iWunder | Wunderman New York Blog

Why It's Finally the Year of Mobile

One need only look at the explosive coverage of wave upon wave of feature- and smart-phone related news and product announcements to reach the conclusion that the year of mobile has finally arrived. But it's once recent editorial comment I've read in The Hindu, India's National Newspaper, that sealed it for me:

There is a plethora of smartphones from international companies like LG, Samsung and Sony Ericsson flooding the Indian market. In addition, local companies like Videocon, Fly, Zen and many others are entering the growing segment. The resulting competition could bring down smartphone prices.

Pretty obvious closing statement no? We all know that competition validates a market.  But what I think what we're seeing that the growing smartphone market, and the rise of the affordable smartphone will hasten the rise of mobile computing globally. The US is leading in mind share, sure, with efforts from Apple and Google gaining the majority of attention. But you now have a global market of devices across the cost spectrum that at their core go well beyond communications to actually enabling the equivalent of a desktop computing experience to anyone, anywhere, within the range of cellular tower. Coupled with the rise of app marketplaces, the burgeoning micro economies Apple and Google are nurturing, and moves by players like Facebook to attempt to drive online usage of their platforms by subsidizing not handset or service but actual airtime for access, you have what can be called a truly global mobile marketplace evolving faster than previous technologies, with sales rates of mobile devices and platforms, including iPads, growing faster than anyone could imagine.

So, in my opinion, and in closing, the Year of Mobile isn't the point at which mobile computing reaches near global ubiquity - it's the year when we finally realized that it wasn't just possible for that to happen, but when it became clear that it was inevitable, on a global basis. In my opinion,  that clearly makes this that year. 

We're surely in for as much change as we are growth, but I know that from our perspective, as digital marketers and technologist, we will all certainly enjoy what should be a meteoric rise.

The Rise of Productivity Apps Validates the Slate Form Factor, Creating New Opportunities for Established Players

Surprisingly despite all of the promise of the iPad and the excitement around all of the apps I’ve seen and gotten to play with, there really hasn’t been anything that’s become my preferred way of working vs. my traditional laptop from a professional perspective. The iPad always seems like a contextual compromise from a professional application perspective, something I’d use in a pinch or out of pure convenience, as a point of origination for an idea perhaps, or as a more convenient option vs. my laptop on during my daily commute. But my experience with one particular app, , represents the first time that I truly see the slate becoming the preferred form factor not just for idea origination, but as a preferred tool for execution.

 While you’ll immediately say that the nature of my work has something to do with it, as I sat on a recent late night flight where I actually had the aisle space to unpack my incredibly powerful and beautiful new Dell Latitude E6500, and fire up my trusty copy of Microsoft Visio 2010 (which actually introduces some incredibly useful experience improvements for placement vs. previous versions).  I instead reached for my iPad, and fired up a recently download app, OmniGraffle. OmniGraffle represents of the many existing OS X “professional” applications not simply being ported but actually “re-envisioned” for the platform.

This would really be the first time I would use OmniGraffle on the iPad for any length of time, and within the hour I not only felt comfortable, but was able to complete a process flow diagram due for a 10am meeting the next day. However, I was working in a manner that was absolutely frightening I’m sure for those sitting next to me, as I wildly tapped and gestured and dragged my fingers across the surface. But it felt very natural.

The point here isn’t simply to laud Apple and Omni, but to show how this use case validated for me the slate form factor. Existing desktop applications truly need to be re-through to take advantage of it, and this will take some effort; as sign of this, you’re seeing many early slate projects canceled or rethought. What you are already seeing are efforts from key players such as Dell intelligently leveraging mobile platforms such as Android, leveraging a mobile platform with momentum in the apps space for their new Streak slate. And this is the key; it’s the apps, and an easy way to sell/distribute/buy them, that will drive adoption. Existing platforms / operating systems aren’t relevant as long as application-level compatibility and interoperability exists, and in this area, the potential for Microsoft to be a dominant player in the slate apps space is clear. Just as it develops for OS X, Android and MeeGo versions it’s key applications, rethought from an experience perspective but seamlessly compatible from a data and functionality perspective, represents the future, even more so than the cloud and web-based apps. Why? The end of flat-rate data plans for mobile devices is around the corner, which will actually increase the need to run as much of an app locally as possible.

The most exciting thing about the rise of productivity apps for slate platforms is that it represents the true opportunity for mobile market dominance as people realize the ability for this form factor to complement their phone, but completely replace their desktop environment – which current no phone can truly do. What this also says is that the slates are here to stay.

 

w.url - a Wunderman branded URL shortner

Have you tried sharing a link recently that was simply to long for your tweet, yammer or email? When every character counts, URL shortening services reduce long URLs to tiny forms. But which is the best to use, when so many are offered and new ones seem to appear each day? 

Look no further! Our friends in the Wunderman Melbourne office have just launched the w.url.  This is a fantastic new URL shortening tool that can shorten and customize a URL. This new app is great for social media, link sharing, presentations and super-quick customizable Wunderman URL generation.

Visit, bookmark and share http://www.wndr.mn/  today!

What do you "like"?

In late April, Facebook [FB] announced and launched a number of new and updated products for developers.  This set of products is centered on the Open Graph platform that allows the sites, brands and apps to share information about users in order to tailor offers, features and services.

What does that mean for your brand today?
Lets start with the social plug ins.  Imagine a person coming to your website and knowing what their friends thought about the content of your site. FB has developed a set of portable social plug-ins that will make it easy for users to see information from or about their FB friends, share things with their friends or even log in to FB all without leaving your site.

You may have recently noticed that the fan page you were a “fan” of has become more of a community, company or brand page that allows you to “like” it.   Whe you “like” a brand or product page, their content will appear in your personal news feed.  The FB feed is the femoral artery of the FB and social experience.  If you are a brand who wants prime real estate on the social web, the “like” button is the permission you need to deilver your content into people’s daily lives.  Under this new release the “like” button is much more powerful and now more portable. [just look @ the right rail of this blog.] You can implement the “like” button, with a line of code on to your website.

The Activity Feed exposes the actions your friends on any website. When you're logged into FB and visit CNN.com, you will instantly see articles & topics your friends’ sharing, recommending & commenting on via Activity Feed.

The Recommendations Social Plug In helps make sites more relevant to you by highlighting content based on top "Likes" across a site. Think of it as a people-powered "most popular" list. For e.g., if logged into FB, a user can visit your brand web page and instantly see articles, product summaries and features that people are liking & sharing with their friends most often, in real time.

The portable FB Log In now lets you increase sign up rates at your site.  This feature has the potential to catapult the power of the social CRM space. The Log in with Faces plugin displays your friend’s profile pictures that have already signed up for your site in addition to a login button.

Don't forget the FB Social Bar. This nifty toolbar can be added to the bottom of your site. The Social Bar includes a like button, friends who like the site, as well as Facebook chat.  I expect to see chat addition groups pop up across the web.

What does this mean for consumers on sites in the FB ecosystem?

Tonight when I visited Pandora, using FB’s new open graph protocol, I was able to see that it picked up my FB music interests and recommended Bebel Gilberto’s latest and recommended that I create a Pandora station because of it.   That's what I call personalization.

 

We think that the new FB platform will lead to a truly social semantic experience across the web.  

Will you be putting a "Like" button on your client site?

Sources 

• Facebook for Websites
• Hacking The Graph: Live From Facebook’s f8 Conference

Is Google Doomed to Repeat the Mistake of "New Coke?"

For those of you that haven't seen the recent Forbes article on Google's interface changes -

http://blogs.forbes.com/marketshare/2010/05/11/is-google-doomed-to-repeat-the-mistake-of-new-coke/

It's interesting why people refer to New Coke as a failure; the New Coke campaign had some incredibly beneficial impacts to their business:

1. When New Coke was replaced with Coke classic, it netted Coke twice the effective shelf space

2. Changing the name of Coke to Coke Classic allowed them to change the formula as well, reducing their production costs

The point is - Google won't live or die by changes to it's experience, and the complaints of users - if that was the case, Facebook would be dead by now - unless they're loosing, rather than gaining, additional features and functionality. The changes they're referring to are actually ergonomic, and those are things people will live with, since the actually primary interface for search is the input field. The rest is just supporting functionality such as filtering, and those are ones people grow comfortable with or ignore based on exploration and experimentation.

What's your take on Google's new look? 

Single-Tasking is Back

As Apple prepares to release a multi-tasking version of the iPhone OS, early impressions of the new interface highlight one of the fundamental problems that should have kept Apple true to the purity of the original experience and avoiding introducing a feature that adds a level of complexity that compromises the overall usability of the iPhones OS.

The iPad has demonstrated the power of single-tasking, reminding me of the days when personal computers could really only do one thing at a time. It demonstrates how  a modestly powered device – a single core processor, graphics chips, and a minimal amount of RAM - in a very compact and ergonomic form factor that can deliver  an incredibly compelling, engaging, rich, and even productive experience for applications ranging from entertainment to productivity. The iPad’s insistence that you focus on a single application at a time – while still being able to easily suspend and switch between apps as needed – also avoids introducing a level of system management that I feel fundamentally defeats the simplicity that makes this device a better experience than using a desktop for key applications. The iPad doesn’t force you to worry about or manage files, so why would you want to worry about what processes are running in the background?

I think the key driver for multi-tasking requests come from people who are trying to get the iPad to replace rather than complement their other computing devices. When Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) researchers in the 80’s and 90’s talked about ubiquitous computing, their point wasn’t that we’d have one device for everything – it was that we’d have devices everywhere. Our move to the web, and applications into the cloud, actually enables an entirely new paradigm of contextual computing, where your experience adapts to the multiple devices in your life, rather than a single device that provides a portal for all of your experiences.

Is multi-tasking even truly relevant to mass market mobile phone buyers? Multi-tasking as a benefit theme in the marking of mobile devices hasn’t has the type of traction one would expect – the Pre is a case in point – because multitasking in and of itself isn’t a benefit, it’s a feature. And in the context in which you would be utilizing a mobile device specifically, it can be a distraction, something entirely unnecessary for the majority of what you want or need to do at any particular time.

One of the most frequently cited examples if the ability for applications that want to stream background audio. This could have been accomplished in a way that would have allowed for the feature to be tied into existing system functionality – say, within iTunes, as it is on desktops. What are your thoughts on the introduction of multi-tasking to the iPhone OS and its true benefit? What do you see as a good potential application for it? And are the interface complexities that result worth it?

Where are you right now?

If you have been watching my updates lately you have seen me reporting new finds in NYC.  I have been doing this with the new Nokia Nuron and Ovi Maps. Last month this mobile device was launched and we created the social platform and campaign that allows you to update your status through our banner ads, widgets and a FB app.  

Instead of limiting our audience to just facebook, we used a new social authentication API called Socialize from Gigya. This new service opened up the entire social web to our audience. From any one of our banners, apps, widgets or sites you can update your status and share your location.

 

The Gigya Socialize service aggregates authentication and social APIs from Facebook Connect, MySpace ID, Twitter, Google, Yahoo, and AOL to allow for easy sharing.  You can see it in action in the widget above. 

What I love most about this feature is that it's a full on demonstration of how easy it is to share your location, tag a picture or place with the Nokia Nuron.  Another cool feature is that the API allows you to customize just about everything in the status update. We were able to create branded status updates that link you to purchase the phone. [see below]

Check out some of the other campaign links:

• T-Mobile co-branded page
• Facebook application
• NokiaUSA.com product page

 So...Where are you right now?  Click the "share" button on the widget and let us know.

Would You Pay $8.40 for a YouTube Video View?

An article in today's AllThingsD provided some interesting details about the performance of YouTube home page ads, as measured reported by TubeMogul.

 
Source: TubeMogul

That's nearly a 10x difference between the highest and lowest performing ad. According to Ad Age, the cost of a YouTube home page ad is approximately $400,000/day. That means Bertolli paid $8.40 for each user initiated view of its video. In comparison, e*Trade got quite the bargain at only $.88 per view.

Granted, this doesn't take into account the value of the millions of impressions that a site such as YouTube delivers. But if the goal is getting consumers to interact with the ad and to play the video, then cost per view seems to be a reasonable KPI.

What's the takeaway? While home page takeovers will get you a lot of impressions, placement alone is no guarantee of success. You are paying a premium for high visibility and broad reach. In turn your brand and creative execution needs to have mass appeal (think talking babies). And if that's not your goal, reconsider your media placement -- because $8.40 for a video view is no bargain.

Orientation as Navigation and Other iPad Oddities

The early flood of iPad applications has been an interesting experiment in seeing not only individuals take to the new form factor, but how developers / content publishers intend to deliver applications, experiences, and content optimize for this combination of form factor and interface metaphor. Neither the slate nor the iPhone interface are new; the combination in this size is, and the rapid realization when you start using it is that unlike some other Apple efforts on the interface engineering side, something about Apple’s own applications don’t feel quite right.

From touch and gestures to orientation and even rotation, Apple has sacrificed the elegant simplicity of the single button mouse days for flexibility. The result can be quite frustrating, and feels less like interaction and more like, well, experimentation, as more and more of the interface becomes gestural, with you manipulating the device itself vs. the interface on the screen as we’ve become accustomed to in our interactions with computing devices to date.

Case in point – Apple’s Pages for iPad; in addition to the frustration I encountered at discovering the compromises made, like the subset of features vs. actual desktop pages application, the decision to only make the top menu visible while in portrait mode, when the optimal orientation for typing is landscape mode, seems like an odd choice of compromise. At first I found it a novel approach – the interface gets out of my way while I’m typing. But then when I actually began to use it as I typically use a word processing application, I quickly realized that among the iPad’s many compromises is not only that of established convention – it really is an adjustment to the way you interact, since you’ll do things here you’d never do on the mobile devices that previously shared this same interface – and the need to learn all new behaviors. It’s more jarring than one realizes and begs the question of whether to prioritize familiarity or form factor for certain applications.

Another example is the iPad vs. the iPhone for casual gaming. While I was incredibly excited to see games developed to take advantage of the larger form factor, I still enjoy playing Scrabble more on my iPhone than I do on my iPad. The iPad seems to have the clear advantage – larger screen, no need to zoom in and out of the board when playing. Yet I enjoy the experience less. It could be that for a casual game of that nature, the form factor quickly becomes and inconvenience, especially in certain environments – like a crowded commuter train in the mornings.

The change in the experience of interactions with the iPad means a whole new way of working, and it’s yet to be seen if people adapt to the compromises iPad developers (and Apple itself) are making in order to accommodate the form factor. One thing we can be assured of if that we’ll soon begin to see that the applications that become truly successful on the iPad are the ones people find both useful and usable.

What Apple vs. Adobe Really Means

With Apple's official stance on Flash so clearly stated by Steve Jobs, the big question is the potential impact of the Flash vs. Mobile Issue for online advertisers and marketers specifically.

In reality, apps across mobile devices are still about native frameworks / APIs, and not a question of Flash or not; to date, anyone who wanted to build an experience optimized for a mobile device would use the libraries and tools for native application development, with the occasional exception, like rapid application development tools or other meta-platforms, of which Flash could be considered one. Apple’s arguments are valid regarding Flash – it solves some real problems, but it’s targeted to a completely different platform / environment. What all good developers have known for a while is developing our applications in a fashion where the presentation / interaction is decoupled from the underlying logic and data driving your application, so you can present an experience appropriate to the target channel /platform based on context, device capabilities, etc., is already considered a best practice, but one we can’t always follow, especially where we have very specific requirements, like online media. For clients of ours in or just entering the mobile space, it will be interesting to see how they steer developers – I’m sure it will be to native apps, in which case, the Flash vs. HTML5 argument is a less relevant one.

As marketers, we need to think about engagement and interaction beyond the constraints of a single specific technology platform or application. We need to embrace the idea of adapting our creativity to different mechanisms of delivery, with a focus on open standards and technologies that represent the future. Flash isn’t going away. Flash will be a part of what we do for a very long time. But it will be just one part of it. However, rich and engaging interactive experiences will always be a big part of what we do. Our objective now should be to leverage our existing tools to craft assets and experiences that can adapt to their ever-fragmenting online world. It’s a challenge we’ll all embrace together.