Open up your mind and say, ahh...

Among the many hats I wear, I’m a design and business adviser to several technology startups. However, in certain circumstance, I take a more prominent role to help develop the products and services that I need in my work. Over the years, I’ve developed a working relationship with PeopleBrowsr and serve as the company’s Chief Data Analyst. Together, we’ve issued several reports and will continue to do that and more.

Today, I would like to introduce you to a product that we’ve been developing for a couple of years now…ReSearch.ly. To begin with, I am a big fan and a customer of several leading intelligence and listening services. ReSearch.ly is different and is a complementary solution for not only your workflow today, but how you will approach social media in the immediate future.

The whiteboard image above was captured from a working session where you can see the unique attributes of ReSearch.ly as well as the disconnects that we now “connect.” First off, ReSearch.ly is for brand managers as well as new media experts in marketing, advertising, and communications.

From Social Graph to Interest Graph

Let’s start at the beginning. ReSearch.ly is not a Twitter search engine. Nor is it designed as a monitoring solution. ReSearch.ly is a window to relevance and engagement…revealing your path to imparting and earning it. Everything begins with intelligence and that insight inspires meaningful, targeted, and desirable outcomes.  Instead of exploring real-time conversations based on keywords, ReSearch.ly allows businesses to visualize their interest graph.

Social Graphs are transforming into what I refer to as “nicheworks“, where people are connected more by a shared interest than by who they know. ReSearch.ly, along with Twitter’s Promoted Tweets, Trends, and Accounts, officially usher in the era of interest graphs. While a social graph is defined by the individual connections one maintains in online networks, Interest graphs represent the network of individuals bound by shared themes expressed publicly – in this case case, through keywords on Twitter.

The challenge is clear; in order to effectively engage, you have to first understand what people are saying about your brand, competitors and any associated areas of interest. In short, you must understand what truly matters to the community in order to identify the community. For brands, interest graphs form the pillars of genuine and beneficial engagement… and that’s where ReSearch.ly comes in.

Interest graphs are tied to keywords. As a result, they form dedicated communities where the individual nodes within each network differ from graph to graph. Collectively however, these distinct interest graphs form a brand graph when combined.

Brands + Social Consumers + Influencers = Brand Graph

From Real-Time to Instant

Much in the same way Google search is moving from real-time to “instant,” PeopleBrowsr is doing this for Twitter and the Tweets that form the foundation for interest graphs. Like Google and websites, ReSearch.ly has indexed Twitter. With over 100 million Tweets flying across Twitter daily, the population of Tweets is colossal. But ReSearch.ly is the only intelligence solution with memory. It is your Library of Congress, housing the history of Tweets to open a window into the social web, revealing a wealth of demographic data, sentiment analysis, real-time and historical mentions, and viral analytics for any keyword.

Instant Demographic and Psychographic Analytics

The process begins by entering keywords of interest — whether it’s your company name, product, competitor or any topic. ReSearch.ly first identifies people who are talking about a particular interest, and then instantly drills down to uncover rich data about that Interest Graph, including location, sentiment, gender as well as related word clouds, hashtags, links, @names, et al.  ReSearch.ly performs 40 simultaneous searches for any topic and delivers the results almost instantly. This data gives brand managers the ability to target specific demographic segments (i.e. women in the San Francisco area) with much needed granularity and simplicity. ReSearch.ly also provides up to the second charts depicting mentions count and sentiment for any keyword. People can even click on a chart point for any keyword to see every related tweet back in time

Degrees of Separation

Research shows that on Twitter, the world is quite literally becoming a much smaller place. ReSearch.ly doesn’t just surface the interest graph, it visualizes the degrees of separation between your brand and the people you’re trying to reach. This allows brands to structure engagement programs based on the priority of relationships based on digital proximity.

Viral Analytics

Did you know that the lifespan of the most active Retweets is roughly one hour? Any keywords in ReSearch.ly can be turned into a comprehensive analytics platform on the fly.  Viral analytics track how information spreads on Twitter, showing where information starts, who propels it, and its overall reach.

Additionally, viral analytics provide access to three years of historical and also real-time data for any keyword. There is no other solution available that can do so…Real-time reports are viewable within the dashboard and are also downloadable as PDFs.

Reports include:

Top Bit.ly links
Conversation density
Mentions
Top influencers (powered by Klout) with sentiment
Sentiment
Words surrounding keywords
Retweets, reach and path

Here’s an example of Viral Analytics for Starbucks.

Additional Examples of Brand Scenarios:

1. I want to connect with Mommy Bloggers in SF or interested in human rights — http://research.ly/human%20rights/global/Mommy%20Bloggers

2. I want to find all the good things being said about Coke and all the bad things about Pepsi — http://cocacola.analytic.ly/

3. I would love to see all the most popular RT and their viral hierarchy — http://research.ly/help/US/all/toprt

ReSearch.ly starts at $99/month per user. Enterprise and White label versions of the platform are also available.

With communities growing around ideas or interests, rather than through social connections, engagement is emphasized on finding and generating contextualized content. Brands understand they need to engage customers often while cultivating communities, and they are constantly looking for ways to efficiently participate in relevant conversations. ReSearch.ly is designed to help establish trusted, real-time connections, within the context of fluid conversations.

ReSearch.ly is your GPS for social media’s critical path – Relevance > Resonance > Significance.

Sometimes a device doesn’t get it right immediately. It might get rushed to market, or maybe some bugs just slip through the final tests. It’s expected, and it happens to the best of them.

Fortunately, modern hardware is a lot smarter than it was even a few years ago. Firmware updates are capable of squashing most bugs even after a device has hit the market. Even better, firmware updates also often add new features that can greatly expand the life cycle of a device.

The result from our perspective is that devices can sometimes show a lot of promise, but aren’t quite there yet. These three devices have piqued our interest in the past few months, but, for one reason or another, just didn’t meet their potential. We’ll be keeping an eye on them to see if they get it right.

T-Mobile myTouch 4G

T-Mobile already had a strong Android device in the G2, but the addition of the myTouch 4G gives T-Mobile a very formidable lineup. Where the G2 is focused on a streamlined Android experience, the myTouch 4G is about as tweaked out as Android comes.

The myTouch 4G carries many of the same internal components currently popular among Android devices. The phone is snappy and its 1GHz Snapdragon processor is well utilized. It’s also the second device to feature T-Mobile’s 4G HSPA+ (the first being the G2) and HSPA+ mobile broadband speeds are always appreciated.

The biggest problem with the myTouch 4G is its most advertised feature: video chat. The device features T-Mobile’s new Qik video chat capabilities, which are unfortunately a little complicated to set up. If you’re like me, it’s likely you’ll be doing most of your video chatting with you your parents. It’s far easier to just fire off a couple of text messages to your friends than set up a chat session. If you do want to video chat with your parents, good luck getting them set up on Qik.

That said, if you’re looking for an Android device with a ton of features, the T-Mobile myTouch 4G is one of the most feature-heavy Androids on the market.

Samsung Galaxy Tab

The Samsung Galaxy Tab isn’t the iPad. That’s not up for debate. It is, however, an interesting implementation of the Android platform within a tablet environment.

Contrary to statements claiming that tablets don’t perform well at sizes under 10 inches, I’ve found the Tab’s size to be one of its most compelling features. Where the iPad, at times, feels unwieldy, the Galaxy Tab fits well in the palm of your hand.

It’s not always the fastest Android device (the myTouch 4G will load the same programs faster almost every time), but it does perform sufficiently. A lot of this could have to do with the fact that Android 2.2 (froyo) isn’t intended for tablet deployments, but the Tab is promising enough to think that a swift update to Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) could be enough to solve some of its nagging issues.

Verizon Fivespot

Verizon is arguably the most reliable mobile carrier in the U.S., but its devices only work within the country use because the carrier’s current infrastructure is built on code division multiple access (CDMA). Because most of the world’s cellular communications are based on the global system for mobile communications (GSM), devices from carriers like AT&T and T-Mobile are often able to function in a wide array of countries.

In recent years, we’ve seen phones that support both CDMA and GSM protocols, but the Verizon Fivespot is the first MiFi-like device to include this functionality. So whether at home or abroad, you’ll be able to blanket yourself in a personal Wi-Fi network, from which you can connect up to five devices (hence the name Fivespot).

Of course, there is a downside. While $60 per month will get you 5GB of mobile broadband in the U.S., it costs $220 per month to add 200MB of international data on top of that. Nevertheless, the Fivespot is a solid option for anyone who appreciates the convenience of a MiFi and often travels abroad.

What’s Your Pick?

Not you, by the way. You’re smart. But I’ve got something here.

We say the meanest things to ourselves. We do it under our breath quite often. Just a few days ago, I realized that I’ve been scrambling around looking for the right cable to plug into my video camera to do this import function, and I couldn’t find the right one. Out of hundreds of cables (they multiply in my house), I couldn’t find one to fit in the port.

DAYS later, I realize that the cable is fine. I’m trying to plug into the wrong port.

Oh, the curse words I said to myself. Many. Abundant curse words. Of course, I was happy that I’d fixed the problem, but so frustrated that I’d lost days to this, that I’d tried several things in frustration, that I spent another $20 on a cable that won’t plug into anything (yes, I can return it).

What You Say To Yourself Matters

The best book I ever read to help with self-esteem was titled (aptly enough) Self-Esteem: A Proven Program of Cognitive Techniques for Assessing, Improving, and Maintaining Your Self-Esteem (amazon affiliate link). In that book, I learned how to fire my inner critic and then I decided to hire an inner coach. The critic, you know all too well.

Your inner critic is the person who makes you feel bad about yourself before someone else sneaks in and does it for you. They tell you that your diet won’t work because you’ve already tried diets before. They tell you that you’re not all that attractive, and that he won’t like you, long before you’ve even worked on getting the date. In short, the inner critic is a real bastard.

My inner coach is pretty nice. He’s gruff sometimes, but in that “get shaking, Brogan” kind of way. There’s one really tricky catch. My inner critic voice comes naturally. We have it built in. The inner coach, I have to fake. I had to visualize him (he looks like a gym teacher), and I had to give him a voice (he’s a bit raspy, and now that I’m thinking about it, it’s basically Coach Bill Belichick of the Patroits, only working for me). And I have to really force him to say nice and encouraging things.

Negative Words Add Up

The thing is, when I don’t do that, I let the negative words get to me. It’s really easy to tell yourself that you’re stupid. Guess what? The more you tell yourself that, the more you’ll believe it. So instead, what could you say? “Wow, I’m frustrated, but I’m glad I solved that.” I guess that’s good enough for now.

Count Negative Words

Want to scare yourself? Take a little piece of paper and a pen and keep them handy all day. Every time you think of something negative to say to yourself, tally it with a mark. By the end of the day, I promise you that you’ll have 37 or so marks minimally. If you’re honest with yourself and mark every one, it might be closer to a few hundred. Now, would you take that from other people? Would you want to hang around with someone who says 200 negative things to you a day? Every day? I’m voting on no.

Fire Your Inner Critic. Hire an Inner Coach

You can do this all on your own. No one even has to know about it. You wouldn’t have known, if I didn’t tell you. Try it. Just in time for the holidays, let’s give it a go together. Shall we?