Are You a Baller? Nike Tests Facebook

Nike is trying to win friends on Facebook, testing a program that aims to link basketball players with pick-up games, leagues, one another and the Swoosh. "Ballers Network" allows hoopsters on the 80-million-member social networking site to organize, find and track pick-up basketball games and leagues. Still in test mode, the application maps basketball courts, and ballplayers can use the program to post bios, invite friends and solicit reviews on their game. >>Full Story

Thoughts// After seeing so many bad examples of how brands are using social media, it was quite refreshing to read about Nike's efforts in the social media space in the Friday Oregonian. Nike's new "ballers" application allows hoop players to "find and track pick-up basketball games and leagues" that are close to them. Players can find games based on zip code/location, skill level and also solicit feedback on their game.

In explaining Nike's strategy for the space, global director of digital media Stefan Olander explains that "it's really hard to convey a brand message" on the web and that he views the web more as a place to provide a service. We couldn't agree more! Instead of building meaningless profiles or gimmicky microsites, the digital medium affords us the ability to provide experiences that are inherently valuable to consumers. For more on this topic, see our past blogs: Making Digital Meaningful, & Don't Just Blindly Follow Latest Trends.

(Author's Note: This story is not directly related to the travel industry.)

Travel Trends - Couch Surfing, Niche Newspapers, Media Spend, FedEx, Mobile Internet

Couch Surfing - The end of hotels as we know them? Probably not, but still interesting. If you are looking for a free place to stay on your next vacation and do not suffer from any sleeping disorders like sleep walking, couchsurfing.com can find you a couch to crash on. Oh, that's right, you are staying on someone else's couch. CouchSurfing is a worldwide network for making connections between travelers and the local communities they visit. So far, there are 586,956 available couches who have hosted 474,622 'successful' surfing experiences. A brilliant concept (love the way one surfer put it: a global community based on trust, honesty, reciprocity, generosity, optimism and a sharing of all the good things in life) and from the sound of it, you will actually meet some interesting (and not scary!) people. Unfortunately, Oprah's couch is not on the list...I checked.
http://www.couchsurfing.com/

(Just in case you need more, here is the video of Tom Cruise going crazy on Oprah...love that guy.)

Niche Newspapers - For everyone out there who is advertising on a major papers website, a report by The Media Audit and reported by the Center for Media Research shows that some 'alternative' newspapers have an expanding reach:

Alternative newspaper websites with the highest market penetration include:

• Madison Wisconsin's Isthmus (13.5%)
• The Austin Chronicle (11.4%)
• Charleston, Carolina's Charleston City Paper (10.3%)
• The New Haven Advocate (10%)
• The Memphis Flyer (9.5%)
• Minneapolis City Pages (9.2%)
• Madison, Wisconsin's The Onion (8.9%)
• New Orleans' Gambit Newsweekly (8.8%)
• Syracuse New Times (8.3%)
• Washington D.C.'s The Onion (8.2%)

Interesting stuff.
http://www.themediaaudit.com/

More Stats - Some more online advertising numbers from the Center for Media Research.

According to a proprietary study by The Media Trust Company, American Express had the largest share-of-voice among travel advertisers (online) as consumers searched on where to vacation, hot travel deals and travel advice preceding Memorial Day, the official start of summer.

• CarRental.com was the leading advertiser with a 45.57% share-of-voice among car rental companies
• Best Western earned 25.22% share-of-voice among hotel advertisers
• United Airlines was the top airline advertiser with a 42.27% share-of-voice
• American Express accounted for 46.53% of all credit card advertisements

http://blogs.mediapost.com/

FedEx Launches Facebook's Package - Well, after all those posts on what not to do on Facebook, MySpace or any other social network, here is an example of a successful 'viral' campaign. Released less than two weeks ago, the "Launch a Package" application lets users send virtual goods to friends, from little digital trinkets to photos and links. The items arrive in a FedEx box that the recipient opens to reveal the gifts inside. It has 258,000 total installations and more than 15,000 active users. Not bad considering you could have just emailed those photos. For FedEx, this is a good fit, people are sending stuff to each via Facebook why not wrap a big FedEx logo around it? Feel like launching your own package? Check out launchapackage.com.
http://www.mediaweek.com/

Consumers Not So Mobile - A quick and short article from MediaWeek talks about a survey from AKQA and dotMobi that '44 percent of users report having had a bad experience in their initial use of the mobile Web. Slow connection speeds, poor site display and cost are the top three reasons respondents cited for being dissatisfied with current mobile Web services.' And 'Three-quarters of respondents said they were most interested in using mobile Internet access to pull up maps.' Once mobile internet providers can offer location-based ads on a regular and consistent basis, then advertisers can begin delivering relevant messages to the consumer who is using that map. I can see it now...Ad text: 'Looking for a visitor's information center? It's right behind you!' Helpful and scary at the same time.
http://www.mediaweek.com/

.Travel Wants to be My Friend.....

Thoughts// Readers of this blog are well aware of our opinions on the whole ".travel" initiative. If you're new to the blog, check out Troy's posts on this subject here.

This friend invite from .travel on Facebook is unfortunately just another example of how not to blindly follow marketing trends. Check out the blog I recently wrote about it here.

Marketers, Don't Just Blindly Follow Latest Media Trends

One of the first messages ever posted to my profile on Facebook was from my 16-year-old niece in Nebraska. It said: "What are you doing here?" In a media environment that is increasingly defined by the trendiness that afflicts a whole bunch of other categories, brands run the risk of looking like I must have looked to my niece when I joined Facebook and sent her a friend invite: an outsider trying to seem with it, unsure of why we're there or what we're supposed to do to become a valuable member of the community. Pizza Hut has a page on Facebook. Why? I mean, who wants to be friends with a pizza? Yeah, I'll "poke" you -- right in the eye. >>Full Story

Thoughts// A funny article and good reinforcement of a point that Troy and I seem to make fairly often here. As we stated in the two part series: Why Facebook Will and Will Not Work For the Travel Industry (See Part 1 & Part 2), simply following trends and doing "cool stuff" for the sake of being on the cutting edge simply makes no sense...and is a waste of resources. If you are really itching to "get social" here are three simple rules to live by:

1. Just because someone else is doing it, does not mean you should; only engage in social media if a) your audience is ready for it; b) you have something meaningful to say.

2. Fish where the fish are; Troy's recent post on Heineken photo-share contest is a perfect example; why create a photo sharing site when people are already using Flickr or Photobucket?

3. Listen more, talk less; Don't jump in and start hawking your products - listen to the conversations already happening within the community and respond or contribute to it when you have something meaningful to add to the conversation.
   

Travel Trends - Upload Your Photos Here!!, Adobe, Weekend Web

Upload Your Photos HERE!! - An amusing post from the daily (ad) biz makes note of a recent Heineken campaign, to....wait for it....upload your favorite photos of the product! I don't know about you, but several people touching a Heineken bottle spells brand loyalty for me. Anyway, the team over at the daily (ad) biz reiterates what we have said a couple of times on the Travel 2.0 blog, which is that consumers (beer or travel) will not just show up at your website to upload anything! The old, 'if you build it they will come' theory does not work online. Flickr, Facebook and Photobucket (and a few others) are the only photo-sharing websites (or websites where photos are shared in the case of Facebook) that matter. Embrace these sites, run your campaign with them...instead of against them...and stop trying to move mountains.
http://dailybiz.wordpress.com/

Adobe Goes Further Online - For all of you techs and (even) non-techs out there, take note that Adobe just launched it's next round of webtop (runs online, not on your desktop) software acrobat.com and Acrobat 9. If you use or interact with Acrobat (.pdfs) on a daily basis, I would recommend you catch up on the news via the post at TechCrunch. The programs offered via acrobat.com are very useful and the integration of Flash into Acrobat 9 means that you will now start seeing video (YouTube) embedded into .pdf documents.
http://www.techcrunch.com/

The Weekend Web - Shocker, users surf different websites at work during the week versus the weekend! While this article is not exactly a revelation, it does include some interesting insight into consumer behaviors on the mobile web and weekday vs. weekend. For example: 'During weekends, we fire up our smartphones for fun. The fastest-growing mobile-Web categories relate to weather, entertainment, games, and music, according to comScore.' I know I am in that group...weather and movies are all I check on the weekends...plus this blog, of course.
http://www.businessweek.com/

Even More FREE Ways to Track Online Buzz

Back by popular demand, more (free!) ways to track your web presence and buzz online. Many of your recall our previous posts on the topic...Easy and FREE Ways to Track Your Online Presence...Plus, See What California is Up To, More FREE Ways to Track Your Web Presence and Quick Case Study: Google Trends...and we wanted to highlight two ways to track the ever mysterious 'social networking buzz.'

Before we dig into the options, it should be said that both of these solutions simply provide a rough idea of buzz related to each site...in this case, Facebook and Twitter. Personally, I would not necessarily include these numbers in my annual report, but they will give you a look into what is being discussed on these undeniably popular websites.

However, if you are one of those organizations who are purposely running a 'Gen-X' Facebook campaign to generate buzz, then I would be looking at these charts every hour...in between games of solitaire, of course.

Facebook Lexicon:
Facebook's new Lexicon feature (Facebook login required) allows you to view words and phrases that have been written or left on a user's wall...think of it as viewing all of the comments friends have left on your profile page. While certainly not scientific, the data does give you a good idea of what people on Facebook are talking, thinking, doing. For example, look at the chart below comparing recent movies Indiana Jones, Iron Man and Speed Racer.

Notice the huge spike in 'words' for Iron Man around April 30th (premiered May 2nd) and then the fairly large drop-off. You can also see that buzz for Indiana Jones is building, however mentions of Speed Racer barely registered on the graph.
http://www.facebook.com/lexicon

Twist:
Developed by Flaptor, Twist is another buzz monitoring application, this time for Twitter. If you are not familiar with Twitter, it is basically a running list of what you are doing at the time, limited to 140 characters (be concise!).

Twitter is quickly becoming a near instant source of information when news breaks...beyond just simple messages of going to the grocery store...so, monitoring Twitter can be a key way to stay ahead of any bad press or negative reviews.

Again, like Lexicon, simply type in two or more words to compare results. Let's try the same sample set:

---

---

(Can't see the graph? View it on the Travel 2.0 blog.)

Well, if I am working on the Indiana Jones promo campaign I can enjoy a long weekend. If I was working on the Speed Racer campaign, I have probably been enjoying long weekends for awhile.

In addition to this data, Twist also allows you to see what context these keywords have been used. Click on the 'see what people are saying about indiana jones' link and follow the conversation.

For example:

ivyaurora: We saw the new Indiana Jones movie today right after coming out of the field.

Lirianna: Just got to the theater to see Indiana Jones... hope it's worth it. I want real food! : (

SinnedSoul: Just got back from Indiana Jones...not bad, not bad at all. If you're a fan of the others you'll like this one. The theme is silly though.

instapundit: : KYLE SMITH DOESN'T LIKE the new Indiana Jones movie, calling it "the worst Steven Spielberg popcorn..

rossdavis: @explodey friendly monkeys from Indiana Jones

What do you know, regular people are just like you and I!
http://twist.flaptor.com

Full credit to TechCrunch, who featured a post about this topic a few weeks ago.

Making Digital Meaningful

...Advertisers aren't focused on building the digital applications that people want to use; they're focused on somehow cramming marketing into them. Some kid comes up with the next YouTube, Facebook or mobile platform, and most advertisers want to figure out how to market on it. Instead of designing and developing useful applications that could give brands the opportunity to insert themselves meaningfully into our lives, we get cutesy but useless "Sprite Sips" on Facebook, ubiquitous banners in all shapes and sizes and microsites that you won't likely return to. And I'm talking about digital advertising -- never mind traditional. >>Full Story

Thoughts// A great read on a topic we've written on this blog before. While the piece is directed primarily towards agencies, it goes without saying that digital advertising today is a vastly under utilized and many of us have sadly resorted to pointless social applications (SpriteSips) or gimmicky microsites instead of providing meaningful experiences that are inherently valuable to consumers. The author's point of view was supported by a recent AdWeek article and challenges us to view digital brand experiences through the prisms of:

1. Usefulness: Instead of providing interruptions and gimmicks, give consumers applications that are meaningful to their lives and serves a purpose.

2. Utility: Give them tools that improve their lives—even if it's overly simplistic—such as Dominos' Pizza Builder.

3. Ubiquity: Don't segregate your applications to just your site; consumers are hanging out on mutiple social networks and are using multiple platforms to access content. Make your content/applications portabe across platforms and networks.

The Facebook application, iLike is a great example of a useful utility. iLike allows you to keep in touch with your favorite artists and discover new (similar) artists; in addition to adding music and video to your profile, it also tells you when your favorite artists are in town. Thanks to such an artist update, my wife and I will be spending next Sunday at a Kate Nash concert in Portland...in fact, we literally bought tickets within 24 hours of seeing the updated news feed on the show. Now that's a meaningful digital application!

Random Thoughts: Interactive (Web 2.0) Media

Typically, I don't like using the word Web 2.0, but I figured it would be the quickest way to connect you with this post.

While speaking today at the Oregon Governor's Conference on Tourism (a full report in a later post), during both Josh Hallett's presentation and our own panel discussion, a lot of conversation centered around engagement (thank you) and what social / UGC / Web 2.0 projects you should and should not undertake.

Here was the highlight from the talk:

You should not and cannot do everything. There are far too many sites and options for your product that are simply not right for your audience. Just because some other state, restaurant, hotel launches a Facebook app (see post below) does not automatically mean that you should.

Take a step back and figure out which of these new media / interactive opportunities are really worth doing, make sense for your goals and will create a return on your efforts.

Are Facebook Apps The New Brand Wasteland? Or Why Facebook Will and Will Not Work For the Travel Industry - Part 2

...Second Life today, post-hype-apocalypse, contains scattered groupings of people in a whole sea of empty space, containing a number of eerily abandoned brand islands. When recently digging through every press release I could find about a brand launching a new Facebook App, I started to wonder if this was the new brand wasteland. At the front of the Facebook list are a myriad of highly social applications with hundreds of thousands, even millions of active users. But to the back are all of the big names (Coke, Honda, Adidas, Verizon) with applications drawing in... 12 active users? >>Full Story

Thoughts// A great post from the threeminds blog that discusses the abundance of underutilized, forgotten Facebook applications. The post ties in perfectly into an article we discussed a few months ago, 'Why Facebook Will and Will Not Work For the Travel Industry - Part 1.'

The post cites several examples of Facebook applications, created by large corporations, which do not deliver the amount of users or views of non-sponsored applications or widgets. Of course, for a lot of these companies a Facebook application is not a large expenditure, and probably viewed as more of an experiment. Still, 12 active users is a remarkably small amount.

The article is very similar to our previous post discussing how companies and organizations created Facebook profiles, hoping to gather thousands of 'friends' for their product or brand, only to be 'friended' by a few, let us say, less-than-perfect users.

Most interesting was the example of the Sony sponsorship of an already existing, already popular (vampire) Facebook application. Brilliant. A built-in audience, interested in the same subject, why wouldn't you take advantage of it?

The article also goes onto to mention the use of groups, (built-in audience!) to create 'mini-sites' for your brand / product. Not sure if I would go that far, but it is certainly a good option.

Finally, I love the App Don'ts, which could work for any new media / interactive project / website:

App Don'ts
1. Don't start a new version of something that is already popular.
2. Don't overcomplicate the concept or interface.
3. Don't extend a campaign without thinking about the social context.
4. Don't separate your fans, reach them where they already exist.

Words to live, and network, by.

Travel Trends - South Carolina, College Kids

Time to Thaw - The South Carolina Department of Tourism has recently launched a cold weather message campaign in the city of Chicago which drives consumers to the 'Time to Thaw' microsite. The microsite contains your standard info, a cute little 'thaw' button that melts some ice, a video, etc. Nothing groundbreaking or one-of-a-kind, but a solid campaign microsite none the less. Of course my favorite part of the site is the 'submit a Windsurfin' Wall Photo Contest' which features Chicagoans in a variety of funny poses. See Jeb above. Nice.
http://www.discoversouthcarolina.com/time-to-thaw/

College Kids Have Too Much Time On Their Hands - Or, at least I think so. eMarketer.com brings us this report from Youth Trends showing website usage from college level consumers.

Survey says:

The discrepancy between the top ten sites for Males and Females is no surprise, however the use of Wikipedia by guys may suggest quite a few term papers are being referenced from the popular wiki site.

As far as usage, the one stat that stands out to me is only 2% of users have uploaded their own videos. However, no surprise that virtual communities, i.e. Second Life, are low on the list.

Considering most of us over the age of 22 think that everyone younger than 22 are the ones populating such culturally rich sites like break.com (warning, stupid guy humor), it is a bit surprising to see that stat.

However, I think a lot of us who have run a consumer-generated video promotion have discovered that we are a society who would rather watch than work.
http://www.emarketer.com/

Travel Trends - hotels.com, My Vegas

Hotels.com New Logo - hotels.com, the low price travel search engine from expedia inc., is trading in its bellman logo for something a bit more refined. As reported by several blogs, including HotelChatter, Trademork.com and Logo Design Works (all of which contain some interesting observations), as well as verified by your author via CNN last night (they had a new commercial), it would appear that the logo on the right will slowly become the new logo for the company. Although, during the TV spot, the new logo was orange, not black.
http://www.hotelchatter.com/

My Vegas - Is the social-networking band-wagon full yet? Apparently not...the latest entry to the race for your free time is Las Vegas. According to Brandweek, the LVVCA is launching a new 'My Vegas' section on visitlasvegas.com. The site, according to the article (the new social-networking piece was not live as of this article) contains your typical social-networking features...profile page, upload photos, talk to friends, etc...and encourages you to use a 'Vegas' persona (read, fake) when signing up (because no one lies about themselves on MySpace right now).

While I am sure the site and execution will be very good, I wonder how many people will create another social networking profile for My Vegas. Personally, I think an embeddable 'My Vegas' application...that let's you create a 'Vegas' persona...for Facebook or MySpace would be a better marketing opportunity in this situation. Rather than putting it behind a wall.
http://www.brandweek.com/

Travel Trends - California, .travel, 2007

California, The Land of Wine and Food - The California Travel and Tourism Commission has recently launched a new website and campaign in partnership with the California Wine Institute titled 'The Land of Wine and Food.' The site contains videos, Google map integration, wine info and wine blogs from regular Californians and celebrities such as Andrew Firestone (from 'The Bachelor' fame...personally, I always preferred Joe Millionaire, but I don't think he has a wine blog). The site looks great, but like most of these 'partnership' sites, it is lacking content. I could not find a simple address of a winery, let alone a link. And the search function displays worthy content (like this article on Lodi...hooray Lodi!) that is otherwise no where to be found on the site. Still, worth a look. Cheers.
http://www.landofwineandfood.com/

More .travel - Yes, more .travel. For those of you who thought I was crazy to dismiss the euphoric promise that is .travel (see my original argument and follow-up argument), I present an article from Jens Thraenhart, currently the Executive Director of Marketing Strategy at the Canadian Tourism Commission and fellow blogger. Here are the 'cliffs notes' version of the article:

Jens is a pretty smart guy and he agrees with me on .travel.

If you are keeping score:
Troy: 4
.travel: 0

Now, I should be fair when it comes to the .travel subject...if anyone finds a positive article about the current state of the domain name (which is not authored by someone directly involved with Tralliance, The Globe or EnCirca) just pass it my way.
http://www.hsmaieconnect.org/

The Year That Was - comScore recently released the 'U.S. Internet Year in Review,' which contained these interesting stats:

• Total U.S. Internet Audience grew 5% from 175 million to 183 million. (including Home, Work and University users)

• Social networking giant Facebook.com reaped the benefits of opening registration to all users, jumping 81 percent versus December 2006 to 34.7 million visitors in December 2007

• Wikipedia Sites gained 34 percent to reach nearly 52 million visitors, continuing its reign as the Web's most popular reference hub

• Craigslist.org jumped 74 percent to 24.5 million visitors

• AT&T grew 27 percent to 30.2 million visitors boosted by its exclusive deal with Apple as carrier for the iPhone

• Yellow Book Network jumped 137-percent to 10.4 million visitors

http://blogs.mediapost.com/

Dealing with Ad Immunity

While News Corp. is thrilled about its social network's ad-revenue growth, Google and many marketers are frustrated about click-through rates. There was a time when Mark Seremet considered MySpace one of the best things to happen to his business. Seremet, then-CEO of customized clothing company Spreadshirt, saw sales jump sixfold in late 2005 and early 2006 after he ran ads on the popular social networks MySpace and Facebook. "Somebody would get the shirt, then tell a friend," Seremet says. "It was really an amazing change for the business." >>Full Story

Thoughts// Another good article on the subject of advertising on social networks, even thought it is a little short on solid numbers. According to Mr. Seremet, Spreadshirt was experiencing around a 1% CTR (click-thru rate) in 2006, but that dropped to .10% in 2007. Those numbers should hardly come as a surprise. MySpace was still relatively 'new' in 2006, so a lot of users were still open and interested in advertising.

The article goes onto say that 'only a fraction of 1% of the people who see the ads click on them.' And that many advertisers are not seeing a good ROI when advertising on social networks such as MySpace and Facebook.

Of course, this lends some truth to the argument that Mo and I have been making about advertising on social networks...people are on these sites to meet, talk, reconnect with friends, family and co-workers, not browse ads for the latest widget, car or other 'you need this' product. True, some advertisers are probably doing very well on MySpace, but unless you are in the business of creating custom MySpace skins and layouts, there might be a better buy for your campaign.

Case in point (from the article):

"There's too much [advertising] when you sign on," says John Sigona, a 32-year-old MySpace user who likes the site, though he ignores the ads. "They don't interest me."

Exactly.

Why Facebook Will and Will Not Work For the Travel Industry - Part 1

Over the last few weeks I have been involved in several conversations about facebook and how marketers, specifically destination marketing organizations, can tap into this seemingly endless pot of consumer gold. First, during the Benson workshop which was part of my 'How to Create an Interactive Marketing Plan' series offered by the Arizona Office of Tourism. (Which, by the way, was a great experience) Then again by Mo, who had been approached by someone who was using facebook as a marketing tool, but going about it in the wrong way. Or at least we thought so.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with facebook or MySpace, read our 'Word of the Week' post on facebook.

Thoughts// What a perfect subject as we head into 2008, because there was no bigger buzz or buzzword than 'facebook' in 2007. It was everywhere, growing at an astronomical rate, and everyone, including your grandmother seemed to be on facebook. And in came the marketers. If there are 60 million people in one spot online, you can be sure that we marketers are going to figure out a way to get in front of them. Which starts our conversation, how should you use facebook as a marketing tool?

Basically, there are two options...(1) buy traditional banner (display) ads or some form of sponsorship on facebook or (2) set up a profile or group for your product and be 'friends' with everyone. Let's talk about option #2, the method that everyone seems to be trying.

Anyone and any organization can set up a profile on facebook for free. Which is exactly the problem. Just because it is free and available does not mean you have to use it. Here is the first question to ask yourself before setting up a facebook page: Are people passionate about my product?

All of you saying, 'yes, of course.' Sorry, afraid not. Let's look at some brands/things people are passionate about:

Passionate:
Diet Coke
Southwest Airlines
Disney
Key West
Starbucks
Movies / Actors
Music / Bands
Greenpeace
Politics

Not Passionate:
AT&T
Best Buy
Minute Maid
General Mills
Duracell
Hoover
Most States
Most Cities

You get the idea.

Of course, these are very general statements...there are some people out there who are very, very passionate about Minute Maid Orange Juice. However, when you look at a product like Diet Coke, which people are practically addicted to, you can begin to see a difference in 'passion.'

For example, if you go onto facebook and search for Diet Coke, there are currently 500+ groups who are 'addicted' (in some form or another) to Diet Coke. On the first results page alone there are 10,393 members in 10 groups. 10,000 people who have proclaimed openly they like and want Diet Coke! Compare that to Best Buy, which lists one group...Best Buy Employees...with 2,774. Not a surprise, why would I want to be friends with a giant concrete and steel box (store)?

Same rule applies for Southwest, Disney and Key West. People, and you know some of these people, love these companies/brands. They have whole walls or even rooms filled with Mickey Mouse, little airplanes or conch shells that say 'life's a beach' on them.

Now you could create a new group for these people to join, but if they are already part of another group, why would they want to join your corporate-controlled, PC, don't use any bad words group? Most marketers would probably be more successful in marketing their products to this group of passionate people via traditional ads. Or perhaps giving the members exclusive downloads, wallpapers, etc.

As Mo mentioned while we were speaking about this subject, why would we (as consumers) want to use facebook or MySpace to network directly with brands? Most of us are on these social networking sites to connect with friends or family. Rather than be friends with my Toyota.

While there are some positive results from this type of advertising, unfortunately a lot of brands are trying to force their marketing efforts into the facebook model with limited success (see our post and thoughts on the Sprite Sips facebook effort).

As I have said repeatedly, this theory does not apply to all brands across the board. Each marketing situtation needs to be evaluated separately. However, in the case of social networking sites such as facebook, you need to start the evaluation by determining how many of those 60 million users would be passionate about your brand.

If the answer is not many, you should probably look towards another marketing opportunity.

In part 2 of this post, how the travel industry could use social networking sites as an effective marketing tool.

Travel Trends - .travel, JetBlue, Privacy

.travel To Open Up Registration (Read, we need money) - Like a few of you, I received an email this week from EnCirca or the company one of the companies behind the .travel domain extension. The email basically stated that as of December 21st anybody with a travel related business can apply for a .travel domain name. The email itself was pretty comical, with lines such as 'anticipated December 21 Land Rush for .travel' or '.travel domain names are ideal for search engine marketing.' Good stuff.

While the .travel domain idea looked good on paper and in theory, it has not worked as designed in the real world. People have not caught onto the idea that a domain extension such as .biz, .travel or .jobs is the same as .com. Seriously, most people cannot even grasp the concept of .net, let alone .travel or .asia. With search engines becoming more than just a simple website, but an embedded action in our thought process for locating information, the need for a certain domain name and domain extension is dwindling.

Now, if you are like the Arizona Office of Tourism, you might own a few of these key domain names...such as arizona.travel...just to prevent someone from squatting or worse, using that domain in an undesirable manner. But you can call off the plans to switch over your whole advertising campaign and interactive strategy to yourdestinationhere.travel. It's already over...before it really got started.
http://encirca.com/

JetBlue Goes Wireless - As we have discussed previously on the Interactive Trend Report, the next big frontier for in-flight entertainment, or annoyance depending on your point-of-view, is in-flight wireless access. Earlier this month, JetBlue announced a basic pilot program (no pun intended) to test wireless access aboard one of there Airbus A320 jets, dubbed BetaBlue (how clever). While this service will be a reality for airline passengers in the near-future, it appears that JetBlue's wi-fi still has a few bugs to be worked out. But, with American Airlines, Virgin America, and Alaska Airlines all preparing to launch wireless access during the next year, you are not too far away from checking your email from 40,000ft. Or at least checking your favorite blog...this one!
http://blogs.zdnet.com/

People Don't Truly Care About Privacy - A very good post from Seth Godin, discusses the some of the latest news surrounding the idea of internet privacy and privacy in general, and why people don't really care about it. To quote from the post:

There's been a lot of noise about privacy over the last decade, but what most pundits miss is that most people don't care about privacy, not at all.

If they did, they wouldn't have credit cards. Your credit card company knows an insane amount about you.

What people care about is being surprised.

Exactly. Facebook's attempt at targeted ads encountered vocal opposition because the private information being collected was being used in an irresponsible manner...i.e., they surprised people. We all know we are being watched, just don't remind us of it.
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/

Score One for Consumers....

Under mounting pressure from its community and various consumer privacy groups, Facebook has moved to scale back its ambitious plans to publish accounts of its user’s purchases and other commercial actions publicly to their various friend groups. As of late Thursday, Facebook users must now proactively consent to alert friends whenever they take various actions, such a renting a DVD or purchasing a pair of sneakers. >>Full Story

Thoughts// Would you like your social network of friends alerted about every recipe you've saved on Epicurious.com, every flight you've booked on Travelocity or every movie purchase on Fandango? Facebook's controversial new ad platform "Beacon" was supposed to do just that...essentially telling your friends about your "vote of confidence" for these brands; and yes, these brands have a partnership with Facebook.

Sound big brother to you? More than 50,000 Facebook users did. In the face of a flurry of protests by both users and privacy groups, Facebook has scaled back the program. Users now have to explicitly give permission (opt in) before their purchases are announced to the world.

I suppose we could forgive Facebook for this misstep. In the midst of a meteoric growth in terms of users, third party applications and not to mention it's "media darling" status, perhaps Facebook forgot the carnal rule of digital marketing...it's PERMISSION based!

Is Social Media Killing the Campaign Microsite?

Digital advocates often proclaim the imminent death of the 30-second spot, but the interactive industry might now be witnessing the demise of its own version of the commercial: the campaign microsite.

The growth of social media is causing marketers to realize they cannot expect consumers to always seek them out. Web widgets and video-sharing tools make it easy for any user to take content that formerly might have lived only on a brand site with them wherever they go. And social media sites help them share that content with friends. >>Full Story

Thoughts// A pretty good and comprehensive article from AdWeek discussing some recent examples of social media in ad campaigns. While the article talks about how the 'microsite' may be on the way out, the more important lesson from this discussion is the distribution of content beyond a traditional, branded website (Haven't Mo and I been saying that for a while?).

Two great lines from the article:

"We really believe in fishing where the fish are," said Carol Kruse, vp of global interactive marketing at Coca-Cola.

The idea is to spread content far and wide to find audiences wherever they are.

Sounds easy. However, in visiting the aforementioned 'Sprite Sips' page on Facebook (pictured above) you will see that Mr. Sips only has 176 fans (as of 11/18) and many of the message board posts (or 'wall' for you Facebook fans) are not exactly positive...such as 'this sucks' and 'yeah, this sucks.'

The great marketing opportunities of social networking also bring great challenges as well.

Regardless of the vehicle...microsite or social networking site...marketers still have to give the audience something of value in return for there attention. Otherwise that boring content on your site simply becomes boring content on another site.

Social Sites Becoming Too Much Of A Good Thing

Aarica Caro is sick of sharing. That is, sharing online.

She has shared the lives of her cats. She has shared a list of her favorite television shows and movies ("Grey's Anatomy," chick flicks). She has shared her reviews of Bay Area haunts (two stars for the Old Spaghetti Factory in San Jose, five stars for the Starbucks in Morgan Hill). And she has been invited to share some more.

If you believe the buzz, the latest incarnation of the Web is all about sharing, connecting and community. Social networking sites such as MySpace and Palo Alto's Facebook have exploded in popularity, drawing new users into the fold each day. >>Full Story

Thoughts// A good article from the San Francisco Chronicle which raises the question of a social networking burnout. While the users featured in the article are certainly not representative of all social networking users, they do suggest that the wealth of social sites available to consumers is becoming a bit overwhelming.

Some of the attrition at these sites can simply be explained by users signing up to learn more about the service and then deciding the do not want to participate or just fading away. Of course, in the case of MySpace and Facebook, daily sign-ups are far out pacing this number.

However, the question is out there...with so many sites, major investors (who want major profits), scams and a host of other factors...how many social networking sites are too many? How long until the market is saturated? How long until there is consolidation (at least via profile) of these sites? Are the current group of social networking sites strong enough to remain relevant in 5 years?

Personally, I think we can start by consolidating catster and dogster into 'petster' (Don't bother looking up the domain name, I have already locked it up).

Travel Trends - 71Miles, Social Networking's Social Classes

71Miles - Half blog, half travel guide, 71Miles combines in-depth writing with the nimbleness of a blog to feature short, well-written articles on specific cities. Initially focused on Northern California, 71Miles combines (or mashes-up) several technologies, including Google Maps, Kayak.com, video slideshows and consumer comments to create a simple blog-post style travel guide.
http://71miles.com/

Social Networking's Social Classes - Emerging data suggest the two may not be direct competitors after all. The blogosphere is buzzing about a provocative June 24 essay by U.C. Berkeley researcher Danah Boyd suggesting that MySpace and Facebook users are dividing along race and class lines.
http://www.businessweek.com

Word of the Week - API

A very technical term, but one that is thrown around all too often by people who do not know what the word means. While the term can have several meanings, in a simplified 'Web 2.0' context, API or application programming interface, is talking about a single entry point that one computer system uses to 'talk' to another computer system.

Good examples of an API in use are the recent Facebook programs that have been created by outside programmers. These programmers can view the API or code and create computer systems or programs that will 'talk' to the Facebook site. Google Maps also is a good example of a widely used API.

APIs are the foundation upon which 'Mashups' are created. Without APIs, there would not be any mashups.