expensive per piece, but had high rates of waste, as some (or much of it) went unused. Short run digital printing will continue to replace this outdated method.
• Desktop publishing will grow.  As many people need single pieces of personalized items(or small quantities of variable data pieces) and as design software gets easier to use, more businesses will design and print in house.
• Digital printing of variable data pieces will increase.  Look in your mailbox.  You'll find more and more mail coming to you with your name on it.  This is the primary use for variable data: marketing to specific people with specific interests to get a specific response.  The advent of more capable software and affordable digital printing has made this segment of the market boom in recent years.
• Creative design will outshine creative offers and targeted mailing lists.  Beware of this trend.  There is a rule that every marketing piece's success will be dependent on targeting the correct person to get it (40%), giving that person the right offer (40%) and designing a piece creative enough to cut through the clutter (20%).  Look at that carefully.  Only 20% is the design.  The rest depends on the right person and the right offer.  Put your efforts into that aspect of your marketing.

We'll see a lot of is a continuance of the decline and growth in certain segments of the industry.  Nonetheless, marketing your business continues to change.
If you need help navigating this somewhat challenging marketing landscape, call us.  We're experts at growing your business!