Tag: Foursquare

  • Brands going places

    So, almost a year after I blogged here about Cafe Coffee Day’s potential gains from Foursquare, they have become (as far as i know) the first Indian brand to get an official page on Foursquare and have special offers for 4sq users. (Bangalore outlets). I plan to drop in soon! Meanwhile, I remember the DM conversation then, with the person handling the CCD Twitter account and touching upon the problems of scale that would arrive with a platform like Foursquare. But now we have tools that address franchise needs, so I hope that can be addressed too. Anyway, good on CCD, because it’s not easy for an organisation of that size to be an early adopter marketer. Also good on the agency for (probably) getting them to do it. 🙂

    With Foursquare and Facebook Places, I think that brands whose product/service experience is intrinsically tied to retail outlets are perhaps closest to a kind of interaction utopia I have in mind. Here’s why.

    With every platform advancement, the customised interaction potential has increased – from mass media and the static web to social web, location based services, apps and technology like Augmented Reality. But even now, given the tendency to aggregate ‘Like’s and followers, I sometimes feel that ‘social’ as it relates to friends and followers’ overrules ‘social’ as a relationship between brand and consumer. That’s a dichotomy that few brands have acknowledged or addressed. Conformation!

    And that’s why I feel retail brands on 4sq, Places etc are near to that utopia – because it allows real-time interaction and context at the place of experience. Social is only a topping, and something that the user will scale by connecting his friends/followers to the experience. The brand/platform just has to play along. Technically, you could say it is possible on FB, Twitter too, but there the Like/follower currency is way too prevalent, so it is easier for brands to get sidetracked. (If we go by a recent report, brands will eventually find that it’s not really getting them anywhere)

    Meanwhile, just like FB and Twitter, platform protocols and constraints for brands also apply to apps and location based services. And that’s why, at this level of my imagination, I can only imagine utopia (for non retail brands) as brand ‘controlled’ interactive sensors attached to each product we consume. 🙂

    These shifts would hopefully drive more brands to define their own destiny.

    until next time, CCD, may the foursquare be with you 🙂

  • 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

  • Group Pwn

    I’ve never gotten around to trying group buying/deal sites until once recently, though I always thought that they were fulfilling a need for businesses and consumers. But when I read this ‘peculiar’ story titled Groupon’s Success Disaster, I found myself identifying with it (from a consumer perspective, we’ll get to that in a bit) and since the number of group buying sites in India is only a few numbers lesser than the number of social media consultants, I thought it made sense to spare a few thoughts on it.

    The (linked above) story is of a small business owner, who, after 3 months of using Groupon, discovered that the deals were hurting the business financially and then had to take $8000 out of savings to cover payroll. Considering that, I thought the Groupon reply has quite a cruel title – ‘Too much of a good thing‘, but it is well drafted.

    The win-win for business-consumer in this is because it gives the former a chance to spread the word on the service and probably get some feedback on it and the latter mostly gets a good deal. Like I mentioned, I used a site recently for what seemed like a good deal. Though the deal process was painless, I ended up spending more money than what I normally would, thanks to a mis-communication (and some carelessness on my part). It means that I won’t be a repeat customer. It ends up as a lose-lose. Now this is probably the exception to how it usually happens, but…

    It did make me think whether the business owners get into deals with a strategy in place. Not just in terms of finance, but also in terms of their expectations of buzz, their delivery capability as well as how they’d manage to make the customer return. When it is kept in mind that social platforms and deal sites are mostly interwoven, I think it’d make sense for the business to use their service delivery (assumed good) and connect it to their social presence. A “We hope you liked it. Here’s an x% discount for your next visit and we would really appreciate it if you could leave your comments on FB/Twitter” approach. Facebook would especially help the business to spread the word beyond the usual early adopter set. While on retail, its difficult not to mention Foursquare. Though I’d love it if Foursquare aggregated the deals themselves, the businesses definitely can get active on Foursquare and push their deals to users nearby.

    With the (limited) examples I’ve seen, I doubt whether this is being done. So it reminds me of a lot of advertising,  and most social media efforts. The former because the message and the product/service are rarely (generalising) in sync, and the latter because of the lack of strategy and the herd mentality.

    until next time, regroup!

  • Back to eternity

    Despite being a Star Trek fan, I happen to think that Time is the final frontier, at least in the horizon that I can see. I find it quite intriguing that, though it might be looked on as a tool for tracking, I can perhaps not account for most of my lifetime. I don’t mean the large picture, I haven’t lost it totally yet, but specific minutes. Take for example, the last hour and account for all the thoughts that rushed in. I would find it difficult.

    If you close your eyes, and allow your breath to be the only meter, the perspective of time undergoes a shift. Meditate a bit, and its easy to see. Easy to see that even the measurement of time – years to seconds and beyond is our  construct. But it is so ubiquitous and enmeshed in our lives that it seems as though it is a constant and only we change. It requires dramatic events for us to pause and note the passage of time. Kahlil Gibran has said, ‘Perhaps time’s definition of coal is the diamond”

    Meanwhile, I wonder if all the information about those unaccounted for minutes is stored somewhere in my brain, and is just not deemed enough to be of any priority for me, and hence seems inaccessible. The tools that consume me these days – most specifically Twitter, and more recently, Foursquare, also help me keep track of what I’ve been up to, and when it works the same way for everyone is when there is an information deluge, and that seems to be something we find difficult to handle. Something that we have discussed before. There is a toon I found (here) that correctly describes the way a lot of us seem to be functioning now

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    And in another example of how man is shaping his own evolution, I read about companies like Lifenaut, which  ultimately aim to create humanoid robots powered by a backup of the original human’s brain. (via @pkaroshi) The first step is to create a digitised version – an avatar, and give it enough data for it to mimic the original human. It makes me wonder whether we will be able to create ‘consciousness’.

    And that makes me think a bit more – by the time, we are technologically advanced to create it, will we have forgotten what consciousness is? Which also begs the question whether we have ever understood it at all, when we are not even mindful of the minutes of our lives? How does one define it? So many reactions which seem pre-programmed when one thinks of it, actions and reactions more out of habit than any conscious choice being exercised.

    So yes, with all of the work happening at a rapid pace, (do read) I think its more ‘when’ than ‘if’ – that we will become immortal, and time, from a future point of view, will become immaterial, because the future will be infinite. But we still may not be able to undo what we did a minute back. Where does that leave us? To quote Pico Iyer (from Abandon) “God has to be understood in the context of everything that is not Him”. But that is a different discussion, I guess. Its only that with every advancement that humanity makes, and in that process also usurps things once attributed to divinity, I begin to wonder where that leaves our versions of God?

    until next time, time.ly links 🙂

    PS. I tweeted sometime back, even if you never read an Asimov work, or never plan to, this is one that you should read. The Last Question.

  • Square Routes

    Despite my niggle with location based services (specifically Foursquare) – that the game part is taking away from the social/utility part of it, I still believe that they’re an excellent step towards bringing reality and the virtual social networks closer. And hence, I do pay attention to the developments in the domain – from how they stack up against each other in terms of features (and an excellent infographic) to futuristic scenarios and thoughts, which give some good pointers on where these are headed, and the features being added in specific LBS players and the omnipresent trio – Google, Facebook and Twitter.

    Foursquare is the only one I use, and hence I’m a bit biased. But it really has been setting a scorching pace in terms of creating opportunities that widen its scope. Badge fatigue is definitely something I’d been wondering about basis my usage, and I read that they’re now looking at adding more real value to badges, beyond the regular ‘mayor specials’ kind of deals. For example, “users who check-in at an Internet Week venue will unlock a special badge. That badge — when presented to bouncers — will guarantee users priority entrance into some Internet Week parties and events.” (via Mashable) The association with WSJ for the ‘Add to Foursquare’ button- to add venues with a single click when they are mentioned in articles – is quite a good move, both in terms of publicity, as well as utility. (because WSJ also adds a tip, with a link, so they get traffic later)

    Scoble has an excellent post with suggestions on what Foursquare should be doing, going forward. I think all of them are essential – especially badges as a platform so companies/establishments can use it too (read recently that they’re doing it, but can’t find a link), giving more importance to tips (I don’t even get points for them), adding multimedia content (Brightkite has started this already), and the checking out feature. I’d also like to add to the wishlist – the ability to (direct) message (not shout) other users, (actually buy Meet Gatsby)  a way for select users to preview my (say) weekend plan, a way to ‘like’ existing tips so future users can have some kind of mechanism to judge,  tie ups with the group buying players (see The Dealmap), and please, an app for Nokia (especially valid for India). Oh yes, these real badges and other merchandise, how about adding some Augmented Reality/Stickybits to it? That goes for the stickers that are coming out soon too.

    Meanwhile, Google has rolled out Tags – an advertising feature for local businesses that allow them to post additional information (eg. deals), Twitter is going ‘Places‘ which will allow users to tag tweets with places – its already integrated with Foursquare and Gowalla and automatically goes to a page associated with the place, and as SearchEngineLand notes, could in time, provide some good competition to Google Places. Ok, Yahoo’s trying too, remember, it bought the Indonesian service Koprol last month.  In addition there are new players set to arrive on the scene too, like Placebook!! (via) That reminds me, the Facebook ‘location’ buzz has been happening for long enough now, and I’d say that once the privacy talks have been sufficiently muted, there would be an announcement. For the record, Facebook ain’t the only ones with privacy issues. The aggregators have also arrived on the scene – Fourwhere.

    RWW has a classification of three different webs – data, people and services, all of which are the basis of mashups – current and near future. The web of people has thrown up the issue of privacy and the amount of personal data users want to share. Location based services stretch this even further. (Do read ‘Publicy and the erosion of privacy‘) As we live in the stream and move towards new social and data arrangements, what I find interesting is that without the data we share, mashups might find it difficult to throw up personalised recommendations. Users, services as well as brands will need to walk a fine line on this. Services, I think, have to do the balancing act most. They have to keep users comfortable in terms of privacy and what they receive for sharing the data. Placebook sounds good in this context. They also have to help brands deliver value to the user.  But as of now, the business models are still evolving. A recent study showed that only 10% of businesses would be willing to pay for Foursquare.  But as users evolve, consumption, social behaviour and data sharing comfort levels change and intersect, and services gear up to accommodate all this, we will surely see a rapidly changing landscape.

    until next time, location based relationships next?