Open up your mind and say, ahh...

Groupon has offered up another enticement to use its service: A feature called G-Pass that let you jump the line for GrouponLive events.

Prior to G-Pass, which was announced Wednesday, if you bought tickets to a GrouponLive event, you got a voucher that you had to exchange for actual tickets. G-Pass provides seating, ticketing and barcode-scanning info on the voucher, meaning you don’t have to take that extra step.

Groupon partnered with Live Nation, the parent company of Ticketmaster, for GrouponLive last May. The program uses Groupon’s local reach to market event tickets sold via Live Nation.

G-Pass launched in beta in October 2011 at the Target Center in Minneapolis, Joe Louis Arena in Detroit and several Harlem Globetrotters events around the country.

The program is the latest enhancement to Groupon’s service. Faced with a slew of competitors in the daily deals space, Groupon has been using its lead position in the segment to experiment with new ways to expand its business. In addition to G-Pass, Groupon recently rolled out a $30-per-year VIP program for its “best customers” that provides early access to deals and first dibs on reservations. Other recent product intros from the company include Clicky the Value Wheel –a gamification of daily deals — and a Scheduler app designed to help businesses fill out their appointment calendars.

The launches come as Groupon is reportedly being probed by the SEC after it restated its 4Q financials last month.

Thumbnail image courtesy of iStockphoto, slobo

It’s been baffling and aggravating to watch the tech press gnash their teeth about Facebook’s $1 billion acquisition of Instagram, a service that lets you add old-timey filters to your camera phone pics, and share them with friends. This thick-headed post on CNET–titled “Facebook Buys Instagram…But For What?”–is a good example of the genre. In it, the author notices that other, even less savvy tech pundits seem to think that Facebook bought Instagram either for users, a better mobile presence, or to squash an upstart competitor. And then, she procedes to torch each one of these straw men. Instagram’s users and mobile mojo don’t mean anything, because they’re not monetized. As for competitors, the writer, in essence, says, ‘Who cares about filters? I bet most people don’t.” Case closed! This Instagram thing is the worst idea in the world, the symbol of a bubble in the making. As if there were no other reasons for Facebook’s move.

But they do exist, and they have everything to do with design and product development.

People take tons of pictures on their smartphones. Why do so few get shared?

In our recent coverage of Facebook, one thing is clear: The company views itself above all as a design-driven company. You can hate them for their actual designs–given all their talent, it really is surprising that Facebook isn’t better than it is. But they do think of themselves as user-minded and hyper-focused on product improvement. Therefore, you have to look at their purchase of Instagram through the lens of: How does Facebook think Instagram will improve their product. If you fancy yourself a great product company in the vein of Apple, that’s your lens, always.

Instant artiness, thanks to Instagram

From that viewpoint, Instagram’s accomplishments start looking pretty impressive. Consider these two competing facts about social-networking and picture-taking:

1. People take tons of pictures on their smartphones. But almost none of that content gets shared.
   
2. The thing we all love most on the Internet is seeing other people’s pictures.

Instagram stepped into the gap. They managed to get people to share more of exactly what their friends want. And they did it simply by providing filters that allow people to turn any crappy old camera-phone pic into something resembling a snapshot by William Eggelston. In other words, Instagram is tapping creative instincts while eliminating the effort required to create something good. They’re satisfying our social-curiosity with pictures, helping us grab hold of fleeting moments that we might never share otherwise. They’re tapping into user emotions.

Moreover, by allowing users to feel as if they’ve created something worth sharing, Instagram is helping users create an image of themselves as they’d like to be seen. They’ve turned the act of picture-taking into a performance, whose message is: Look how cool my life is. Wasn’t that what Facebook did at one point, with all those Like pages and interests? And when was the last time you looked at Facebook and said, ‘Wow, this person seems really cool?” Through dull designs and a straight-jacketed experience, the ability to convey who you are has leeched out of Facebook. Timeline was an attempt to solve that problem, but it’s not a magic bullet. Robert Fabricant, of Frog, just put that point to Inc. quite well:

I think Facebook is getting a little nervous about Pinterest, for instance. There is a new generation of meaningful social networks that are all about personal identity curation. Like Pinterest, Instagram understands that the future is photo-driven, and that those photos are about style and moments. Facebook is playing catch-up. It can either become this fundamental layer, the glue that holds this world together, or they can start creating better environments for users across the the board.

We’re now at a point where technology in and of itself isn’t all that interesting (even if the tech journalists only seem to write about them). When it comes time to buy an iPad 3, most people don’t care how fast it is; instead, they judge it by how fun it is to use. Features don’t matter nearly as much as user-experience. And here’s one stunning metric about how much users love Instagram: The app has a 5 star rating in the app store, on 70,000 votes. Have you ever seen a rating that high?

Tres, tres cool. Thanks to lots of filters.

That says great things about what Instagram has done so far. But the real question is how it will evolve, and how it could improve Facebook’s core product. Again, as Fabricant says, “There are so many possibilities for how Facebook could use Instagram. It’s not hard to imagine how good it could be. Then again, you never know.”

The app is great because it is in such a simple stage in its development. It’s still not clear to me that they can improve that experience while dealing with the inevitable complexity that comes with scale–and there are worrying signs that Instagram won’t be able to do it, including clunky sharing pages and fussy UI details that seem far more complicated than they should be. Moreover, Facebook doesn’t have any track record of being able to absorb other companies and use them to improve their core offering. (This has always been a guiding strength at Apple, from its purchase of Steve Job’s Next operating system to, more recently, Siri, which went from being a surprise acquisition to a main marketing point with blazing speed.)

I’m not saying that the $1 billion price tag was fair: I do agree that the Valley is capable of burning money in ways that defy all common sense. Cash flow is the ultimate judge of how good a company is. But I am saying that viewing the deal simply through the lens of monetization and competing features is a good example of how tech journalists, tech investors, and even tech companies simply have no idea how to absorb design and product development into their world view. Users don’t give a crap if a service is going to make decent margins in the future. But they do care about a product is fun to use. And that is what ultimately makes a company great: It has to make great things.

Facebook has made design a part of their DNA, if their recent hiring spree is any indication. But we don’t know if they’ll be able to draw the best out of their own talent. Can Instagram help inspire them to do better?

All photos by yours truly.

Watch any movie that takes place in The Future and the aural landscape is an orchestra of electronic whirs and mechanical thrums set to the rhythm of a next-gen cityscape. In particular, the exhaust-fueled reverberations of cars and trucks have been replaced with the space-age sounds of science fiction in motion. Audi thinks it knows what the future sounds like, and the first application of its e-sound system will be powering onto roads when the Audi R8 etron arrives late next year.

If the Fisker Karma sounds like a Klingon Warbird at idle, the R8 etron sounds like it’s ramping up to warp speed, with a melodic cacophony of speed-dependent tones emanating from two speakers mounted at the front and rear of Audi’s all-electric supercar.

Rudolf Halbmeir has been tasked with crafting what the R8 etron will sound like, paying particular attention to the coupe’s audible presence when navigating through a city. Bicycle and pedestrian safety — especially for those with hearing disabilities — is of particular importance to automakers developing electric vehicles, and with no traditional engine noise available, Halbmeir and his team have a blank canvas to work with. But they had to start somewhere.

“Some science-fiction films provided inspiration,” Halbmeir says. “But there was nothing in the real world which offered quite the right sound.”

So with a keyboard, a computer and an electronic throttle pedal, Halbmeir sought to craft a sound that’s both mechanical and musical, combining low-range frequencies that convey power with mid-range tones that are more sporting and fitting of the R8 etron.
As you’d expect, the results have to be heard to be understood, so after testing an R8 etron prototype in its 1,100-square-foot sound lab (complete with dynometer and assorted microphones), Audi’s engineers took to the road.

The synthetic sounds are loud enough to be heard by pedestrians, but not enough to grate on the driver and passenger’s nerves, and once the R8 etron gets up to speed, tire and wind noise takes the tones’ place as the speakers shut off over 20 mph.

Audi says the R8 etron is just the first in a long line of EVs the automaker will begin producing in the coming years, and each will have a sound signature all its own. The R8 needs the acoustic presence befitting of a supercar, so here’s hoping the all-electric A3 doesn’t sound like a synthesized washing machine.

Social media is a global phenomenon indeed. Certainly Facebook, Twitter, Google+, in their own way, each make the world a much smaller place. The distance between any two people is shrinking as the number of network connections continues to proliferate. I’m sure you’ve heard at one point or another, that the distance between two people in an offline world is six degrees. In a recent Facebook study for example, the average degree of separation between two people in the network is only 4.74. When focused on one country specifically, such as the U.S., Sweden, or Italy, among others, the number of hops between two people further shrinks to 3.74.

Social networking is the new normal. No matter where you are in the world, there are social networks that only continue to bring us together. In January 2012, comScore published an interesting report, “It’s a Social World,” which opened a window into the world of social networking. The report contained several key findings, which aren’t a surprise to you or me, but they will deliver a wake-up call to the captains of industry who may be on a wrong course toward the future of customer relevance.

According to comScore, numbers show that social networking is the most popular online activity worldwide.  As you can see in the image below, social networking is a global phenomenon. Social networks for many, are the hub for their entire online experience. They introduce the need for any organization with a content strategy to rethink what they create, when, where and how. In October 2011, 1.2 billion users around the world visited social networking sites, which account for 82% of the world’s population. Most notably, nearly 1 in every 5 minutes is now spent in social networks. Within each network, attention is focused on interaction within the social graph where the 5C’s of Engagement must now account for those who at varying levels create, connect, consume, communicate, and contribute.

But social networking is only part of the story as platforms count for everything. Mobile devices are also fueling social addiction. comScore looked at individuals aged 13 and above and as a result, they believe that mobile social networking is going to be the wave of the future.

For businesses developing country-specific programs, comScore also provided a glimpse into the top 10 engaged markets for social networking. This should factor into your prioritization discussions.

1. Israel
2. Argentina
3. Russia
4. Turkey
5. Chile
6. Philippines
7. Columbia
8. Peru
9. Venezuela
10. Canada

As alluded to earlier, while demographics are important, try to also think beyond Boomers, Generation-X, or Generation-Y. Think Generation-C as those who live the connected lifestyle are injecting digital into their DNA. As you can see here, social networking growth is pervasive across the board.

Nielsen also released a report on the “State of Social Media.” While it mostly focuses on the impact of Social and Mobile technology in the United States, there is useful breakout of the Top 10 Web Brands by unique audience around the world.  I believe that this information should be considered in any social and web strategy. Here are the top 10 sites by country in no particular order…

United States

1. Google
2. Facebook
3. Yahoo!
4. MSN/Windows Live/Bing
5. Youtube
6. Microsoft
7. AOL Media Network
8. Wikipedia
9. Apple
10. Ask

Japan

1. Yahoo!
2. Google
3. FC2
4. Youtube
5. Rakuten
6. Wikipedia
7. Microsoft
8. goo
9. Ameba
10. Amazon

Spain

1. Google
2. MSN/WindowsLive/Bing
3. Facebook
4. Youtube
5. Microsoft
6. Blogger
7. Yahoo!
8. Wikipedia
9. Elmundo.es
10. WordPress.com

United Kingdom

1. Google
2. Facebook
3. MSN/WindowsLive/Bing
4. BBC
5. Youtube
6. Yahoo!
7. Amazon
8. eBay
9. Microsoft
10. Wikipedia

Australia

1. Google
2. Facebook
3. NineMSN/MSN
4. Youtube
5. Microsoft
6. Yahoo!7
7. Wikipedia
8. Apple
9. eBay
10. Blogger

France

1. Google
2. Facebook
3. MSN/WindowsLive/Bing
4. Microsoft
5. Youtube
6. Orange
7. Wikipedia
8. Free
9. PagesJaunes
10.Yahoo!

Italy

1. Google
2. Facebook
3. Youtube
4. MSN/WindowsLive/Bing
5. Virgilio
6. Libero
7. Microsoft
8. Yahoo!
9. Wikipedia
10. Blogger

Germany

1. Google
2. Facebook
3. Youtube
4. eBay
5. Microsoft
6. Amazon
7. MSN/WindowsLive/Bing
8. Wikipedia
9. T-Online
10. Web.de

Brazil

1. Google
2. MSN/WindowsLive/Bing
3. Facebook
4. UOL
5. Youtube
6. Microsoft
7. Terra
8. Globo.com
9. Orkut
10. Yahoo!

Switzerland

1. Google
2. Facebook
3. Youtube
4. MSN/WindowsLive/Bing
5. Microsoft
6. Bluewin
7. Wikipedia
8. Aple
9. Local.ch
10. search.ch

Some interesting findings emerge out of these numbers. First, Google is the top Web brand in each country except Japan according to Nielsen. Second, Youtube is a top 10 online destination in each of these countries. Lastly, Facebook is among the top 3 sites in every country except Japan. FC2 and Ameba are the country’s top 2 social networks.

Revisiting the comScore report for a moment, we can see the overall Internet and Social Networking growth is imminent. As you develop content and engagement strategies for Web, social and mobile channels, consider this…the behavior on the Internet, social networks and on mobile devices is unique to each platform. There is no universal strategy that will cut across all platforms for every community you’re hoping to reach.

This.is.important.

Take a look at the graphic below. The top line in blue represents Internet growth. The bottom line in orange represents the overall of social networks. By reading between the lines, we can actually see a difference in the mindset of customers. The blue line represents the destination Web, i.e. websites, search engines, etc. The orange line symbolizes what I call the Egosystem, a Web experience where information finds people through the connections they make. It is in the understanding of how information travels and how it’s discovered in popular channels and platforms as well as comprehending customer behavior in the destination web and the Egosystem that reveal the keys to meaningful engagement.

So why is this important? In the social economy, there are no strangers, only friends you haven’t followed or haven’t followed you yet.

For global businesses considering any social and web strategies to improve customer experiences and engagement, going global starts within going local. This is not about taking one campaign and broadcasting it around the world from central headquarters—even if it’s translated. This is about localization and true engagement with those who define social networking at the local level. In social networks people do not create an idle global or country-specific “audience,” nor do they anxiously anticipate the next big marketing campaign. This is Generation-C (connected) after all, and they’re connected and among the most discerning groups of customers your business has ever faced. Here, they are the network and organizations, your business, are the guests.

Before you go, I’ve assembled a list with top line thoughts to help guide you in the development of your global, and local, new media strategy…

The Top 9 Reasons to Go Local with Your Global Social and Web Strategies

1. Social Media is the new “normal,” and it is literally making the world a much smaller place
2. Employing a Global Strategy establishes a unified brand
3. Investing in a local presence builds a bridge between the brand and customers
4. Localizing and contextualizing content increases relevance, engagement, and resonance
5. Investing in the 5’s of community completes the last mile to improve customer experiences, increase commerce and promote advocacy
6. Global languages and cultures are extending your opportunity for commerce and community, but localization is the key to engagement
7. Prioritize each opportunity based on local markets that track toward business objectives and language opportunities
8. Think channel experiences and design local experiences to thrive on each platform (mobile, Facebook, web, etc.)
9. Finally, because your local customers and country managers want it that way

As comScore notes in its report, “Social networking behavior both transcends and reflects regional differences around the world.”

Via Brian Solis: http://www.briansolis.com

Brian Honigman is the digital marketing manager at Marc Ecko Enterprises. He is a part of Ecko’s marketing and ecommerce team, ensuring a polished brand experience across all channels. Follow him on Twitter @Brian_Honigman.

Between the rise in location-based social networks, like Foursquare, and the mobile market’s meteoric growth, a new marketing avenue has opened up. Location-based marketing is a nascent frontier, and marketers are clamoring to take advantage of it.

Already, about 30% of smartphone owners access social networks via their mobile browser, and that figure will continue to grow, according to an infographic by Microsoft Tag. So, if your marketing plans include location-based networks, below are five ways to get started.

1. Push Notification Integration

One of the big reasons people don’t use location-based apps like Foursquare or SCVNGR is simply because they forget. Integrating push notifications into a location-based app is a great and simple fix.

Marketers often use these notifications to highlight activity, specials, announcements, and to further promote the app as well as the business. Allowing users to alter these notifications is an important way to give your audience some power. That ensures your messaging makes it to their phone without being a burden.

2. Loyalty Programs

Giving rewards to loyal customers for continuing to check in via a location-based networks is a great option. Arby’s marketing team did this on Foursquare by offering special reserved seating to their Foursquare mayors at 30 restaurants and 50% off on purchases. Ideas like these drive competition and increase use, which leads to greater exposure for the business being marketed on these networks.

3. Geofencing

Geofencing has been around for some time, but it’s increasingly becoming incorporated in more location-based networks. For those who aren’t familiar, geofencing is a virtual boundary set around a location, like a store. One way marketers are using geofencing on location-based networks is by sending messages to users who’ve opted in to a particular service.

Lets use Starbucks as an example. If a person crosses a Starbucks geofence, they will receive a message from their location-based app highlighting an offer, coupon, or just a reminder to stop by. This is similar to the idea of a push notification, except it’s only triggered by a person who comes into a geofence around a specific location. This messaging is more relevant to a user and more effective for a company.

4. Mixed Media

Apps like GetGlue and Foursquare both give you the ability to check in and incorporate other media. For instance, GetGlue allows a user to check in and share a favorite book, song or TV show. Optimize your content and forge partnerships with companies like GetGlue as a way to extend your reach among users that are more likely to view your content if recommended by their friends.

5. Better Content

As the king of the location-based space, Foursquare helps set the tone for innovation in this industry. Recently at South by Southwest, Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley spoke about the future of location-based apps and how the company’s focus is shifting from checking in to other features that their audience uses more and that will help the company become more mainstream.

For instance, Foursquare’s “explore” feature is fairly new and allows a user to discover food, nightlife, shops, and more based on broad categories. It aggregates suggestions based on your checkin history as well as information available on the network about a location. This is why any content you add to Foursquare and similar sites should be optimized.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, hocus-focus

The four-year-old Indian startup GupShup is growing up. The service, built for India’s vast market of basic mobile phone users, has the social network elements of Twitter and Facebook, but is tricked out for Indian phones, which means, in part, ditching data plans. Users take to SMS to broadcast public messages or send private updates to groups of friends.

GupShup, which recently changed its name from “SMS GupShup,” is now processing messages at the rate of 3 billion per month (up from 2 billion last year), and has grown to 65 million users. As of February, some 553 brands use the service as a way to reach customers. The number of mobile users is up 17% over last year, now standing at 65 million. But that’s just scratching the surface. With 911 million total mobile subscribers in the country, GupShup’s got plenty of ground left to cover.

“Why divide people through technology when you can unite?”

But to tackle India’s changing mobile phone demographic that’s veering slowly but surely toward a more smartphone-friendly public, GupShup is launching a hybrid service that will connect the hundreds of millions of basic “dumb phone” users with new smartphone adopters of every flavor.

Later this year, GupShup plans to launch apps for Android and iOS, with apps for other operating systems to follow. Their grand plan is to expand their reach beyond India, to other “hybrid” markets in Latin America, Asia, and Africa–markets seeing a small but growing smartphone base capping off a vast network of basic cellular users.

“India’s catching up with the smartphone revolution with a bit of a lag,” Beerud Sheth, CEO of GupShup tells Fast Company. “If we launched a year ago it would have been too early.”

By entering the app space, GupShup will challenge other group messaging services like WhatsApp. (WhatsApp doesn’t often share numbers, but at last count, at the Mobile World Congress, CEO Jan Koum revealed that WhatsApp was processing about 2 billion messages per day.)

But Sheth insists that GupShup isn’t “defining themselves in terms of the competition.”

“You can talk to 1% of the world that has WhatsApp, but how do you reach the rest of the 99%?” Marrying SMS and data, he says, means people can communicate on newer devices, and between new and old devices. “Why divide people through technology when you can unite?” Sheth says.

Given India’s sharply divided mobile demographic, the GupShup SMS-app approach makes sense. Smartphone adoption is picking up pace, yes, but price continues to be a major point of friction in India. A large chunk of India’s mobile market is prepaid, smartphones aren’t subsidized by carriers, and data plans continue to be expensive (though prices are beginning to fall). All this makes devices like the iPhone unaffordable to most Indians, and the road ahead for smartphone adoption a slow, steep climb. “The digital divide will remain,” Sheth says, of the smartphone/dumbphone split. But, “you’ll see it becoming more of a gray area than a sharp divide.”

And even within the smartphone landscape, GupShup’s strategy is dissimilar to many app makers based in the U.S. or Europe. “In the U.S. it’s safe for any developer to focus on iOS or Android,” Sheth says, but in India, that degree of selectivity just doesn’t cut it. Which is why when GupShup thought it was time they made an app, they thought big. Their first apps will launch for iOS and Android, with apps for Symbian, BlackBerry, and several other operating systems to follow.

Image: Flickr user nate steiner

Via Fast Company: http://www.fastcompany.com

If you’re one of the many cellphone owners who’ve ever left their mobile device behind at a crowded restaurant, packed bar or city-crossing taxi, you know the heart-sinking shock felt when you reach for your phone only to find it missing — all because some quick-fingered swindler grabbed it while you were distracted.

You’re also not alone. In Washington, D.C., New York and other major cities, 40% of robberies involve cellphones. In the capital region, the number of cellphone robberies is up 57%.

How can we reduce the number of mobile devices thefts out there? The Federal Communications Commission thinks it has the answer. The FCC announced its PROJECTS Initiative on Tuesday, a three-point plan to fight cell phone theft.

First, the FCC will be setting up a massive universal database which will allow carriers to automatically disable any mobile devices — including both cellphones and wireless-enabled tablets — reported stolen. The Commission says that such a database will dramatically reduce stolen devices’ value to would-be buyers.

The FCC has called upon all countries of the world to join the database program, which would help prevent stolen phones from being smuggled overseas and used elsewhere in the world.

Second, the Commission wants cell phone manufacturers to program devices to automatically prompt users to create passwords and take other steps to protect their data. That, argues the Commission, would make users somewhat more security-conscious.

Finally, a widespread public education plan will teach owners of mobile devices about the availability of mobile apps that allow users to remotely lock and delete the contents of stolen phones and tablets. The FCC has already begun the campaign with a list of helpful tips posted online.

Mobile phone designers Apple, Motorola, Qualcomm, HTC, Microsoft, Nokia and RIM are all on-board for the FCC’s plan. On the provider side, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon and Nex-Tech Wireless have agreed to help with the anti-theft initiative. All of these companies are expected to report to the FCC four times each year on their PROJECTS progress.

The FCC will also be holding regular meetings every quarter with police chiefs from across the country to determine the best ways to reduce mobile device theft.

Have you had your phone stolen? Tell us your story in the comments below.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, mbbirdy