Welcome back from the holidays everyone. Rob and I have a ton of new things we want to talk about - candidly the semi-holiday did us good. (Semi, because we worked anyway…)

One of my latest obsessions has been Google Trends. Although it’s been around for a while now I never really took full advantage of it’s potential. I now find myself taking any subject, business, or brand that I become interested in and use Google Trends to plot how any one keyword tracks against it’s competitors.

I did a comparison of some of the largest social networks based on registered users. It was really interesting to see the rise of MySpace with the apparent fanfare that surrounded it then see the unbelievable surge of Facebook (in terms of searches being done for that keyword on Google). It surpassed MySpace in early 2008 which was somewhat in line with it’s status change as the new largest social network in the world.

If you click the link above you can also note the regions, city, and  languages that the keywords searchs have been the most active in. I’m continually surprised by how big Facebook is in Turkey.

As fascinating as all of this is (for nerds like me) - here’s the bit that really blew my mind.  Let’s do the same search with business social networks….

Business Social Network Search Trends

Plaxo seems to be running pretty consistently for the last four years - even the Comcast acquisition didn’t appear to do much to raise it’s profile. Naymz and Ryze are virtually off the radar (even though I find Naymz very useful). There’s no surprise that LinkedIn is going strong as the primary business social network in the United States, BUT where the hell did XING come from. I had no idea they were getting that much attention internationally. Visit the full Google Trends analysis to check out the regions, city, and languages of the most common searches.

I make a point of signing up most every social network (personal or business). Sometimes I use my real name and sometime I create dummy accounts just so I can sniff around without anyone hunting down my profile (for the advertising world). I recently signed up for XING. I had received a couple invites - primarily from friends in Asia and Germay and figured it was time to check it out.

Anyway, here’s my point. If the quantity of searches correlates to the popularity of a site then XING is the biggest contender to LinkedIn on a global level for the number one business social networking site. Combine that with the face that I believe Asia is the future center of the world then I think it’s essential to get registered on XING if you do business internationally. I think this XING has the right ingredients and has chosen the world’s largest growth markets to become, in time, the world dominant leader in business social networking.

I’m going to start using my XING account far more aggressively and I’ll keep you posted on how I think it’s evolving and how useful it is in business. It’s going to be a while before the traffic catches up, but it’s on the right path.

PS - If you use XING and/or want to sign-up. Visit my XING profile and add me as a friend: https://www.xing.com/profile/Freddie_Laker

9 out of 10 ads feature westerners.

I just spent the weekend in Singapore. It took 31 hours to get there. Thankfully I’m taking a pit stop in London on the way back to Miami.

I can honestly say that I love Singapore and could imagine myself living there. It has all the western amenities that I’m familiar with but with a heavy dose Asia. The reason I say a heavy dose - is because the western influence was really surprising to me.

Everything is in English (with Mandarin subtitles in some places) - even the road signs have the same design style as US road signs (green with a white ring - same font). The first day I got there I walked out the front door of my hotel and I didn’t stop walking for about 3 hours. I walked all the way to Orchard Road: the primary shopping district for the city-state. Along the way I made a point of walking down all kinds of side alleys with rows of asian food stalls. The authentic local food smelled great, looked great (aside from one shop advertising “Pig Organ Soup” as the name of the place), and made me feel for a moment that I was truly abroad.

Once I got back onto any main thoroughfare things started to change. I started to notice a patern in their advertising. All the ads that featured photography typically featured westerners. This really perplexed me.

I considered all kinds of alternatives. Is it because the culture here holds western culture in high regard? Was it just because they love western celebrities or was it that brands just were not investing in local celebrities for budget reasons?

I ended up asking as many locals as I could. They varied in descent from Chinese, Malay, to Indonesian. I was surprised by their response. Some claimed they just thought westerners “looked better”, other said they loved the western celebrities, but when I pressed the issue further they agreed that they would like to see more of their own celebrities, athletes, and actors in these ads.

I think there is a missed opportunity there for marketers. Why is no one there catching on to this? Am I missing something - if anyone has any insight please post a comment.

-Freddie

Chris Martin has said: “We’re definitely good, but I don’t think you can say we’re that original. I regard us as being incredibly good plagiarists.” I bet he wishes he hadn’t said that now…

Though what really caught my attention with all this is yet another use for YouTube. A video titled “Did Coldplay copy Joe Satriani?” was uploaded to YouTube comparing both songs and asking people to comment, using YouTube as a destination for generating discussions based on a hypothesis presented in a video format. The video is less than a week old and has over 1.5 million views and almost 12,000 comments.

With that said, I wish YouTube had a better comment management and filtering, allow to search on comments, filter by date, rating, display only your friends’ comments, etc …

So we’ve seen YouTube being used for entertainment, news, learning, gaming, advertising, and discussions… I can see YouTube using Google Friend Connect or if Google is smart, even Facebook Connect to gain a few new million users

The most popular matrix code is a QR Code, created by Japanese corporation Denso-Wave in 1994. The “QR” is derived from “Quick Response”, as the creator intended the code to allow its contents to be decoded at high speed. QR Codes are common in Japan, where they are currently the most popular type of two dimensional codes.

QR Codes are used in a broad context, including both commercial tracking applications and convenience-oriented applications aimed at mobile phone users (known as mobile tagging). QR Codes storing addresses and URLs may appear in magazines, on signs, buses, business cards or just about any object that users might need information about. Users with a camera phone equipped with the correct reader software can scan the image of the QR Code causing the phone’s browser to launch and redirect to the programmed URL. This act of linking from physical world objects is known as a hardlink or physical world hyperlinks. Users can also generate and print their own QR Code for others to scan and use by visiting one of several free QR Code generating sites.

I always thought that every Nike ID shoe should come with a Matrix Code for anyone to be able to scan it and launch the exact configuration to recreate it.

The latest addition to data mobility is the Audio Barcode: data embedded in sound waves that’s picked up by target devices with a microphone — mobile phones, for example –, analyzed by special software, and then extracted.

Data to be transmitted is superimposed (embedded) by Acoustic OFDM, the technology behind Audio Barcode, in such a way that it is not detected by listeners. With a transmission rate greater than 1kbps, a URL or simple text transmission takes a mere one to two seconds.

This technology has many uses… from being able to append artist urls to every song, dynamically embed DRM information, or even combine this with audio/visual such as movies to allow sending out product information on specific scenes without having to display or affect the video at all… Just think how much information can be embedded everywhere with all these techniques… I already use 2d Barcode applications on my iPhone and I can’t wait to install an Audio Bar reader.

Place your hand on a copy of Ad Age and repeat after me: “I am a responsible marketer. I swear I will not contribute to the death of Twitter.” OK, now that we’ve got that out of the way let’s look at five ways that we can end the Paradox of Interactive Marketing.

1. Read, Read, and Read
I consider myself to be an avid trend watcher but you don’t have to be overly fanatical about this process to be successful. There are plenty of people like me who are sharing their insights every day on their blogs or potentially within your agency. Check out alltop.com to see a brilliant aggregation of some of the web’s best blogs on specific subjects like marketing, social media or trend watching. These people have been doing all the hard work for you while you’ve been wasting time at night sleeping.

Read more here…

One of things I’m obviously passionate about is spotting new trends and potential new marketing opportunities. As marketers we’re all charged with looking for new opportunities to get our client’s brands out there, but to be successful we must be very conscious of timing. When is it too early to recommend a new medium or platform? When is it too late and you’re only adding to the clutter?

This problem is more acute in the digital and mobile space, thanks to the rapid evolution of technology. Let’s take a look at some of the more recent opportunities that I think have passed and use it as a platform to understand how to find the next big thing before it becomes just that — the next big thing.

Continue reading here…

The day started with a keynote from Jonathan Klein, President of CNN/US. John said that CNN embraces innovation, new technologies, new techniques, new trends, and urges all their employees to try new ideas. They have been using user generated content to get faster stories, they have a political blog aggregator that became the largest in the country, they have a program where an expert follows twitter feeds and answers questions and concerns online, in real time, they have a talk show where the host podcasts during commercials, linking the tv air experience with online / web experience. Another twitter fact is that CNN took 4 minutes to cover a recent earthquake in LA, whereas someone tweet it in 30 seconds. They also started providing more data for the next gen during the elections, especially seen during the debates; under the assumption that the younger gen can multitask and consume multiple feeds of information concurrently, they added the analysts’ opinions and scores during debates on side panels, as well as real time undecided voters conversions. Another link between air and web is John King’s touch screen; after the success of the John playing with the screen, they uploaded an interactive version to their site allowing anyone to play with it, just like on tv.

Overall, really interesting to see how traditional channels such as CNN is realizing and acknowledging the need to move towards digital channels, add social elements, and leverage user generated content.

Next, Geoff Ramsey, CEO for eMarketer, took over for 15 minutes to give us his seven strategies for surviving the downturn. In summary, the entire strategy is move media dollars from traditional to digital; it’s cheaper, more measurable, and provides better returns. 70% of marketers said they will cut budget for traditional ads, 30% said they already did … at the same time digital ad spend grew 17% in 2008, and it’s expected to continue to grow with double digits in 2009 … even if it only grows 9 or 10%, it’s better than negative numbers such as traditional media spend.

There were a few boring panels that I won’t mention, so I started talking to exhibitors and companies I found interesting. I will post more details later, but great new products by VeriSign, Akamai, Izea, and IdeaLaunch.

I tried to watch the TV 3.0 panel, but I really couldn’t stand it. What is up with the 3.0 buzzwords? Does anyone even know what 3.0 represents? I bet the panelists can’t even answer what would be the difference between TV 2.0 and 3.0 …. if we can even say 3.0 is here. For our readers, TV 2.0 includes P2PTV, HDTV, IPTV, Streaming Video, and mobile TV.

So what is TV 3.0?

“The first I heard of it (TV 3.0) was when I was invited to this panel”, responded Michael Steib, the director of TV Ads at Google (I appreciate his acknowledgement of the made-up buzz word). In TV 3.0 there is a proliferation of channels, people are watching TV in different places (online, DVR, etc) and at different times. Connecting advertisers and audiences as people start to watch TV in new and different times and places.

Here is the billion dollar question: will TV networks be able to make up the ad revenue lost from the shift away from traditional TV? People will watch 400 billion hours on their TV and watch 10 million hours of online video – online is still a small segment. For networks to stay afloat, they need to either increase the # of ads 4x versus what they are showing now, or increase the effectiveness. The solution? Technology: it can be used in 2 ways to help solve this problem. The first is better targeting, and the second is by using technologies to improve the effectiveness of the interaction or ad that is served (ie. rich media).

Stay tuned for Ad:Tech NY 2008 - Day 2.

They’ve managed to inspire a multitude of hate websites from ihatecomcast.com to comcastsucks.org. If you search Comcast on Google there is a video result showing a Comcast technician sleeping on a customer’s couch. I frequently talk about how a brand’s perception is now being defined not only by their own messaging, but by the content consumers are creating and permeating search, media sharing sites, and viral jokes. Comcast is case study example number one.

Normally I like to pick on Comcast, but today I want to commend them. They’ve done something that every major business should do. They’ve created a team for searching for references or conversations about their brand and addressing them in a positive way. They’re not slapping customers with law suits, but sending them messages of apology, encouragement, and advice. They’re engaging in forums, comments on blogs, and sending personalized emails or phone calls.

This isn’t propaganda. It’s proactive customer service and it’s the new model to create a positive customer experience. If your customer’s are creating commentary on your brand and making it part of public record - why shouldn’t you respond to them and add your two cents to the conversation. Ultimately that’s what the social web is all about - collaboration, open communication, and community building.

Big business, if you’re listening, this is the future. If you want to build a lasting relationship with your customers join their community and you’ll always be remembered as a friendly face. Congrats to Frank Eliason, senior director of digital care, you’re going to make a very positive impact on the business.

(Now let’s see if any of they’re people find this and leave a comment….)

OpenSocial didn’t take off nearly as fast as I thought it would. I had always assumed that when MySpace enabled it that adoption would pick-up rapidly. LinkedIn has now finally enabled it and I believe future tech like Google Friend Connect (which also uses OpenSocial) will really push this application platform over the top.

I installed two applications immediately. An application to quickly and easily port this blog to my profile as well an application that scans twitter with references to my company. The two apps are called Wordpress and Company Buzz respectively.

The installation was easy in terms of the number of clicks, but there were some bugs. LinkedIn didn’t acknowledge that the application was complete and the apps were only working intermittently when I viewed my profile. On the basis that I got the email they were launching this at 12.21 AM and blogged about it at 1.35 AM I’m going to cut them some slack. Hopefully it will work a bit better by the time you check it out.

If you haven’t got a LinkedIn profile yet your missing out. Social networking in the business space is equally as interesting as Facebook or MySpace. It’s just harder to pick up a date on LinkedIn…

Facebook embraced what I believe builds the most successful new model businesses successes on the web. They created an open platform and let user innovation drive the direction of their business. Unfortunately, like most open platforms, it got out of control. People abused their rights in an effort to push their application to the top. The constant stream of invitations to join applications became one of the number one gripes of Facebook users as they felt they were being aggressively “spammed” (even if it was by their friends).

Facebook has been re-evaluating it’s infrastructure quite a bit these days. A new Facebook layout, for better or worse, has been released. Additionally they have been making some heavy changes to how applications were handled within the system beyond the presentation layer.

The obvious change that you would have noticed includes shifting all of your applications mini-views to a tab on your profile called “Boxes”. Really? They couldn’t name it “applications” or “apps” so it was even mildly intuitive. It’s bad enough that they’re now treating the application concept they popularized as the ugly step-child, but this is just adding insult to injury. I wish they made the tab name “don’t click here” - it would probably get more people to check it out.

Beyond the user interface changes the whole process of migrating to the new system was painful for both our team and our clients. Applications stopped functioning properly and this lead to poor experiences for our application’s users. The latest news is that once a user has opted to install an application they will have to go to a separate page to enable the mini-view for the “boxes” page and also to allow for mini-feeds that include pictures. This will effectively inhibit the experience on all new installations on existing and new applications.

This could have all been avoided with better communication and coordination.

Facebook as a company embraced working with the general public (which included bed room developers and global digital agencies like Sapient) and for this I applauded them. We all happilly contributed our time, experience, and money to create an enriched experience for Facebook’s users. Unfortunately Facebook runs their development process with complete disregard for it’s users. This was obvious in the way they handled Beacon and it became obvious again in the way they’re now handing applications.

Now Facebook application developers are having to re-design their applications to make them successful within the new rules. I’m not convinced that older applications are going to re-engineer very well, but there is almost certainly an opportunity to design a clever application that plays within the rules and focus on the incredibly mini-feed centric new layout.

Unfortunately I think this has really left a bitter taste in the application development community. As we watch diminishing returns on our applications will we be motivated to continue to develop them? I’m not concerned that irreparable damage has been done to the application platform in terms of it’s perception by users and developers. If nothing else it’s going to take sometime for it to recover and people to find a balance that allows it to return to it’s exciting beginnings.

There were so many smarter ways to handle this. Couldn’t they have taken the “like / don’t like” functionality on the mini-feed and aggregated the sentiment globally and used this information to push down all overly intrusive and annoying applications?