Gary Busey(isms) in a Widget
If the future of viral marketing takes the form of a widget I was recently informed about titled, Gary Busey on Business, then please take me back to the days when print, radio and TV ads were king. The widget, part of a viral marketing campaign for VOIP small business provider GotVMail, points to a larger trend in online celebrity endorsements, while leveraging SplashCast’s widget platform.
With a half-nod to the Chuck Norrisisms that spread faster across the net than a jar of Skippy, the former Buddy Holly impersonator seems to be getting the first and last laugh, which seems to elude his audience. Designed by social media agency StepChange Group, with the exception of a GotVMail song, Gary Busy doesn’t overtly promote the sponsor, as try to create a viral sensation. The affect, however, is that of a forced, poorly delivered diatribe on all things Busey. All that’s needed is a laugh track, because no one is dumb enough to actually laugh at Busey’s monologues.
For all Busey fans in Web 2.0 land, and I’m not sure if anyone fits within this category, after seeing this material, then the widget is a perfect way to get a daily dose of the big toothed man himself. And, if by chance, GotVMail were to get some additional phone business as a result, then who can argue with the new face of interactive marketing. But, if a Busey makes a noise in the forrest and no one installs it, then is it a successful social media campaign, or just another asshole sounding off in the digital ether.
Gary Busey spuing his business acumen
I Summize Big Changes at Twitter
If rumors are true, and they so often are, Twitter will finally get the brain power it needs to keep its 1.5-million active users happily tweeting. Summize is not just a better Twitter search, it’s an experienced development and management team waiting in the wings.
I’ve known Summize CEO, Ajaipal “Jay” Virdy, for nearly 15 years, having worked with him at his previous startup, LocalEyes, the first geo-specific search engine acquired by AOL, where he remained in management hell for the previous 8 years. Jay is a true visionary. As such, he is able to identify a deficiency in the way people search for information and provide a solution that is both simple and breathtaking. Those aren’t words easily associated with software development, but in his case, it’s true. I’ve slept at his house, drunken his scotch, talked about everything from Web 2.0 to music to parenting. And, provided my two-cents on his ideas, of which, he has about five good ones a day. It is a friendship formed during the early days of the Web and he has been a constant in my life and career development.
CTO and Co-founder Greg Pass was also from a prior search startup, ToFish. They got gobbled up by AOL before they ever launched a product, but it had something to do with image search. I have always found Greg to have an acute business mind, even though he is a Cornell graduate (author’s note: my brother and sister both attended the great Ithaca, NY-based Ivy institution). And, if the name Abdur Chowhury sounds familiar, you may remember him as the fall-guy at AOL research who released user data before it was scrubbed. Don’t let that blunder define Abdur’s contributions to search. He is a giant in the field – the real deal. And, a very nice, down-to-earth guy if you can get past his intimidating intellect.
If rumors are true, Twitter will be getting a great conversational search platform. But, I suspect this acquisition is about much more than Twitter search. These guys have the chops to turn Twitter into the great communications platform it was intended to be. And for that, we’ll all be better off.
Mama Mia, That’s a Spicy Pappa John’s Widget
As a New Yorker, I feel entitled to be a pizza snob. After all, outside of Naples, NYC lays claim to being home to the best pizza. Now, I’m not going to argue with you as to which is the best, Brooklyn’s Di Farra’s, Harlem’s Patsy’s (Frank Sinatra’s Favorite, just don’t tell the Patsy’s in mid-town, who’s in litigation over which restaurant can lay claim to that), downtown’s John’s Pizza, or the Bronx’s Baby Moon. In my opinion, all can go head-to-head against the town favorite in any town USA and win hands down.
Now, you may be thinking what does pizza have to do with social media marketing, which is, after all the focus of this blog. Or, did I go to the Slice section of the Serious Eats blog instead?
Well, the good people at Pappa John’s has combined two of my favorite things, pizza delivery and widgets, to bring America’s most consumed take-out food to a social networking profile near you. It offers a store locator and links you thru to the site where you can order. Special discounts provide an additional incentive. A good first-step in widgetizing commerce. This is the first pizza delivery widget I’ve seen. It’s not the most visually-appealing widget, but it does its job. Take that Domino’s.
Pogo + Facebook = Cafe.com
After two years of development, the people behind leading casual games distributor Boonty have just launched Cafe.com. With an impressive array of casual games, from single player up to six people., the games stand out from the myriad of free online gaming sites.
But what’s truly impressive is Cafe’s Web 2.0 social networking features and micro-transaction-based business model. Think Pogo on steroids. This represents the future of social gaming.
Author’s note, I’ve previously served as CMO for Boonty, Inc., and am presently involved with the launch of Cafe.com.
The Art of Making a Mix Tape – Retro or Relevant?
You could say I’m old school. I’ll shun Halo for a game of Air Hockey, Frogger or Space Invaders anytime. I prefer drinking Stoli to any of the new-fangled vodkas – give me the taste of mother Russia over triple purified distillation any day. And, I still enjoy listening to my mixed cassette tapes, some of which date back to the 70’s.
Now, for those of you who don’t know what a mixed tape looks or sounds like, you are definitely too young to understand the connection it conjures up. From the sketchy hand-written labels to the cracked case, my brain’s memory goes into overdrive as faces, places and emotions are instantly retrieved from some long-ago, distant time. Nothing brings the past alive more than hearing a song from my youth.
And, just when you thought mixed tapes were a thing of the past, comes MixWit. A melding of my analog past and digital present, MixWit brings all the excitement of making a tape for that special somebody to a shareable widget format. And, with plenty of cassette casing, hardware and label customization to choose from, MixWit is much more fun that my old double Aiwa cassette deck ever was.
The free service allows you to choose between Seeqpod and Skreemr to search and add songs, or upload from your hard drive. You can then customize the cassette and cover art. Here are some examples:
You get the idea. The playback controls are simple and straight forward. The case displays the title of each song as it’s played. This is a great concept in widgets and executed brilliantly. Everyone I’ve sent a tape mix to has signed-up and made their own mixes.
So, if you thought the cassette tape had seen its last days, think again. Everything old is new again, and MixWit makes retro relevant.
Nexus – Understanding The Ties That Bind Us
What if you could map your friends and family inter-relationships and gain insights into the commonalities that exist within the overlapping networks? If you’re on Facebook, you can with a nifty application called Nexus.
Nexus creates an interactive image displaying the friendship links and shared interests of your friends. Roll your mouse over the dots that represent your friends and get a side bar view of their profile, complete with Facebook picture and common friends and interests.
Here’s a picture of my Nexus map:
When we look at our relationships in relation to one another, some interesting patterns emerge. As circles overlap and friendships intersect with interests, I’m reminded by something my father use to say, “the company you keep says as much about yourself as it does about your friends.”
Nexus allows you to map your corner of the world and make sense out of who you are.
The Four Questions of Pull Marketing
Widgets, Social Networks and Blogs, oh my. The changing web habits of today’s consumer begs the question, can a company build an online presence without the need for an exclusive .com address?
It’s a simple question with profound implications. Since the season of Lent and Passover is soon upon us, I thought I’d break it down into what I’ll call The Four Questions of Passover Pull Marketing:
- Have web services evolved to the point in which we’ve serviced ourselves out? The answer is increasingly becoming yes. We are starting to see the RSSification of our lives. Some call it lifestreaming, others news feeds, but one thing is for sure, it’s changing the consumer consumption chain from a push to pull medium. From recommendations, to recent games played, to up-to-the-minute declarations, whatever you’re doing is being broadcast in one way or another, either internally via the ad network, or externally via social feeds. This new Pull environment is actually the biggest transformation to take place in media since the invention of the printing press, and quite possibly even more dramatic.
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Has the rise in user-generated content (also known as social media) and its many entry and exit points challenged the traditional way of thinking? Absolutely. Just ask the Obama Girl, Lonely Girl, and the Dancing Around the World Guy if they would have been household names without YouTube. Brands are next to exploit the power of social media.
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Why on this day is the new social graph allowing for radically different online business models? Facebook turned a new page by allowing developers to tap into their members’ social graph to give viral marketing some wings and a way to fly. Others quickly, and not so quickly, followed suit. There is a furious pace of innovation taking place right now within the widget/embedded applications space because web services no longer have to stand alone, like an island in a big dot-com sea. While the cost of driving potential customers to a web site became astronomical, by taking your app to the customer, via Facebook, or MySpace, or Bebo, or iGoogle, the entire economics of customer acquisition is turned upside down thanks to the power of the social graph. Now, developers can worry about building a good niche app and those within the niche will find it. Water eventually finds its own level, and so do web apps. The good ones float to the top, the bad ones sink to the bottom.
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In what ways do marketers need to adjust their brainwaves to thrive in this unchartered pull universe? Navigating the decentralized web requires an entirely new mindset, new forms of advertising/pr/promotion and incentives. And to help marketers track, analyze, test and enhance campaign effectiveness in this pull environment, it also requires entirely different analytics to measure “engagement,” “viral pass-along rates,” and “frequency.” Creative marketers will discover the winning combination of delivering the right message to the right consumer via the most effective channel, whether it be social media, social networking, widget marketing, or the combination of all three.
So, maybe it’s not so clear whether a business needs a web site of their own or not. As my friend at Sprint recently informed me, “web sites are so old school.” If that’s so, we need to move beyond the antiquated view that the web is round to understand that in a decentralized web, there are many intersecting circles and your business needs to be at the nexus of your customer’s networks, wherever they may be.
11 Must-Have Facebook Apps For Your Business
Since facebook launched its business pages earlier this year, there has been a proliferation of applications geared to the business user. In fact, the facebook applications directory lists more than 800 business applications at last glance. With so much free software just a click away, it’s hard to know the must-have, time-saving, money-making, productivity increasing apps for your facebook business presence.
So, to help you narrow down the selection and make sense of a difficult-to-navigate widget directory, we took some time to review our share of embedded facebook programs and have selected the ten apps (in no particular order) for your company page:
While facebook Pages are limited in terms of design customization, you can add the Static FBML application to any Page to integrate HTML directly on the page. This application, developed internally, allows you to renter HTML or FBML (Facebook Markup Language) within a box for enhanced Page customization and added functionality.
Similarly, if you’re looking to add some more flash to your page, and by that I mean Flash movies, animations, scripts, etc., FlashPlay allows you to add any flash file to your company page, visible to everyone. You may also browse their library to find a selection of popular games, animations and applications to add with the click of your mouse.
Far more than a directory of business contacts, XING enables its members to discover professional people, opportunities and privileges through its unique discovery capability and advanced contact management tools. The company recently had a successful IPO and has had a long-term impact on the social networking trend amongst professionals. By focusing on the target group “business people worldwide”, the company is able to offer tailored features, thereby making networking and contact management simpler.
Ideal for teams spread out across different offices, MyOffice helps you manage your project or business with a collaborative suite of tools. Schedule meetings with your team or group, organize an event, discuss ideas, share files, create to do lists, collaborate on docs and whiteboards, and assign tasks to increase productivity. MyOffice lets you quickly and easily collaborate with your colleagues, partners, or clients.
Business card applications are fairly common on Facebook these days. But Tag Biz Pro stands out from the pack with a realistic index card design and a bunch of networking features built in. The application allows you to
* create a Business Card and customize it
* attach your Business Card to Facebook messages
* browse other cards and read comments
* let others know what you are looking for
Anyone who is interested in doing business on Facebook should use tag biz pro. tag biz pro automates the relationship networking and referral process by placing a custom business keyword tag cloud on your Facebook profile and on the Facebook profiles of your friends that are participating in your business network. Pick your keywords, invite your friends and build your own business network with tag biz pro.
Manage your finances right from your Facebook profile, simply and securely! MyMoney is an online home banking application that interacts with a variety of financial institutions, so you can view your account balances, transfer money between accounts, review histories, and much more. Plus, MyMoney uses multiple layers of security, so that you, and only you, can access your account.
With MyMoney, you know instantly how much you have to spend on gifts, go shopping at the marketplace, and more! To get started, just click the “Add Application” button and search for your financial institution. Don’t see it listed? Enroll online for one that is, or send a note to request your bank or credit union to join! It’s that simple.
Although you can’t add it to your business profile yet, Huddles Workspaces allow you to store personal documents and share them with specific groups of friends. Up to 1Gb of free space, Huddle offers a collaborative approach to organizing and sharing files.
From the great minds at Techlightenment (the developers that brought us Bob Dylan’s Subtaranean Blues widget), Huddle also interfaces with people outside of Facebook, making it a truly utilitarian work collaboration application.
what.io
Another great application not yet available for business pages, what.io allows you to quickly save your IOUs. When installed, the IOUs are displayed as post-it notes on your profile. Print IOU certificates. Share with friends and don’t forget that road fin you loaned your buddy on your last road trip to Vegas. The service works easily with friends who are not yet on Facebook, via their email address.
Based on the original Social Media Press Release Template from Todd Defren of SHIFT Communications, PRX Builder helps you easily create the next generation of press releases. Enhance your press release with new media elements such as links, multimedia, and social media service buttons for digg and del.icio.us. Automatically add Technorati tags and then distribute your release through PR Newswire. The service also optimizes your releases for higher visibility within Technorati and Google Blog Search. You can even moderate any comments your SMPR may receive. RSS and email subscription options make this an invaluable tool for companies looking to get the word out. And the best part is, the service is free.
Ideal for companies with a physical presence, Page Maps allows you to add a custom map to your business page or personal profile. Show your business locations or favorite spots around town. It displays a mini map requiring no additional clicks to see, and links to a larger map or directions.
How many times have you been asked for a contact by one of your co-workers. Phonebook allows you to share your rollodex in a secure environment. You can also attach emails and notes to contacts, back up your list and exchange/compare with your associates. Maybe now your staff won’t call you at 9:00 in the morning next time they can’t find a number and you’re away on vacation.
Hey EA – Welcome to the Widget Game
It wasn’t too long ago that video game publishers and developers looked down on online gaming. Considered too low-brow for the big production focused studios, online games were like the bastard step child nobody wanted to recognize as part of the family.
I know the shame of being the unwanted sibling only too well, having traveled to EA’s Cupertino headquarters in 1999 on acquisition talks representing Kasparov Chess Online, 
one of the largest online chess networks. Company chairman Garry Kasparov was, and still remains, the most recognized name in chess. A brand onto himself, Mr. Kasparov is as saavy a businessman as he is at chess. KCF offered players of all levels a free chess gaming platform from which to challenge, play and chat with one another, maintain a chess rating (the equivalent of crack for chess players) and read daily chess news. We also sold chess-related merchandise and subscription-based Master class downloads – rather revolutionary for the day. Back in those days, we called it the 4C’s – competition, community, content and commerce.
If only we would had been better futurists and called it “social gaming,” it would still be in business today. Those discussions with EA never went very far, but I’d like to believe that it helped them realize the potential. Several months later, EA acquired Pogo, the largest independent gaming network at the time. And, as all things must end, Kasparov’s 20+ year reign as world chess champion ended, and so did Kasparov Chess Online, unable to ride out the great bubble burst of 2000, as it’s now known as. EA went onto grow Pogo’s audience, while diversifying its revenue streams. And Kasparov went onto challenge Putin in the Russian elections. We all know how that will turn out.
So when EA/Pogo announced a new Facebook widget for Pogo members, I was intrigued. After all, Pogo was all about social gaming, even before the term became the winner of the Most Repeated Buzz Phrase at the recent 2008 Gamers Developer Conference (GDC), in San Fran. Had they started to spread their tentacles to harness Facebook’s social graph?
Well, yes and no. While the widget allows Pogo subscribers (read: paid members) to display their profile information, avatar and point totals, receive Pogo-related news, and link back to Pogo for a few selected games, it falls short in leveraging Facebook’s viral strengths.
First, all users must be registered Pogo members. Not sure what the overlap is between Facebook and Pogo members, but since Pogo targets women over 35, while Facebook reaches a decidly different audience, I don’t expect much crossover between the two.
Secondly, all games simply link back to the Pogo hub. There is no game integration within Facebook. Ah, the old hub-and-spoke strategy feels more like the bait and switch made popular at consumer retailers like The Wiz.
Is EA just clinging to the old and familiar business model they’ve groomed so nicely since the Pogo acquisition? Or is there simply a disconnect between the old guard and the new — the centralized web vs. distributed networks?
Maybe the new social network-centric gaming companies like SGN and Zynga know something that the executives at Pogo have yet to figure out. Let me give them a hint — Facebook gamers want to play in their own backyard, not a click away in someone else’s playground. Maybe it’s the old Groucho Marx joke, “I would never want to be a member of a club that would have me as a member.”
Note to self: Remove Pogo Widget from my Facebook Profile.
Presidential Widgets: Politics As Unusual
The fact that 2008, The Year of the Widget, is on a crash-collision-course with the 2008 United States Presidential Election hasn’t alluded the candidates, their internet-savvy pundits and wonkette junkies alike. Given all the political discourse we’re in store for over the next 10 months, it’s good to see that several non-partisan widget developers have the president’s office clearly in their sites to keep us all informed of the latest mudrucking.
For those who are firmly behind a candidate, widgetnest makes the 2008 Presidential Candidates widget to help you keep track of your man, or woman. Featuring headline links to latest news, directly from the candidate camp, whether you’re for Ron Paul, Joe Biden or Tom Tancredo, widgetnest makes a presidential widget for you. Cautionary note, if the number of installs correlates in anyway with the popular vote, it looks like Huckabee could run away with the race according to widgetnest’s stats (the company does note that the counter has been discontinued).
A funny thing happened to me when I installed the Obama widget on my Facebook profile – I felt like I was out-in-the-open, revealing where I stood. Even if he doesn’t get my vote, it was a declaration for all the social networking world to see. So, in addition to keeping the electoral base informed, presidential widgets, like campaign buttons and bumperstickers of yesteryear, are just as much an expression about who we are and where we stand.
But for those who don’t know where they stand, which according to some polls is close to 35% of eligible voters, developer Tim Hogan has created the Presidential Election 2008 widget, a nonpartisan general and candidate focused search that filters through RSS news, blog and forum information on each candidate. Built as a specialized Swicki widget from Eureka, the service allows its users to create a custom social search portal on the topic of their choice and offers digg-style user-generated voting on every article. So, in theory, with every search, vote and click, the swicki generates more relevant results and turns into a shared-knowledge resource to be spread virally via “get this widget” installer tab.
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USA Presidential Candidates 2008 |
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| Dedicated Search Engines Biden, Clinton, Dodd, Edwards, Giuliani, Hunter, Kucinich, McCain, Obama, Paul, Romney, Richardson, Tancredo |
| News, Blog and Forum info |
This is the first year that we can measure the true impact of widgets on a presidential election. Regardless of who wins, one thing is certain, widgets will forever change the speed at which a candidate can take his/her message to the people. Never again will it be politics as usual.
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Widget A Day 