#CMTSocial Highlights the Future of Location Based Services

I had the pleasure of speaking at #CMTSocial last week alongside some of the brightest minds in social media and location-based technology. Here’s the panel I spoke on:

Link to UStream

Thanks to Ian Cross and Liz Sklar for inviting me to Bentley for this event.

Why the Checkin is Alive and Well

Last week a controversial-for-the-sake-of-controversy article appeared on ReadWriteWeb. It was called 2011: The Year The Checkin Died. It stirred up a lot of conversation and has sparked a debate about the future of location-based services. Mark Watkins, the CEO of Goby and guest author on the article rips checkins as useless and uninteresting in many ways throughout the article. A lot of people have been asking for my response.

Here it is below in an audio except from the AboutFoursquare podcast:

Of course several days after the article was posted, foursquare logged their largest checkin numbers in a single day to date with over 3 million. Several of those were mine.

My Top Five Reasons Why The Checkin Is Still Alive

1. Checkins are not about broadcasting. They’re about telling an app what you’re doing. Private checkins are growing because of the fact that use of the LBS services is evolving.
2. Checkins are useful for tracking behavior. Services like Scoville and foursquare points system enrich your life by helping you remember when the last time you saw your friends was and when the last time you went somewhere was. Post checkin experiences are like reminders of fun times and good memories. You can’t have those post checkin experiences without the checkins.
3. LBS deals DO influence decisions if they’re done correctly. You can’t blame the technology for the way people are abusing it. Eventually best practices will arise, just like other marketing channels.
4. Checkins DO aid discovery. They are data points that are valuable for recommendation engines, but they work in tandem with other data points. Without checkins, you have no verification, you rely on shaky self-reporting and aspirational data.
5.  A service they relies sole on checkins will fail. Yes. It will. But there are not services that rely only on checkins. Checkins are always paired with other interesting data, and that’s what makes them so powerful.

What do you think? Are checkins dead? Are they useless? I think the definition of a checkin will change, and eventually the icky experience of having to go through five or six screens on a mobile device will give way to passive checkins.

The Future of LBS: Convenient, Valuable, Secure

Last week, I was invited to speak at the Social Media Breakfast New Hampshire. The topic? Location-based services. You can watch the video below, but the short of the talk is that by becoming more convenient, valuable and secure, location-based services can move from being an unnatural behavior of the tech-savvy early adopters to a natural behavior of mainstream audiences.

My Top 10 Strangest Foursquare Friend Requests

Location sharing is the hottest Internet privacy topic these days. Generally, my counter-argument to the whole you’ll-get-robbed-if-you-use-foursquare craze is, “If people want to rob you, they’ll do it when they know you go to work…probably every weekday between 9am and 5pm. They aren’t going to track you on foursquare.”

Even still, I’m careful about who I share my location with. At the same time, I’m curious about the social norms forming around friend requests on location-based social networks. Since I’m on the AboutFoursquare podcast, I get a lot of really off-the-wall friend requests. Here are some of the strangest requests I’ve ever gotten.

 

UPDATE: Since publishing this post, I’ve gotten another strange request from the Ministry of Bacon. I’d put these guys at #2.

iOS vs. Android on Facebook Deals: What up with that?

I’ve enlisted the help of SNL’s Kenan Thompson to help me solve this puzzle. Please give a listen while you read the rest of this post:

I created a Facebook deal for our employees at Allen & Gerritsen to give them a sense of the consumer experience dealing with checkin specials. But I noticed that while the deal exists, it doesn’t show up on the Android Facebook app. Here’s a side by side comparison of what I see on my iPod versus my Android phone.

I’ve seen some deals appear on my Android before, but this isn’t the first one not to show up. Facebook needs to clean up its technology if it wants to seriously play in the location space, especially if it is going to put such a focus on deals and specials. Hmmph.

Black Friday Foursquare Special Madness

RadioShack

To be fair, the manager at RadioShack was extremely nice, and said he was going to print the (way too complicated) instructions on how to redeem Foursquare specials. Other employees passing by were asking what Foursquare was. Oh the woes of the early adopter.

Toys “R” Us

People are crazy! The line for Toys “R” Us wrapped around the shopping center. There were literally thousands of people waiting to get in.

I checked in on Foursquare, but got no mention of the Toys “R” Us badge. They are running the Foursquare special alongside Yelp specials and Facebook Places specials. However, when I checked in on both of those services, I didn’t see anything labeled as a deal or special. To redeem the special, the first 3000 people have to text a short code.

We talked about all of the Black Friday Specials on our AboutFoursquare Podcast special episode. Check it out:

What I didn’t get to say at #MASStalent

Monday night I was part of a panel of Gen-Y digital marketers and innovators that made up the first event in a movement called #MASStalent. From what I understand, #MASStalent aims to bring students and young professionals together for conversation about the future of all things digital. The kickoff was nothing short of awesome. It was headed up by Hill Holliday’s DJ Capobianco and organized by Emerson’s Zach Cole, BU’s Maurice Rahmey and Northeastern’s Aaron Gerry. Kudos to those guys for putting it on.

[Watch video of the panel here]

I got to speak on a few topics during the panel including the role of social media in a campaign and why SCVNGR isn’t the “next big thing.” But I noticed a few questions posted on Hill Holliday’s windows that did not get answered. Here’s the rest of what I would have said, but never got a chance to.

Augmented Reality

Right now, it’s too early to look at AR as a whole. Pieces of it are developing on their own. So if you want to know about where AR is going, study up on where location technology is going, where image recognition is going, and where hologram tehcnology like GE’s Ecomagination Smart Grid campaign is going. It is a combination of these things–location, image recognition, 3D objects–that will make up instantaneous, design-oriented access to information. That is what AR will be, but it hasn’t all come together quite yet.

This is sort of what I’m talking about (except it will be optimized not to be so overwhelming):

The Education System is Broken

One goal of #MASStalent is to help students understand what they can do before graduation in order to be ready for work in digital industries. My advice is this:

1. Recognize that your professors are ignorant of new technology. I am overgeneralizing, but not by much. In my time at BU, I might have had two professors who knew that they actually did not know everything.
2. Read Mashable and TechCrunch as much as you can. Test as much technology as you can. Learn as much as you can outside of class.
3. Shut up. Don’t point out to your PR professor that a blogger will think you’re nuts for trying to pitch them via snail mail. Just keep your head down and do it. You’re never going to convince them that the ways they have known and loved their professions are now irrelevant, so spend your time and energy worrying about more important things. It’s a sad reality, but it’s true.

The Hardest Part

One student asked what defines success for Gen-Y in digital industries. If you can convince people to say “yes” to new ideas about technology, you will be successful. That’s a lot harder than it sounds, and it’s something I struggle with daily. That goes for fellow employees, clients, customers, consumers, everyone. Humans are creatures of habit, and their initial instinct is to reject the unfamiliar. Get them to break that habit, and you will win.

Next Trend in Digital

I saw a post-it asking, “What’s the next trend in digital besides group buying and location?” Yes, I really do believe that group buying and location are the two most important trends right now. I also believe in the following equation:

Foursquare + Groupon = beautiful rainbows and baby bunnies

But since that isn’t the question, I’ll say that collaboration is the next next big trend. There are so many mobile applications and so many social networks that at some point we will need to see more collaboration. TriOut is a thought leader in this respect. It’s an iPhone app and web app that lets you check into multiple location-based services at the same time. It adds its own features as well, but the collaboration piece is key. More developers will be using more APIs than ever before as time goes on. Platforms will encourage third-party apps, knowing that they are crucial to success.

Our panel at #MASStalent

That’s it. I’m given away all of my knowledge. Stay tuned into the #MASStalent hashtag for future brain orgasms like Monday night’s.

Location-based Services in the Travel Industry

On Thursday, we held our weekly Twitter #LBSchat and discussed opportunities for the tourism and travel industry. I’ve compiled some of the most interesting points of the conversation and added a bit of my own commentary here.

Question 1: How can Foursquare drive foot traffic to travel destinations?

As I mentioned here, it’s obvious Foursquare is moving toward a Whrrl-like model with it’s new 2.0 upgrade, which places To-Do’s and Tips in a much more prominent role. This change is the first of a two-step process:

1. Foursquare will take a main-stream tactic by spoon-feeding its users. First, Foursquare is introducing the core users to the idea of tips.
2. Second, Foursquare will implement more updates that will personalize and categorize the Foursquare user experience. Right now, tips are a dead end. If you leave a tip at a location on Foursquare and someone else completes your tip, you get no notification when happens. Whrrl has completed this loop with its influence scores and societies, but hasn’t yet penetrated past the iPhone platform.

Question 2: If you could only take one location-based app with you on vacation (domestic), which one would it be?

Dan Parks raised an interesting point here. Once Foursquare starts mining the To-Do and Tips data, they will be able to show which Foursquare users are more influential in certain verticals. The sushi expert’s tips will be displayed more prominently on location pages for sushi places. Same for wine connoisseurs, mommy-bloggers, urban socialites and more.

Question 3: How can an online travel sites like Orbitz and Expedia integrate LBS? What about drive revenue?

Alicia Collins raises an interesting issue here. When the reality she’s talking about comes to fruition, we will have real-world affiliate marketing. Right now, affiliate marketers get paid by how many clicks they get on certain links, or how many Amazon purchases are tied to their designated link. In a short while, affiliate marketers will be paid based on how much real-world action they are driving.

Question 4: Mobile application EpicMix lets skiiers track physical activity on the mountain. What’s more beneficial: specialty apps like EpicMix or LBS like Foursquare?

I have long been preaching the fact that location elements will become common features across almost all media, especially mobile media. In a few years, we won’t think about what location-based app we’re using. When we’re drinking beer, we’ll check into Untappd (and Foursquare along with it). When we’re running, we’ll use RunKeeper. You get the idea. Every app we use will have a location tie-in.

Question 5: How can LBS help travel marketers and content providers deliver audio and video content?

[Disclosure: One of my freelance clients was curious about the topic and asked me to include it in the chat.]

Maurice Rahmey’s point at the end is a good one. There are content creation companies already involved in LBS, or looking to get involved in LBS, but have no way of delivering their content on the LBS platforms! That’ll come soon, I think. SCVNGR will be one of the first. Stickybits is already dabbling in video and audio.

Discussion about Facebook Places

As per usual, #LBSchat skewed off onto a side discussion about what the hell that Facebook Places thing is supposed to be.

Question 6: Gowalla is partnering with Four Seasons to offer $100 gift certificates for users who complete local treks. Success or failure?

Here we have two opposing sides to the issue, and yet, I agree with both.

Want to join in #LBSchat? Head over to Tweetchat.com and plug in the #LBSchat hashtag on Thursday nights at 9pm EST. See you there!

My Appearance on #BeerFridays

Last week @Marcus_Andrews asked me to be a guest on his weekly live podcast at Cone. Here, we talk about SocialSmack, the new Twitter layout and Foursquare’s entry into the university space.

“Mad Men” in the Twittersphere: The Future of Entertainment is Interactive

I stumbled across an interesting sub-culture of the “Mad Men” phenomenon. Someone–actually, several someones–appear to be running Twitter accounts for all of the “Mad Men” characters. Yes, all of the characters. Even the vending machine has a Twitter account. The accounts interact with each other seamlessly, despite the fact that there are like ten Don Draper profiles.

A separate example:

My first thought is, “What the hell is going on here?” And then I see this:

So fans can interact with these characters (who I assume are being run by fellow fans) to create an interactive experience that goes beyond the 10p.m.-11p.m. time slot during which the show runs. Twitter gives these characters voices on an even playing field with fans.

This video by Ideo talks about the future of books. These folks believe that fiction literature will be interactive in much the same way as the “Mad Men” characters are living on Twitter. What’s the takeaway for entertainment marketers? Plan on making your content interactive in social spaces. If you don’t, your passionate fans will do it for you.

My question is do people always want to be active participants in everything? Is passive consumerism dead? Won’t there always be a small corner of humanity that just likes to curl up with a book and read? We’ll see.

Check out the rest of the “Mad Men” characters:

http://twitter.com/dondraperSCDP

http://twitter.com/Carla_Madmen

http://twitter.com/BethanyVanNuys

http://twitter.com/MisterDraper

http://twitter.com/HarryCraneSCDP

http://twitter.com/PeteCampbell_NY

http://twitter.com/_TrudyCampbell

http://twitter.com/The_Don_Draper

http://twitter.com/MsMeganSCDP

http://twitter.com/StanRizzo_SCDP

http://twitter.com/_BettyFrancis

…and I’m sure I’m missing a few.