Professional photographers are generally employed, professionally trained, and for the most part take compelling photos that are worth 1,000 words or more.
College kids with digital cameras and macs, not so much.
We all know those “photographers,” usually a former roommate, or a kid on your floor from school who was given a digital camera by their aunt for their birthday in high school. They’re the kids who took one good photo of a tree, and suddenly they think they’re Anne Geddes.
You know their photos are bad. They don’t. If only there was a third party that could stop them from taking that picture of a leaf and uploading it to Facebook, clogging up your newsfeed. That may soon be a real possibility. Much to the chagrin of liberal arts majors and sorority girls everywhere, Andrew Kupresanin is developing a camera which offers a real opinion of your photos.
The opinionated camera, Nadia, judges the quality of your work when you snap a photo. Sadly this product is still in the developmental stage, but we can only hope this becomes the norm quickly.
So, say you’re at your mountain retreat in the Alps when you’re suddenly struck by the poetic balance of the sky and the mountains. Or you’re in the park and you see Kate Gosling and the children being pleasant to people for once. Either way, the picture needs to be perfect.
If you pointed the Nadia camera at the scene, it wouldn’t show you the image in the view finder, but rather its supposedly superior opinion of your photo, displayed as a percentage out of 100, to help you get the perfect photo. It’s like having Simon Cowell and Judge Judy in your pocket at all times.
So, if your photo of the mountains and the sky was a little too much sky and not enough mountain, it would give you a 35%, or a 95% if you majestically captured the Gosling family (even Kate) not looking miserable.
Finally, someone can tell your roommate their photos of rocks in the Common are awful, without fear of their stuff being touched.
This is the second part of a two-blog series recapping my time at FutureM. For an introduction to the event, along with my thoughts on Hill Holliday’s “The Pitch”, please click here or scroll down.
Beyond Mobile Browsing – Mobile Commerce Goes In-Store Thursday, September 15 4:30-6:30pm, Market
Thursday evening provided quite a different experience from Hill Holliday’s event. Hosted by Modiv Media, “Beyond Mobile Browsing – Mobile Commerce Goes In-Store” was an excellent, intimate look at the future of one mankind’s most cumbersome regular activities: grocery shopping.
The event’s panel included John Caron, SVP of Marketing for Modiv Media (disclosure: Modiv Media is a Racepoint Group Client), Kristin Murphy of Ahold USA (parent company of Stop & Shop) and Senior Mobile Analyst Nick Holland of Yankee Group.
What factors influence the modern grocery shopper? As Murphy noted social networks, the expectation of personalization and mobile access to information are among the most important. “Our customers and our consumers want all of this (grocery shopping information) while they are on the go,” Murphy explained. These are also the primary factors that led to the creation of Modiv Media’s mobile app, Scan It!. The app allows users to receive personalized real time deals while shopping, however the proximity is so pinpoint that offers are distributed based on whatever aisle you are in. Additionally, the app is programmed with a self-service scan checkout.
So the ability to have a personalized and streamlined shopping experience is already available to us. What does the future hold? “We’re just at the tip of the iceberg here,” said Caron. “It starts with a basic ability to scan my items, put them in my bag, get coupons, pay , walk out the door. We’re going to shrink that over time.” He then gave the hypothetical example of an app that would connect your shopping list with the store, and the store would have the items ready for you by the time you arrived, or a “smart” mobile shopping list that provides you with recommendations as to what you should be buying or might like to try out.
The event closed with Nick Holland’s eloquent take on the future of the mobile wallet and m-commerce. A clip of his presentation is can be found below.
All-in-all, even though my time at FutureM was brief, it was still an educational and entertaining day. The state of marketing is strong, fellow citizens!
Last Thursday I had the fortune of attending two events at Boston’s famed week-long FutureM conference. The following is the first of a two-blog recap of my time there, focused on one of the most popular shows at the conference. The second part will be posted on Racetalk tomorrow…
The Pitch
Thursday, September 15 2:30-4:30pm, Hill Holliday Boston Offices
Do you like American Idol? Do you like sales pitches even more? For the absurd amount of us in Boston to whom these qualifications apply, The Pitch was perfect. Five representatives from local technology start-ups would have eight minutes to “pitch” their company to a board of five judges a la the Paula Abdul/Steven Tyler crew (I would venture a guess that the FutureM judges have a slightly higher average IQ), who in turn would provide feedback on the strengths and weaknesses of the contestants’ sales presentations. The premise of the event was simple enough. The start-ups themselves, however, were a little more complex…
Hosted by advertising firm Hill Holliday, the contestants were all new advertising and marketing services. Simpli.fi, as represented by founder Don Epperson, was up first. Branded “the intersection of search & display,” Simpli.fi allows for keyword-targeted display advertising, thus fostering more precisely targeted display ad placements. Eppersons’s pitch focused very much on the details behind the technology, and the judges were quick to scrutinize him. “I kept thinking, ‘What would the headline be?’” said Todd Wasserman, Editor-in-Chief of Mashable, and others suggested that some sales statistic, a projection of recent momentum and even simple marketing tactics such as providing a video on the company website would have helped Simpli.fi make the cause behind their impressive yet convoluted technology.
Next up was card linked offers provider CLOVR Media (Fulldisclosure: Clovr Media is a Racepoint Group client). CLOVR was pitched by SVP of Sales Kim Riedell, and it was noticeable that she had adapted her pitch based on the judges previous comments. “How many of you use coupons?” Riedell asked to open her pitch. Obviously everyone in the room raised their hands, and this is was a good sign as to how the popularly pandered pitch progressed. Card linked offers work as such: a customer may be browsing the New York Times online and notice a display ad offering $10 off their next purchase at Best Buy. By clicking the ad they are given the opportunity to add the $10 discount directly to their credit or debit card of choice. The next time they are at Best Buy, they will automatically receive $10 off by using that same card. While the consumer benefits were apparent, Riedell also mentioned “headline worthy” facts such as a recent round of funding by Bain Capital Investments and an upcoming product launch. The judges, while impressed with the technology, were wary of potential privacy concerns. “When I hear ‘We see 99% of all transactions,’ alarm bells immediately go off,” warned Rupal Parekh, Agency Editor for Advertising Age.
ChoiceStream’s CRO Lori Trahan was docked for the third slot. “What if you had a market of one?” Trahan provocatively asked, and the entire crowd of marketing professionals had perked ears. ChoiceStream’s flagship product is Crunch, described as the first targeting platform to use “predictive data.” Beyond that, however, I could not accurately explain to you what ChoiceStream does or how it targets, as Trahan’s pitch delved deeply into the back-end of the product. “Really jargon-y,” Parekh said after the pitch. Judge Adam Cahill also pointed out Trahan’s inability to convey what makes ChoiceStream different from the overall “crowdedness” of the space.
Then, there was Boris Revsin. “We are guaranteed to jumpstart the consumer experience of any brand in the world that wants to target college students,” the Co-founder and CEO of CampusLIVE boldly proclaimed at the beginning of his pitch. “Students use CampusLIVE to meet celebrities, find products and get discounts.” CampusLIVE facilitates brand awareness on college campuses by providing incentives for students to go to their website and participate in game-like experiences such as photo contests or even something simple like liking the brand’s Facebook page. Revsin’s pitch was essentially a case study involving the LeBron James-backed Sheets, an energy-infused Listerine strip, and the judges ate it up. “Super,” “crisp,” and “a great story” were all compliments showered upon Revsin, by Cahill alone. Nick Dunham of Dunkin’ Brands also lauded the celebrity aspect to it.
The final, and thankfully easiest to understand pitch was Springpad, represented by Co-founder and CEO Jeff Jayner. Have you ever been browsing the internet and stumbled upon something that was really interesting or cool, but didn’t have the time to take a note of it? Springpad takes those things you stumbled upon and allows users to store it in a personal profile in the cloud, to be later accessed by any of your mobile devices in the event that you forget about it in favor of all the other things rattling in your brain. “Save it for later,” Jayner rejoiced, many times, throughout his pitch. (Personally, Springpad should consider switching their slogan to “makingthem internets work for old people with no memory,” which is inevitably where they will find success.) Springpad will also organize your “notes” for you, and update you on things such as promotions held by movie theaters or restaurants you want to keep note of. Parekh loved the concept of Springpad. “You don’t have to do anything, and it’s free, which Americans will love,” she said.
While no winner was crowned, The Pitch made it easy to see what works well in sales meetings, and what does not. A clear passion for your product, confidence and frankly stage presence helped Revsin become the crowd favorite, and his pitch seemed to be the most well-received by the judges as well. Those that faltered did so under the weight of too much industry jargon or too may inconsequential numbers. A successful pitch has to convey an alluring company story from the perspective of the past, present and future. There has to be a genius to the concept of the product. The current state of the company has to be one of projection and momentum, usually conveyed through recent funding rounds or successful product launches. Finally, and most important, the company and their services have to have a clear direction; one where success is lucrative yet attainable.
Also, as Parekh pleaded, no more “cutesy” internet-based company names. That one was directed at you, Simpli.fi.
View from the Hill Holliday Offices
Stay tuned as tomorrow I will recap Thursday evening’s “Beyond Mobile Browsing – Mobile Commerce Goes In-Store.” Free food, free alcohol, free Stop & Shop gift cards, and a free look into mobile commerce’s future.
Ever since college, you’ve had the reputation as the “person who always makes an entrance.” Lady Gaga has nothing on you.
There was the time you took a limo to class. The time you parachuted into graduation. The time you had Kanye West rap to you as you walked into work for the first time.
Needless to say, you know how enter a room. However, sometimes when you’re going to dinner with some close friends, you need something a little more subtle.
Thankfully someone out there developed your idea of, “my phone should automatically tell my friends I’m arriving.” Presenting I’m Coming, an app that automatically lets your friends know you’re getting to a destination using GPS, now available via iTunes.
Here’s how it works: once you download the app, mark your destination by selecting a nearby notification point, say the Prudential Tower a few minutes away. Before you leave for your evening, compose an e-mail letting the people you’re meeting know you’ll be arriving (you can take this moment to interject how you just got your helicopter back from Richard Branson). Using the magic of GPS, your phone will detect when you’re by the Pru, or any location, and automatically send off an e-mail to everyone about how you’ll be making your grand entrance.
This should give your friends ample time to prepare a drink for you.
Consider for a moment the most masculine figure of all the parking enforcement officers. The meter maid.
Slow. Deliberate. Callous.
With turtle-like speed, and minds as remembering as Elephants, they roam the streets of Boston looking to strike with the most unsightly weapon in their arsenals, the neon orange citation. Despite your pleas and back-ended “compliments” about their less than flattering apparel, you’re going to get a ticket, unless you remember to pay the meter.
However, accidents do happen. We’ve all been in this situation: you’re in downtown Boston having drinks and giving pointers to Ray Allen about how to shoot three pointers, while simultaneously making plans to fly to the Alps for some weekend skiing – clearly a little too preoccupied to be bothered with renewing the meter, and then, Bam! Ticket.
Thankfully, you now have another personal assistant to call on to help prevent these kinds of situations in the future. Check out ParkBud, a new app available through iTunes. It’s very simple to use, simply open the app and type in the time you parked your car. As the time gets closer to pump more money into the city, you’ll be sent a reminder that it’s time to pay your fare.
But, we all know the city is a good size, and sometimes in the events of the day you find yourself in an unfamiliar part of town, with no recollection of where you parked. ParkBud’s got your back. Not only does it provide you with a friendly reminder that it’s time to pay, but it also uses GPS to give you the fastest route back to your vehicle, thus allowing for maximum hang-out time with your celebrity friends.
Who knows, maybe you can start inviting that parking patrol officer over for football. He still can’t ride in your Maybach though.
This is a guest post by Mandy Miller. Follow her on Twitter @amandammiller9.
Scene:
I’m sitting in an energy and environment class my junior year of college. My professor is giving another spiel about all the automotive technologies available today that would make our world cleaner and more efficient. While his main point of focus was infrastructure, I was thinking how hard it is to sell these cutesy little vehicles.
Present:
I was recently reading an article in the New York Times which features the spotlight in showrooms of more efficient electric cars and the benefits these vehicles pose to those wanting to run quick errands and daily commutes. Although the article focuses in more on the infrastructure, costs and challenges in terms of charging these vehicles, I can’t help but wonder how we are making a hard marketing push on cars that don’t really have the infrastructure backing them (amongst other current consumer must-haves) to quickly gain a large market share.
There are a few main bullets I notice when looking at the market for efficient, specifically electric vehicles:
Sex sells:
Admit it – you know you get that smile on your face when you see that powerful car with those sweet smooth curves. You get excited when you hear a Camaro or Maserati rev its engine. I can’t say too many people get excited when they see a Prius or Leaf turn on. The most I get excited is when the dashboard flashes green telling me I’m being nice to the environment.
Short driving range:
The Nissan Leaf can go about 70 miles at highway speeds on a full charge. I can go approximately 300 with my Cougar – and it has a guzzling V6 engine over a more wallet-friendly 4-cylinder. If you’re going on a long road trip, the vehicle won’t be for you, considering how many electric fueling stations (currently) there are in remote locations – plus I’m not quite sure hotels are offering complimentary car charging with you one-night stay and continental breakfast.
Recharging time:
The Volt requires about 10 hours to fully charge on 120 volts and the Leaf, with its larger battery, needs closer to 20 hours. You can fuel up a car in 10 minutes or so and be on the road again. Do consumers have the time to invest in this type of car? In this go-go world, we get ticked when our phone battery dwindles after a few hours. How are you going to handle a quick-charge on a car when it could take you a shorter amount of time to fuel up with some petro.
Cost (for both the consumer and fuel/charging stations):
While the vehicles themselves can be lower cost if they are using up less metal and materials, parts and maintenance aren’t so much. Higher-voltage cables to charge electric cars cost extra (about $2,000 and the majority of that goes to the installation). Fast chargers also have complex hardware and a permanent installation (not an onboard system which requires a connection to 480-volt three-phase alternating current). Some chargers can go at least $20,000 for the charger on top of another $20,000 for installation. I’m ticked at the $40 I’ll spend on fixing my side-view mirror.
This brings us to the ever-lingering question: Did the chicken or the egg come first? Do we need to have the infrastructure to support these vehicles before we market them or do we need to market them before the infrastructure can be made?
During the pre-show to Sunday’s MTV Music Video Awards, there was an amusing segment in which Best New Artist nominee Tyler The Creator (I’m assuming his name is a reflection of self-created t-shirts, because no one would possibly sell that horrific garb) self mockingly pointed out that he was the least popular attendee in the Twittersphere among the award show’s glitterati. The weird part: it was factually true. How did he know this? MTV had posted multiple flats screen television sets along their red carpet, displaying real time measurements of the most-discussed musicians on Twitter. Later on that night, Beyonce managed to break the Twitter speedometer (Twittometer?) by revealing she was pregnant, leading to a record 8,868 tweets per second. The connection between music and social discussion had never been more apparent.
Summer 2011 will be remembered for the explosion of music-related social networking breakthroughs. This includes Pandora’s IPO announcement, the ingeniously simple concept behind Turntable.fm and the American launch of what may turn out to be iTunes first true competitor, Spotify. Other services such as Rdio, Last.fm, Slacker and of course iTunes continue to gain in popularity (for an in-depth review of these services, check out a post at Brittany’s personal blog here). The Hype Machine, a music blog aggregator, is arguably the most well-known and successful blog database, regardless of topic content. The recording industry may be plodding towards total implosion, yet with the integration of social innovation, it may also be looking at its very bright future.
This all begs the question: Why the steady and strong bond between music and social networking? What is it about this particular form of popular art that makes it relate so well with the social and digital generation, and their methods of communication?
Music is, and always has been, an inherently social art form. Delving into literature is a sole venture (although some are looking at ways of changing that) and both movies and the painted/constructed arts are normally enjoyed in the silent company of a few others. Not so with music. In fact quite the opposite is true. Music is best experienced with a lot of people, often with as many other people as possible, and most of the time it must be experienced loudly. This is why the concert tours have been consistently the most successful facet of the music industry. The “Free Bird” chants, the audience-only sing-along to “Piano Man”’s chorus, the sky full of lighters; they are all examples of a large group socially interacting with a single piece of music.
Social networks have taken this idiosyncrasy formerly unique to the concert and translated it to the digital screen, with other audience members who could be miles away or oceans apart. The most literal example of this is the Turntable.fm platform, which is designed to mirror a dance hall with DJ performers. “You” walk into a room join other amiable avatars in listening to music everyone enjoys. A song is also the only art form that can be listened to and openly discussed at the same time, so on the right hand side of the screen the designers have conveniently placed a scrolling chat bar.
The best part of Turntable is not the exposure to new songs, but the conversation about those that everyone knows. You receive an array of opinions that are bolstered by the strength of anonymity. Along a similar line, there is a recent trend to host a live stream of upcoming records, accompanied by an associated hashtag so that fans can listen and share their thoughts with others at the same time.
(Speaking of… Some have wondered why Kanye West and Jay-Z named their recent single “Otis”. Kanye has sampled countless artists in the past, including other Otis Redding tracks, so why name this particular one as he did? It may be he realized that “Otis” is the most hashtag-able track name possible. It sounds suspicious, but if anyone were to name a track so that it could best be distributed through Twitter, it would be Kanye. Sure enough, on the day the track was released, #Otis was a trending topic. That’s how I and many others first found out about the song. I’m looking forward to the first album title with a “#” as the first character.)
In addition to its power to captivate the collective consciousness, music is among the best indicators of like-minded individuals. Colleges matching freshman roommates will often use musical interests as a primary factor. In the age of digital “friending,” therefore, music has taken on a new and important role. Ping allows users to find new “friends” based on their iTunes library. Spotify automatically integrates your Facebook friends into the UI, and you can collaborate with your buddies on creating new playlists.
If you feel obliged, take a moment and scroll through song comments on Last.fm, or spend a little time in Turntable. Relationships among users develop; relationships with complete strangers whose real-life identities, opinions and histories are rarely ever divulged beyond their love of the song being played. What we are witnessing is the creation of a wholly contemporary type of interpersonal relationship, one that is not nearly as wide as it is deep. It is a sanctioned glimpse through a keyhole into a stranger’s bedroom.
Finally, music fits perfectly into the need of the generation that created online social networks. The blunt truth: music is built for the attention-deprived, instant gratification type. The average length of the modern pop song has surely not grown from the three minute standard, set in the earlier part of last century due to record size limitations, and our methods of communication have shrunk to fit its size. The vast majority of the time, all you need is 140 characters or less to convey your feelings about a song. “Kanye’s new jam is crazy! Classic beat, clever lyrics. But give it 2 or 3 listens. #Otis” does the trick, in 88 characters. Sites like Pandora and Grooveshark have also capitalized on our insatiable need to be targeted to. The more time you spend on their platforms, the better the music is to your ears. All due to the data you are willingly providing.
Spotify will succeed wildly because it decreases the amount of time a user fully pays attention to even one song. Having God’s iTunes playlist at your fingertips will expose you to countless new melodies while also ensuring that you need never listen to more than one minute of any tune until you move on to the next. A blessing and a curse, you might suppose? It is no different than instant friending on Facebook, instant communication on Twitter or instant location on foursquare. We live in a civilization of #instanity, and plethora of prevalent pop music is our anthem.
Among the most followed Twitterers in the world are Katy Perry, Kanye West, Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber. Yes, they are well-followed because of their larger-than-life egos and frequently scrutinized personal lives, yet that is not the fundamental reason behind their popularity. The artists have created music for the masses, and in turn the masses a reciprocal bond with them and eachother, not dissimilar to connections made in Turntable, Last.fm or at a live concert. The future of the music industry is strong, because it lies in all of us.
We all have “those” people who we no longer want to see anymore. There’s the ex, who since you’ve broken up, has dominated your Facebook wall with photos of her and Justin Timberlake canoodling court-side at the Lakers game. There’s the co-worker who continues to Tweet about his new office (have you seen my desk-pure marble with diamonds), and of course there’s Steve Williams who doesn’t want to see anything about his former employer. If only there was a way to never come across these people again, even accidentally, on the vast void that is the internet.
Ladies and gentlemen, it’s time to say adios to them. Presenting, the Ex-Blocker, a browser add-on for Firefox, Google Chrome, and Safari that lets you block the person of your choosing, now available online.
Are you losing friends because your nights out have turned into tearful karaoke outings? We’ve all been there (no we haven’t). Are you getting angry every time you’re out and you see a family taking a picture of a child, because you know it will end up on Facebook, and you’re reminded of that one co-worker that always posts photos of their family? Then this is a website designed just for you.
Here’s how it works, first you need to choose what browser your computer uses. Next, enter your sworn enemies name into the boxes. After that, you can add in their facebook, their twitter, and their personal blog, why not, you don’t really care what they bought at the mall. After all of the information is entered, every instance of their existence will be blocked from your browser indefinitely. It’ll be like they never existed, and your memories of them, fading into obscurity faster than Rebecca Black.
Did I mention it’s good for forgetting “celebrities” like her as well?
This is my first post to the Racetalk blog. Look for more of my posts in the upcoming weeks! I would also like to thank Brittany and Jason for bringing me on.
I have an angelic voice. It’s been described as a hybrid between Barry Manilow and Enrique Iglesias. That being said, I’ve been known to belt out a ballad or two on my way to work in the morning. After all, something has to break up the commute.
More often than not however, a song finds a way to embed itself in my head, and not leave, no matter what I try. My science panel is all on vacation, so the reasoning as to why this happens will have to wait, but I have recently found a way to get the latest Katy Perry song out of my head.
Presenting Unhear it, a website that provides you with a random song to block out that annoying hook from the Lil’ Wayne song you’ve been singing all morning.
Think of this website as a music-demolition expert who’d you call in after you’ve gone from your commute, to the board room, to the snack shack in your office with Real McCoy’s early 90s club favorite “Another Night” playing on repeat in your head. (You’re welcome for reminding you of your glory days)
To avoid spending the rest of your day figuring out some sweet new glow stick dance moves, here’s what you do: go online, open Unhear it, and click play. The website will randomly pick a song for you to listen to, either in its entirety or just a few seconds (the opening to “Getting’ Jiggy with It” generally gets me ready to go). In no time you’ll be back to making those million dollar decisions your company hired you to make.
The website does come with the risk of replacing one overly annoying hook with another. Worth it? You bet. Anything beats Eifel 65.
This is a guest post by Sarah Willey. Follow her on Twitter @willey774.
Dirty tricks in politics are nothing new, but social media is taking it to another level. If you haven’t heard the latest saga, here you go.
A Twitter account named “CrazyKhazei” began making outrageous tweets mocking Democratic US Senate candidate Alan Khazei about a month ago. This week, a CrazyKhazei tweet appeared not on that Twitter account, but on the account of Eric Fehrnstrom, a senior adviser to both US Senator Scott Brown and presidential candidate Mitt Romney. They’re both Republicans if you didn’t know. It was clear that Fehrnstrom was the author of CrazyKhazei , and that he had mixed up which account he was posting to and consequently outed himself.
Here’s an example of the tweets: “I want to thank my charity, Be the Change, for subsidizing my Senate campaign by paying me $10k a month. Wink.” And the bio of the account reads: “I’m a community organizer. I got crushed by Martha Coakley in the 2009 US Senate primary. I’m running because we need more Democrats in the MA delegation.”
Neither Ferhnstrom, Brown or Romney’s campaign responded to a request for comment on the Khazei campaign statement. Of course, it’s Khazei who is getting all of the attention now!!!
