Update

To be continued shortly....

DIY Marketing? Or old fashioned street level promotion...

While I appreciate the ingenuity that this article suggests, I'm far from thinking it's a brand new concept. Being in media, and knowing how a lot of local promotions are created, this isn't far from that same tactics that a lot of businesses use.  The idea is to combine yourself or your product and bring it to people, on a personal level.  Now in music, this probably is something new.  Rather than embarking on a concert series, they are breaking down the typical barriers and making an 'On Demand' model.  Pretty cool.  And it highlights and even more interesting thought, which is borrowing best practices from other industries and bringing them to yours.

Social Media Analytics

With Social Media applications and strategies being so quickly thrown into the greater marketing mix of a lot of business models, the need for a comprehensive analytics platform is incredibly important.  Even for smaller businesses, it is not good enough to simply 'be out there', hoping for a word-of-mouth snowball effect.  If you cannot make use of the information, it is a relatively meaningless endeavour.

I will let the article speak for itself, but the application is called Kontagent, and so far it's free.. One top level takeaway is that your actions as a company can have a critical, blindingly quick impact on your 'viral loop', or your social impact.  It would carry then that your actions and decisions carry that much more importance, and so should your data.

Followup: Geolocation Services

A good evaluation of what are some looming issues with geolocation based services and the impending swarm of location based messaging and marketing tactics.  Despite the real problem of aimless apps and the impending deluge of services/spam/messaging, I think consumers always keep up rather well by using equally great tools to filter their to their liking.  The one major concern I have is the below.

"Crime Cataclysm, Stalker Apps and Misrepresentation. With vase amounts of personal-location information being exposed, we're bound to see a rise in potentially damaging behavior. Ages ago (in 2009) a man tweeted about a family trip to Kansas City, only to return to a burgled home. What did he do? He blamed Twitter. On the flip side, I would be remiss if I didn't mention PleaseRobMe.com, a site that displayed Foursquare check-ins in real time, essentially listing "all those empty homes out there." The site is no longer active, but it caused quite a stir and fueled much debate when it launched in February of 2010. That sound you hear is consumer confidence gasping about the dangers of geolocation."

Some scary scenarios come to mind, don't they?  

Geo-mapping and the future of mobile advertising

There's seems little doubt about where the future of cutting edge marketing and advertising is going.  Developers and corporate marketing groups are starting to focus on what seems to be the grand prediction: that stationary computing and passive advertising will soon be trumped by mobile and geo-targeted communications.

It certainly seems quite clear that mobile technology has exploded, and that nothing really stands in its way.  It will be fascinating to see how GPS and Bluetooth technologies will be integrated into user based handhelds to identify them to their respective environments, and vice versa.  When you think about it, it's as simple as an electronic awareness or how your technology (and therefore you) will integrate with your environment. A great example in what one user references, "I'm still waiting for the life-size holograms that will address me by name when I enter a store, like in "Minority Report."

Edit: Some incredibly useful insights and conclusions introduced by one of the respondents to the article.

1. Equipped with a growing array of sophisticated sensors, mobile phones are morphing into devices that connect users to places, other individuals and location-specific content in new and compelling ways.
2. Leveraging camera phones, object recognition on mobile devices will be regarded as one of the most significant developments of the decade.
3. The ability to scan bar codes - both 1D and 2d versions, such as QR codes - with camera phones will revolutionize the way in which individuals obtain information, shop and more generally experience places.
4. Geotagging is becoming increasingly automated, increasing the amount and accessibility of posts, images and other location-specific user-generated content.
5. As more content is geotagged more precisely, the accuracy of "nearby results" is also likely to improve, further reinforcing and boosting usage.
6. Augmented Reality (AR) transforms the way in which users find and view location-specific content.
7. The leading incumbent providers are losing their grip on geodata and digital maps.
8. Once limited to imprecise, "locked-down" location information from mobile operators, developers can now choose from an array of methods and providers to locate users more quickly, with greater precision and at a lower cost.
9. 3-D geodata will enable new location-based applications in much the same way as early maps opened up new routes and navigation.
10. Google, Facebook, and Twitter are in a fierce battle to capitalize on emerging LBS opportunities.
-- Dr. Phil Hendrix, immr (www.immr.org)

Here it comes: the paid content movement.

There has been a lot of talk from larger online publishers about how to add a pay wall to their existing online content.  One notable example is NYtimes.com, who is considering adding a subscription like wall to some of its content.  Sites like Economist.com already have such a system that saves some content for its paid subscribers.  In this article, the author suggests the use of a micro-payments, or pay as you go, system.  

Of course, there are serious risks and consequences to adding a pay wall.  In the example of NYtimes.com, this would effectively eliminate a tremendous amount of inbound linking via blogs, Twitter, Facebook, etc.  With ad revenue already suffering and helping to stir up such a movement, its easy to think about the further damaging effects if you cut down on general traffic.

However, the era of free premium internet content seems limited, and there is no doubt that paid content will be pervasive in the years to come.  That doesn't mean I like it, or think it's a great idea, but at the very least a micro-payments system will help differentiate from lighter users to heavier.  And as the author suggests, a simplified, universal pay system is needed like EZ Pass or PayPal.  Otherwise, users will quickly get fed up of various pay systems and drop off.

Bing Raises Market Share

I have to say I am not typically one to take a bandwagon approach (aka Fanboy) to very much of anything online, but Bing.com has really caught my attention, as it appears others' as well .  And although pitching that Google is becoming too big, and taking Microsoft as the alternative seems nauseatingly ironic, that's some of what I am thinking.

After Vista, Microsoft saws glimpses of their mortality for the first time since probably the mid 90s.  With the emergence of Win7, Bing, and plenty of other successful endeavors, it seems they got the message.  And while Google's products are anything but shabby, it seems their arrogance is climbing at a hefty pace.  That bothers me a little bit but I suppose these large search conglomerate battles are entertaining.

Anyway, try out Bing.com, see the cool homepages, and the search itself is quite easy and accurate.  Apparently, they will be changing the home page 3 times a day to show Olympic photographs during the Vancouver Games as well, pretty cool.