Tag: Augmented Reality

Content, Media, Distribution

I read an interesting post at Social Media Explorer titled ‘Is content marketing the new advertising‘. More than the specific subject itself, which I write about occasionally, it made me wonder about the various entities that seem to be vying for the marketer’s attention. So even if we do limit ourselves to the thought that brands (and businesses) would create their own content, how does the distribution work?

I remember writing about this a few weeks back, and asking whether content is merely a titular king and distribution is the real power. Its ironic because much of the power of the web’s second wave is in the ability to create content and distribute it fast. But over a period of time, the platforms we use for sharing have undergone a consolidation. The presence of traditional media outlets and brands on these platforms validate this.

Now if we zoom out further and consider the various other things that are making their presence felt – social gaming, location based services (check out the Foursquare-Pepsi and SCNGR-Coke deals, and the new contexts of advertising they’re creating), group buying; apps on iPhone/ iPad (Murdoch and Branson are making a newspaper/magazine specifically for iPad) and Android. (do add on) This is in addition to the terrains that the incumbents – Google, Facebook, Apple, Twitter will discover and develop at least for some more time, and the technological possibilities that will arise. (eg. Augmented Reality, and the return of QR codes) Each of them are building their own distribution systems, and its difficult to bundle all the ‘content’ that appears on them under one umbrella. And that’s only the digital world.

All of this also makes me think of destination sites. I can count mine on one hand. Every other consumption is via Reader/Twitter/Facebook and occasionally email. When the web (and its consumption) is rebuilt around people and their connections, what value does a destination site (belonging to a brand) add? How does the brand deal with fragmentation? The good news for the brands is that there are many more options than ever before. Not every campaign needs to be a TVC, radio spot, newspaper ad, site banner. There are smaller, more scalable and more flexible options. The challenge is to find them, and develop things that enable them to connect with the consumers. We live in interesting times indeed.

until next time, many kings and many thrones

November 25, 2010
On location.. and beyond

A few weeks back, @gkjohn and I were invited to Chandu’s Military hotel in Malleswaram by the inimitable @parthajha . After an amazing meal, we walked back to where I’d parked my vehicle – Mantri Square, the new mall that had sprung up in the locality. It was new enough to be regarded as a shrine/tourist spot by many, and was already creating many traffic hassles. Both my companions had seen/lived in Bangalore much longer than I have, and shared interesting stories on Bangalore’s evolution. The new mall, and the changes in Malleswaram (which happens to be one of Bangalore’s oldest residential localities) made me think aloud that soon, a locality’s culture (as expressed by stories about the place, people, historical locations as well as relatively unknown joints like Chandu’s) would begin to get packaged, as people – both the city’s inhabitants as well as tourists, might want to look beyond the ‘sterile’ mall-multiplex-pubs-eateries jungle, and have more diverse experiences.

And then, a few days back, i saw this article in PSFK titled ‘The Birth of the Microhood‘, which talks about an organisation called The Bold Italic initiating “a celebration of pocket microhoods through block parties and featured cross-sections across the city, introducing and promoting the social net worth of the people and businesses that inhabit them”. You can check out the details of the last event here, and the comments on Facebook here. Note the different establishments taking part.

Those familiar to Bangalore might know of BangaloreWalks, which undertakes themed walks. With new services and technologies popping up and developing at a rapid pace, I wondered about the possibilities. On Foursquare, Chicago was a pioneer, allowing users to earn badges while exploring the city. Now Pennsylvania has followed suit. (via Mashable) There’s more. Check out the Augmented Reality iPhone app from the Museum of London. (via Gizmodo). The way it works – hold the iPhone up to a present day London street scene, the app shows the same location as it looked in the olden days. Tap a button and you get historical facts about the place. Meanwhile, QR codes have been around for quite a while now, also noticed Microsoft’s “tag” a few days back. While on the subject, also check out stickybits, a ‘fun and social way to attach digital content to real world objects’, through barcodes (existing ones, or new ones you print), and an app.

Imagine a Coke/Pepsi/Kingfisher using this to tell us the origins of various iconic retail establishments they tie up with? Imagine augmented reality apps that allow an establishment to show us consumer reviews of the food it serves, or some content from the chef, say, how he’s made the dish. Relatively unimaginative, yes, but we haven’t even got there yet. 🙂 With the new version of location becoming increasingly important for brands, its perhaps time to check out the potential of using these services. A new way of aggregating content – videos, photos, literature – basis the location a person is in. More than anything else, i feel they offer splendid new means of storytelling, a way of making a brand go beyond the transactional relationship with its consumers, and the constraints of real time/space. It links the brand and its consumers through culture and shared experiences.

until next time, vocal locals 🙂

PS: To-do – check out my, ahem, interview at the newly launched www.foursquaretalk.com 😉

June 3, 2010
Local Authorities

Towards the end of last year, I’d read a couple of very thoughtful posts on the subject of local networks. The first one was about how small towns had their own ways of communication and collaboration and were functioning as social networks long before technology came into the picture (actually all kinds of towns). The second was about the concept of re-localisation or Local 2.0 on RWW, about location based services and their relationship with technology. Since its been quite a while since I wrote ‘local stuff’ here, I thought this was a good time to make a few notes of how local information is being aggregated and how consumers access local data digitally.

There are several directions that come to mind when I think of local networks. I am quite a fan of Burrp, and rely on it to find out the new restaurants that have opened around town. (restaurant reviews are a major section in the personal blog) I absolutely love their mobile interface, and look forward to the weekly Wassup mailer. They also have TV listings, events, spa/gym listings and a lifestyle section now. This category of sites is something I’d covered earlier. Burrp has since been acquired by Infomedia 18, but its strength continues to be the community. But these categories are only one facet of local. There are are also those operating in niches like ticket booking (movies, plays and events eg. BuzzinTown), local discounts and offers (Letsheadto, Offersforshoppers, BangaloreCoupons etc), to name a few. And then there are sites which work more as directory listings. Pluggd.in recently had a good overview (with specific numbers) of the state of local search entities – AskLaila, Onyomo, Yahoo Local, Just Dial, Metromela and Burrp. If we go by directories, Sulekha is also a name that merits a mention. Maybe, in future, Burrp will be integrated into an entire directory like service under the web 18 group’s main site, so burrp.in.com 😉

Another access to local information is through generic search engines – from local players like Guruji which has a city specific search, to Google. (local businesses via maps, movies, which also throw up review results. No reason why the same cannot be applied to restaurants and other services) Yahoo also has a version of local search. Though it could do with some design tinkering and a better UI, there is potential, especially if they continue to work on services like Neighbours, which adds an Answers layer to Local.

The third option I considered is mobile. In addition to the basic way of calling up a number for local search (like JustDial), search by SMS (JustDial, asklaila, onyomo, Google, Google Voice Search, Vodafone-MSN, Yahoo etc..its a pretty long list) and access through mobile web, or even things like the Ovi Lifecasting + Ovi Maps feature in the Nokia N97, using Facebook, I was interested in what could be tangential options. Adage had a good read on how location changes everything in digital marketing/experiences. Very bullish (I agree with the author), but sample this

Search, for example, solved a big part of the “what” problem — helping you find what you’re looking for. And while search didn’t know much about our social filters, social networking came in and offered up a “who” filter. Now we’re looking at the “where.” And it’s the combination of these filters that have the potential to change consumer and marketer behavior.

There are services like Brightkite, (recently acquired by Limbo) a location based social networking site that allows users to ‘check in’ using SMS, see people who are/have been there/nearby, and then add updates/photos to the place, which means that places have their ‘placestreams’ too. Sometime back, I had read about Zcapes – an augmented reality application – a mini blog platform on the mobile similar in concept to placestreams. On registration, you can make your own zcape for an object/event or even an activity (watching a TV show), and search for real conversations about a particular keyword (object/event/activity). The augmented reality comes in this way – in addition to being able to share on Twitter/mail etc, after creation fo the zcape, the service provides an image of a QR barcode which you could easily stick somewhere in the real world. (RWW has a cool diagram here which explains how this connects the real and virtual worlds). [You should also read some more very interesting applications based on augmented reality like the MOBVIS project, and Yelp’s recent ‘secret’ tool in its iPhone app, which when unlocked – by shaking the device three times!! – pops up Yelp reviewed establishments on your mobile screen, showing locations, ratings, and reviews for restaurants in your surrounding area!!). The recent Mobilize event also had a session on location aware mobile ads.

And then we have Twitter. Twitter’s simplicity means that location based services as well as local businesses can easily have a presence on the network and offer real time assistance to consumers. I have seen both asklaila and burrp on Twitter, and the former seems to be doing some good work. Search Engine Land wrote recently about Idearc’s Superpages account on Twitter, which uses the Superpages database to answer local search queries using DM. This can be used by other local search players too. TC had an article a few days back on another 411 service IMShopping, a human- powered shopping search site and Twitter shopping service. Twitter recently changed its TOS, leaving the door open for advertising. Twitter would do well to push the use of Twitter Connect.

And finally Facebook. While Facebook may not have done anything drastic so far in the local domain, the sheer amount of users, and their data is in itself a reason to look at the potential. There are services like Living Social, which operate in the review space, and which utilise the Facebook user base (among others) for increasing its reach. Facebook’s search now also shows web search results, powered by Bing. Now add to this its recent acquisition Friendfeed’s ability to aggregate data from various services, and finally add (potentially) the ability to add real time data to these search results from friends or further degrees of connections. This search could be any of things we discussed in local search – movies, restaurants, events, discounts, even regular directory listed services. That makes it vanilla search + real time+ social layer. The addition of the @ tags feature (like Twitter) means that it will be easier for people to share experiences with each other or to invite others. Though there are several things to iron out in this feature (privacy, security), also included will be the ability to add businesses/events etc through tags. So, through FB pages businesses can give basic information on FB itself, and even display @conversations directed at them. Now we’re talking, eh? But the killer feature (though nothing new) hasn’t been mentioned yet. Facebook Connect, which is being used by local hyperlocal services like City Search to add a social layer to search. This can be added to any local listings site/event etc, and add an additional benefit to searches done inside Facebook. Incidentally, you can log in to Brightkite using FB Connect too. Recently Facebook also announced that they’re launching ‘Facebook Connect for the Mobile Web‘.

[ Have consciously not included traditional media. But in case you want to add to the above five directions, please do so in the comments section, and I shall update the post.]

So many options. For users to find the content they want, and for businesses to appear in context – place and time. An understanding of the intent of the search -from both sides would be essential for gratification. As the mashup of reality and virtuality progresses at a furious pace, the importance of local search will increase. Accuracy – including semantic ability, real time, social experience, all will play a part. Google is Google because of what it made out of data, search and contextual ads. Google is already moving in on the local web yellow pages in many markets, but as discussed above, they may not be the only players in the game. I think local search might be a more difficult battle.

until next time, location, location, location

September 17, 2009