ImaginativePRO Blog

BIG BUSINESSES IN THE U.K. AND EUROPE DOUBT SOCIAL MEDIA POTENTIAL FOR GENERATING REVENUES, SEE NO POSITIVE ROI

 

The majority of large businesses in the U.K. and Europe don't believe social media has a positive ROI, which is the opposite of what small to medium businesses are finding. So who's right? CBR's Tinema Smith reports

Love it or loathe it, social media is now a firm fixture in many people's lives, with analysts saying that a full 25% of all online activity today occurs on social media channels.

From Twitter to LinkedIn, the web today is awash with users collaborating, researching and even making purchasing decisions on social networking sites.

However, there is a marked difference between the approach taken to social network engagement between larger organisations and small to medium businesses (SMBs). The latter appear to be taking to the new channels with gusto, whereas research just out from the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) found larger organisations could not disagree more.  

The CIM survey of almost 1,000 marketers at larger organisations, located mainly in the UK and Western Europe, found the following when it comes to social media:

• One-third DO NOT believe social media is at all effective.
• Large businesses are not using social media on a daily basis, which suggests that many are unaware of how social media engagement really works, or how to leverage it to see positive return on time and investment.
• larger companies still felt that social media DOES NOT provide commercial potential. The idea that the use of social media can help in attracting new customers was met with doubt.
• The marketers' overall view of the effectiveness of social media channels was quite low, with fewer than one in five rating highly any of the four channels, while significantly more said using social media platforms was 'not effective' rather than 'effective'.
• Twitter and Facebook usage varied among businesses. 
  • Nearly 40% of businesses surveyed reported using them once a day or more.
  • 37% said they use them several times a week to once a week.
  • 25% reported using them even less frequently.
• 33% said that in 2011 their use of social media was 'just experimenting'. This raises doubts if businesses really know about the basics of social media as the four social media platforms used in the survey - Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube - are all well established globally.
• LinkedIn and Twitter were ranked among the highest social media platforms for sourcing new customers, generating inquiries, performing market research and intelligence as well as promoting brand and reputation.
• The top reasons businesses reported as to why they use social media were supporting aspects of a campaign, regular communication with current customers and adding value to the company's reputation.
• Less than 10% of marketers believe their skills are optimal for 2012, and 20% of businesses acknowledge they are ill-equipped in the area of social media. 
• 25% of those interviewed have yet to address the lack of competency in their social media interactions, suggesting social media-savvy staff are few and far between, particularly in the large enterprise group.

These findings show that marketers are struggling to understand the benefits of frequently and consistently engaging on social media platforms.

The CIM research also revealed that many marketers do not believe that social media could help with gaining new customers, preferring to stick to traditional marketing methods. Businesses preferred to use social media only to interact with existing customers.

Social media is an investment that requires continuous attention. The level of engagement needed for it does not typically accompany that of traditional media, and it is rather different from more traditional communication and marketing channels.

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UK head of display for YouTube, Dara Nasr, tells CBR that social media marketing within businesses is essential.  He says.  

"25% of all online activity is social media.  If more and more people are spending time online in social media, that's where they're spending their leisure time. That's the whole point of marketing: to hit people where they're spending their time."

Small businesses

It's a very different story, however, in the SMB segment, where research suggests businesses are finding that social media interactions can bring in business. A 2011 study by Constant Contact revealed that 45% of SMEs in the UK and US believe that social media worked well when interacting with customers and promoting their brand.

The Constant Contact and CIM research findings reveal that large businesses and SMBs have different approaches to utilising social media.

Further research from Constant Contact as we went to press revealed that while social media use among SMBs is actually under 50% today, only four out of 10 firms in this category said they feel they need to know more about how to use social media marketing.

The Constant Contact study also saw an increase of 24% in the number of SMBs reporting that social media was easier to navigate than the year before, and a 45% rise in businesses saying it worked well with customers. Some 81% of UK and US SMBs reported that they dedicate a significant amount of time to social media, up 8% from the year before.

The general manager of Constant Contact, Mark Schmulen, says small businesses are becoming increasingly aware of the power of social media.  Schmulen says.  

"They are still learning how social media marketing can help them grow their customer relationships.  Just six months ago they were learning the ropes and finding out what social media marketing tools were available, now they are beginning to understand more about what social media marketing can do for them."

SMBs have started to become aware of the growing consumer desire to communicate across social media platforms, with 60%saying they have started consistently speaking with consumers in this way.

Schmulen says.  

"Plain and simple, customers want small businesses to interact with them, whether that's on email or via their social media platform of choice, be it Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. It's a great example of how small businesses are taking advantage of their smaller scale to make a huge impact with these tools." 

The Constant Contact report supports a recent study by Deloitte, which estimated that social networking site Facebook supports the UK economy to the tune of £2bn a year.

Meanwhile, the founder and CEO of freelance job site PeoplePerHour.com, Xenios Thrasyvoulou, believes sites such as Facebook should be regarded as much more than just a social network.

Thrasyvoulou says.  

"There's a perception that Facebook is almost exclusively used for personal relationships, but that couldn't be further from the truth.  As our survey findings demonstrate, Facebook is an increasingly crucial technology for businesses as well."

The COO of Facebook, Sheryl Sandberg, argues that social media increases business growth. In a statement on Deloitte's findings about Facebook's impact on the economy, Sandberg says:

"Increasingly, social media means growth and jobs. Social media is proving particularly valuable for small and medium-sized businesses, which form the backbone of the European economy."

So why are large businesses finding social media ineffective? Debby Penton, managing director at public relations firm EML Wildfire, believes that brands need to understand that social media marketing is completely different from traditional marketing.

Penton says.  

"To be truly effective, social media requires a different mindset entirely to traditional 'push marketing'.  Brands haven't factored this into their thinking when using social media. With correct foresight and planning, social media can be a wonderfully effective and cost-efficient way of developing relationships with end users and achieving bottom-line returns."

Simplifying

The majority of marketers believe that 'doing' social media is more important than listening when engaging on social media platforms, according to CIM's research.

One of the biggest benefits in social media is the ability to see what large amounts of consumers think about a brand, and listening on social media platforms is a vital way of knowing what consumers want. The fact that most marketers think listening on social media platforms is unimportant shows that large businesses have a long way to go in terms of understanding how to leverage these new channels.

Businesses may also need to get comfortable with being uncomfortable on social media platforms.

LinkedIn's EMEA marketing solutions director, Josh Graff, in response to the research released by the CIM says.

"Social media is like teenage sex - everyone wants to do it. When they do they're a bit disappointed, but they practice and it gets much better." 

Graff's telling analogy means that businesses should be investing ample time on social media platforms, trying new methods and generally familiarising themselves with social media sites and the social landscape.

The best way to get to know social media is to encourage staff to use it and understand its nuances, while planning a social media strategy rather than simply attempting one-off campaigns is also sensible. The usual preparation that you would expect in other fields - for example staff training, setting a social media policy for the group and monitoring activity for success and failure - all apply to social media.

Investing ample time in social media platforms while engaging on a frequent basis could be the key to helping larger organisations see positive returns from social media presence. After all, if SMBs can make social media work for their businesses it seems counter-intuitive that their larger counterparts should not be able to find their own value from social media engagement.

COMMENTARY:    I think that the main reason why so many big businesses in the U.K. and Europe, and the U.S. to a large extent, doubt the commercial value of social media is because they are a more sophisticated than SMB's when it comes to measuring the effectiveness and ROI's of their media spending.  Traditional media has proven and verifiable measurement metrics so it is a lot easier to measure effectiveness and financial ROI's.  

• Print publication can provide audited paid circulation numbers including demographics.  
• Television and radio broadcasters can provide the number of viewers/listeners by gender, by program and by day part (time slot) based on sampled data collected by Nielsen (TV) and Arbitron (radio).  
• Direct marketing campaigns are based on mailing lists.  You know how many people are included in the mailing list (email or direct mail). You know the cost of the list, the printed piece, the cost of postage and emailings.   You know the total cost per thousand,

The revenues generated from traditional media can be tied back to the individual print ad, television program or direct marketing campaigns, so that you can measure the effectiveness of the media and financial ROI's

With social media, measurement metrics are often non-financial, measuring reach and engagement. A company running traditional and social media campaigns together, may not always be able to tie back revenues generated from its media spending back to its social media campaigns, so its difficult to measure effectiveness and financial ROI.   Pressing the "Like" button on Facebook, a +1 on Google+ or doing a Retweet (RT) on Twitter may not always result in a sale.   In fact, its been found that there is often no direct correlation between likes, +1's and RT's with actual revenues.  Clickthroughs can be tracked, but how many sales resulted from a "Like" or comment appearing in a newstream.  In fact, up to 50% of clickthroughs are errors.  The result is that it can become very difficult to measure social media effectiveness and financia ROI's. That's the conumdrum of social media. 

Courtesy of an article dated March 6, 2012 appearing CBR Online 

HOW NEUROFOCUS, A BERKELEY NEUROSCIENCE RESEARCH COMPANY, HAS IDENTIFIED HOW MEN'S AND WOMEN'S BRAINS DIFFER

 

It’s a known fact that there are vast differences between how men and women think and process information.  Yet some marketing experts believe many companies still can’t get it right when it comes to tailoring marketing to the sexes.  Dr. K.A. Pradeep, the CEO of Nielsen NeuroFocus, a Berkeley, California-based neuroscience research company, explains what companies should know about gender differences in the brain.

 

Dr. A.K. Pradeep of Berkeley's Neurofocus explains why he wrote the book about using neuroscience for marketing. Filmed by AVC with two hi-def cameras and a green screen, the video helps market Dr. Pradeep's book. To learn more about The Buying Brain, visit Neurofocus athttp://www.neurofocus.com/

In a blog post dated October 18, 2011, I profiled NeuroFocus and its newest product:  Mynd, the world's first portable, wireless electroencephalogram (EEG) scanner. The skullcap-size device sports dozens of sensors that rest on a subject's head like a crown of thorns. With Mynd, users can capture, amplify, and instantaneously dispatch a subject's brain waves in real time, via Bluetooth, to another device--a remote laptop, say, an iPhone, or that much-beloved iPad.

An attractive female subject is shown wearing NeuroFocus' Mynd portable EEG scanner:

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Here's a great video demonstrating NeuroFocus' Mynd, the world's first portable, wireless and wearable EEG scanner:

 

They found some major innate variances in the neuro make-up of women and men. For example, female brains have a larger prefrontal cortex which has an impact on emotions, and the regulation of emotions, so emotions are a primary way to get through to women.  And females tend to be more social, empathetic, and verbal than men.

 

In the above video titled, "The See-Through Consumer," A.K. Pradeep, the CEO of NeuroFocus, discusses the ways in which neuroscience, technology, and big data have enabled companies to know more about their customers than ever before. The session was moderated by Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran, China business and finance editor for The Economist, at The Economist's Ideas Economy: Innovation 2012 event in Berkeley, California.

Another big difference is that women have a larger corpus callosum, which is like an eight-lane superhighway connecting the right and left parts of the brain. Female brains distribute their thinking quickly, and can multitask - it comes naturally to them. It’s also significant that the hippocampus is bigger in women, so the level of nuance in emotional details is much greater. A man might remember the day he proposed; whereas a woman can likely tell you everything about that day

Advertisers have heard all the same Venus/Mars clichés and Louis C.K. monologues that consumers have. That said, some marketing experts, including A.K. Pradeep, believe that many companies still can’t tell their estrogen from their testosterone. The CEO of Nielsen NeuroFocus, a Berkeley, Calif.-based neuroscience research company acquired by Nielsen last year, tells Marketing Daily what companies should know about gender differences in the brain.

Q: What’s one of the major misunderstandings that marketers have about the way the brain works?

A: We’re all very keen to segment consumers into various groups, but that misses the fact that Mother Nature has already done a segmentation -- she calls it men and women. Marketing needs to honor that segmentation. 

Q: So what are some of the major differences?

A: Female brains have a larger prefrontal cortex. That has an impact on emotions, and the regulation of emotions, and so emotions are a primary way to talk to her. There’s also more intuitive reasoning. The portion of the brain that is responsible for worry is also somewhat larger. 

Another big difference is that women have a larger corpus callosum, which is like an eight-lane superhighway connecting the right and left parts of the brain. Female brains distribute their thinking quickly, and can multitask. It comes naturally to them. It’s also significant that the hippocampus is bigger in women, so the level of nuance in emotional details is much greater. A man might remember the day he proposed; a woman can likely tell you everything about that day. 

In men, there is a larger parietal lobe, which means they tend to be better at spatial perception. They like images better than reading. And the larger amygdala in men results in more aggression.

Q: How can that inform marketing?

A: Well, it helps to know that women tend to be more social, empathetic, and verbal. She is a multitasker and a big-picture thinker. So for example, we can show men and women an image of someone drinking a beverage, and their brains react about the same. But then if we show someone drinking that beverage, and then touching someone else on the shoulder, the women’s brains tend to really light up. The image of someone drinking something doesn’t create much of a response at all. But when it is shown with a social interaction, it does.

Q: What’s the impact of the emotive difference?

A: We don’t know why, but women have a better-developed suite of emotions. Women smile a lot more than men. Female infants make eye contact many times more than boys. Eye contact is critical in connecting to women. When girls play or do any cooperative activity, they are more than 20 times as likely to take turns as boys -- 20 times!

Q: But women are also very smart shoppers, and very rational. 

A: Yes. But they respond better to pitches with a combination of fact and feeling. A low price is a fact. A happy price is one that is low, and also emotive. 

Q: So that’s what she likes. What turns her off?

A: Stress. Conflict. We know that cortisol -- the stress hormone -- actually stays in women’s bodies longer than men, so she is conflict-avoidant. 

Q: Which companies get it right?

A: I won’t name names. But in general, I see many health and beauty companies getting it right, combining messages for women in a way that is most likely to appeal to them. The worst are CPG companies, which is interesting -- it’s a trillion-dollar space, and women do most of the purchasing. 

COMMENTARY:    There's no doubt in my mind that men and women think differently, and those differences are very important for brand marketer's to understand when marketing their products to either gender.  

The fact that so few brand marketers actually take the time to understand what goes on inside the human brain and how consumers respond when presented with similar product choices is a missed opportunity for them to design their products in such a way as to elicit the most positive reactions to their products.  

Neuroscience is still in its infancy, but you can bet that in another 10 years, the adoption of neuroscience in marketing decisions will not only become commonplace, but necessary in designing products, its packaging and even pricing it right.

The Science of Neuromarketing

The new science of neuromarketing explores the dynamics of consumer purchase decisions, customer brand affinity, and customer brand engagement.  Neuroscience research is increasingly clear that many of the decisions people make about what products they will buy or what services they will use are a result of intuition and unconscious mental processes rather than analysis or reasoning. Consumers have emotional responses and logical responses to marketing and advertising. And in both types of responses can occur on a conscious basis or an unconscious basis.

Experts at NeuroFocus suggest that approximately 11 million bits of sensory information is processed by the human brain every second. But only 40 bits of sensory information is processed consciously - this is all the conscious mind can handle - and all the rest of the information is processed unconsciously.

Advertising and marketing efforts are part of the universe of sensory information that the brain processes every day in a typical environment in the developed world. Images used in advertising, colors and designs used in packaging, music and fragrances associated with services, and the rich attribute sets of products themselves are all subject to the conscious and unconscious sorting that happens in the marketplace.

Brand Engagement Begins at Birth

American children are exposed to an enormous amount of advertisement. The marketplace is very good at schooling children in brand awareness. According to a research conducted by Nickelodeon, the time children turn about 10 years old, they know about 400 brands. Child psychologists at the Wright Institute in Berkeley, a private college offering masters and doctoral programs in clinical psychology and counseling psychology, say this figure is up from an average of 100 brand logos at the tender age of three. That is an increase of 300 percent in just three short years. As market researchers, we might ask how this level of brand awareness is developed.

Survey research conducted by SIS International Research indicates that people tend to use brands that they have vague memories about which extend back to their childhood. This is true for 53 percent of the adults and 56 percent of the teenagers who were surveyed. The survey data indicates that this most true for household good, beverages, and food - all brands that tend to be passed down from generation to generation. A review of when Proctor and Gamble introduced some of their brands gives a good picture of how this takes place. The age Proctor and Gamble's brands can come as a big surprise to consumers.

About 20 years ago, little children were as familiar with the Joe Camel character on a pack of cigarettes as they were with the cartoon drawing of Mickey Mouse, the Disney character.   Most people would agree that children are knowledge sponges and that they soak up much more information than can adequately be measured.  Some of the information that children process is subconscious, just as it is for adults. But a good share of brand-related knowledge acquired by children is consciously acquired, tied as it is to social status.  In fact, some market research firms that focus on learning about what children think about products and services relevant to their lives.

Courtesy of an article dated May 21, 2012 appearing in MediaPost Publications Marketing Daily, an article titled "Brand Affinity and Neuromarketing" appearing in About.com Market Research

THE CAVE: AN INFLATABLE GEODESIC TENT THAT SETS UP AND BREAKS DOWN IN MINUTES AND FOLDS INTO ITS OWN BAG

IT’S LIKE THE 1970S ARE GOING CAMPING…IN A GOOD WAY!

The modern tent is a pretty amazing invention. Constructed of everyday materials like nylon and fiberglass, it can spring from backpacks to offer shelter in some of the worst outdoor conditions. But could we do better? Of course, we can always do better.

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‘The Cave’--designed by Frackenpohl Poulheim to be sold under the Heimplanet brand--is a tent with no poles. Instead, this shelter deploys an inflatable diamond grid--a geodesic dome--to support the structure. It’s kind of like a moon bounce without the bounce, a tent that pops out in a minute with a bicycle pump and deflates without any effort at all.

 

The inflatable frame has several advantages, aside from a dome’s inherent spaciousness. You’ll never curse over those strange modular poles again. And more importantly, you won’t have to worry about poking one of those poles through your tent in the process. As fragile as the Cave’s pool animal technology may appear, it can actually withstand winds up to 75mph, and the grid exoskeleton is actually split into five double-layered modules, meaning that if one pops, the tent will keep standing.

 

It’s almost an amazing idea. Practically speaking, however, inflatable structures may work better for larger scale emergency response--like the hospitals used by Doctors WIthout Borders--than backcountry camping. A hiker would find the pump unwieldy in a pack. And while the Cave may just take a minute to deploy, the modern tent doesn’t take much longer. For those camping well away from civilization, saving a few minutes at a campsite might not be worth the risk of sleeping under something that could leak or pop, however unlikely that outcome may be. Inflatable structures save a lot of time at scale. But for smaller, one-room abodes, that time savings is tougher to appreciate.

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All of that said, were I filming some sci fi movie taking place a decade in the future, the Cave certainly fits the idealistic bill. Then again, I still have a soft spot for Epcot.

COMMENTARY:    I am not much of a camper, but if you are, I hope you found The Cave inflatable geodesic tent interesting.  I like the fact that it comes packed in its own bag with a shoulder harness, you can set it up in a just a few minutes with a hand airpump, and can deflate and fold it up for packing in very short order.   Inflatable tents are nothing new, they have been around for quite a while.  I actually saw something similar in QVC once.  

German product designer Frackenpohl Poulheim has designed some really slick products. Checkout their website.  I love their Myon Robot.

Courtesy of an article dated June 13, 2012 appearing in Fast Company Design

 

FACEBOOK TO LIFT BAN ON KIDS UNDER-13, DATA COULD HELP TARGET PARENTS WITH ADS, WHY THIS IS A BAD IDEA

If Facebook opens its wildly popular network to kids under 13, it may not resist the urge to monetize the millions of new users it stands to gain by lowering the minimum age through advertising.

Marketers and agency executives are split as to whether the move will facilitate a new channel for brands to target and advertise to children, but most agree that Facebook could fulfill a largely unmet need by simply creating a popular and safe place for children online.

Access to a wider, younger audience on Facebook could open a vast untapped opportunity for brands, but if advertising is part of the mix it would also open another door for privacy advocates and regulators to chastise the site for putting advertising revenue above child privacy. Currently, Facebook only allows kids over 13 years old to join in the fun, but there are already untold millions of younger members who joined by providing a false age.

Facebook is developing technology that would allow pre-teens to use the site under adult supervision, according to a June 4 Wall Street Journal report, but following its messy initial public offering and years-long battle over privacy controls, some are wondering if this might be more trouble than it's worth.

Paul Kurnit, professor of marketing at Pace University and founder of KidShop, a marketing and communications firm specializing in targeting kids said. 

"I think Facebook is certainly willing to take that step.   They've certainly been brash and bold.  It's just too big an opportunity for them to get it wrong.  The opportunity for Facebook, the opportunity for marketers is just huge."

Facebook has an opportunity to enable kids as a community to promote a healthier lifestyle, said Kurnit.   Kurnit said.  

"The ante in the game will be to get parental permission. Once you have parental permission in the online space, the ability to relate to kids, market to kids and collect data on kids opens an entirely new frontier.  I fully expect within the next three years the face of marketing and advertising to kids will change dramatically." 

Josh Koster, managing partner at Chong + Koster, a firm that has handled online ads for children's brands suggests.

"Fundamentally, there is no Nickelodeon of the Internet.  There is no safe, all encompassing place where parents can be sure their kids will be okay and brands can ensure exposure in a reasonable way.   If you don't give kids a safe place to hang out online, it's worse for everyone involved. Even if Facebook never runs a single ad to kids, there's a need for somebody to create that space.  And honestly, they could monetize that platform just by using the data to help improve parental targeting."

In other words, kids' interactions on Facebook could inform targeting of ads aimed at their parents.

Koster believes Facebook can effectively leverage data on children under 13 years old without ever crossing the line into advertising or brand targeting. Parents are one of the most valuable targets to market to throughout the country, and Facebook could create tremendous value by effectively linking parents to their children online.   He said.  

"I'd be more surprised about the ad product than the social network for kids. I honestly don't think they need the ad product to monetize."

Besides, almost every kid will eventually turn 13 someday, and when they do Facebook could begin targeting and advertising to them immediately, Koster added. There is little to suggest that Facebook plans to make money off children through advertising and targeting, and as a result, none of the marketers ClickZ spoke with were willing to discuss how they might use Facebook to target kids directly.  In fact, most marketers, agency executives and brands don't even want to touch the subject.

Though there are very specific rules about how to market to children under 13 as a result of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998, Facebook already has a reputation for pushing the envelope on privacy by frequently changing user controls and confusing them with unclear language.

Brands are going to be uncomfortable targeting children on Facebook anyway, said Adam Broitman, chief creative strategist at Something Massive. Broitman asked.

"From the agency perspective, what is my incentive to...recommend that one of my clients be at risk in this environment where someone might get upset?  Facebook ads have worked great for us in many ways, but I feel that it's not great enough that I would take a chance losing a client."

Broitman doesn't necessarily specialize in marketing to children under 13 years old, but he did target the age group during a campaign for Right Guard and he is gearing up for a campaign for another brand targeting pre-teens in the coming months.

Broitman said.  

"It is something that would be very valuable to brands to have this channel, this connection, but the more that I think about it, these channels do exist.   I think a lot of brands may not want to touch this."

Broitman continued by adding that there are safer means to target children online.

Kevin Ryan, founder and CEO of Motivity Marketing, takes a more positive view of the changes reportedly coming to Facebook. There are sophisticated means for protecting children online, Ryan said, and he's confident in law-enforcement agencies' ability to reduce the impact of predators to the extent where it won't be an issue for Facebook and kids.

Ryan said.

"Marketing to kids has always been the same way -- you get the kids hopped up on it and then the parents have to validate.  I think there's a really good opportunity to responsibly market to kids on Facebook, much in the same way kids are marketed to now."

Brands who want to market to children under 13 on Facebook, should do so in a largely positive manner, Ryan said. Interactive nutrition applications or other healthy-lifestyle campaigns that drive awareness about primarily indisputable issues will move the needle in Facebook's favor, he said.

COMMENTARY:   When I first heard that Facebook was planning on removing the restriction that prevents children under-13 from having a Facebook page, then advertise to them, I said to myself:   NO WAY.  

If Zuck has any decency left in him, he should resist advertising to kids under 13 years old.   I know there are a lot of parents out there that don't give a shit about the kind of content their young children watch on television, but I do.  I've read the studies about how constant exposure to television has affected a child's social development especially during their formative pre-school through pre-teen years.  It leads to violent and unruly behavior, lack of respect for others, poor health due to eating foods with too much sugar, salt and fat, and bad behaiors, including use of foul language.  

Kids live in a fantasy world often created by what they watch and hear on television.  This includes the TV commercials, many which are targeted to adults, but watched by young children.  A lot of parents simply do not have the time to properly supervise their children's television viewing, in fact, many of them have learned to rely on television as a sort of digital "baby-sitter," while take a rest or prepare dinner after a long and pressure-filled day at work.

There's really no way you are going to prevent a young child from clicking on an online display ad. Many of them are already tech savvy, often using their parents iPhones and iPads.  Children are too immature and have no sense of self-control.  Advertisers are going to take full advantage of that lack of self-control, temptation and curiosity by advertising to them.    

In 2011, Facebook (plus Twitter and Google) was placed on 20-year probation by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for violating the privacy of its users.  That probation includes annual privacy audits to insure that it is in compliance with the privacy requirements imposed under the probation.  Facebook is definitely asking for problems if they allow advertisers to target children under-13 years of age.  

Some of the above advertising and marketing people make no bones that they consider children an "untapped market" which should be monetized.  I am not one of them, and I disagree vehemently with any advertiser, advertising agency or marketing company that its aiming its sights on children. It's a bad idea.  Please don't do it.

Courtesy of an article dated June 13, 2012 appearing in ClickZ 

TWITTER ADDS EXPANDED CONTENT VIEW TO TWEETS, ALLOWS TEXT, IMAGES AND VIDEOS TO BE VIEWED IN THE NEWSTREAM

Twitter Inc. said users of its microblogging service who post links to other websites will be able to see an expanded view of content from new partner sites, such as the Wall Street Journal and MSNBC.

The company, which lets users share 140-character messages, said the expanded postings will show video, photos and longer excerpts of news stories from a broader list of media partners. The service begins rolling out to website and mobile users June 13, 2012, Michael Sippey, product team director at San Francisco- based Twitter, said in a blog post.

Sample of Twitter's expanded content feature showing a tweet from the Los Angeles Times

Brian Blau, an analyst at Gartner Inc said.

“This is going to cause people to stay on twitter.com, because all of the sudden you have a little bit more information.  You can read the next tweet and stay on the site, being a more valuable consumer of the site.”

The service will be available on Twitter for Apple Inc.’s iPhone and for devices that use Google Inc.’s Android soon, Sippey said. The company, with more than 140 million users, expects to generate at least $1 billion in sales in 2014, two people with knowledge of the matter have said, based on advertising demand.

COMMENTARY:    I love Twitter's new expanded content feature.  Sort of reminds one of Google's web view during searches.   But, why just offer expanded content to partner sites like The Wall Street Journal @wsj and  MSNBC @msnbc, when you can offer this to other users.  I would gladly pay a small fee so that my Twitter followers can view some of the content of my blog posts. This could be quite a revenue generator.   The idea of showing text, image and video content right on your Twitter newstream is quite exciting.  

Courtesy of an article dated June 13, 2012 appearing in Bloomberg Businessweek

FACEBOOK TO LAUNCH FACEBOOK AD EXCHANGE FOR REAL-TIME BIDDING OF BEHAVIORALLY-TARGETED 'MARKETPLACE' ADS

Facebook has confirmed that it's launching a real-time ad exchange, which allows advertisers for the first time to target audiences on Facebook using their own first-party data and data from third parties.

Now advertisers will be able to pinpoint web users who've visited travel sites and scoured rates for a Puerto Vallarta vacation but didn't pull the trigger on buying a trip and then show them a Facebook ad to remind them of their previous intent. It's a way for intent to finally be layered onto Facebook ads and to potentially make it more appealing for direct-response advertisers in categories like travel, hospitality or education that shovel money to Google for paid search ads.

These aren't the social, brand-focused "sponsored stories" that appear in user news feeds, but the display "marketplace" ads that appear on the right rail, the closest thing to traditional ads on the social network.

Facebook Exchange will debut in the next few weeks, and eight Demand Side Platforms (DSPs) and retargeting firms will be cleared to buy the inventory: TellApart, Triggit, Turn, DataXu, MediaMath, AppNexus, The Trade Desk and AdRoll, according to spokeswoman Annie Ta.

Click Image To View Video

A Demand Side Platform, or DSP, is an online advertising platform that makes it easier for an advertiser to buy and sell online display advertising on multiple ad exchanges.  DSPs also allow advertisers and brands to buy audiences rather than specific website ad placements through technology called real-time bidding. The DSPs use behavioral targeting data, collected from cookies and data exchanges, to identify audience segments.  The advertiser then uses that targeting data to define what kind of person they want to target with their advertising and how much they are willing to pay per impression. Then the DSP bids on the ad impressions using that advertiser’s criteria and budget, and serves the ads.

The third parties will sync the cookies they've dropped on users with a Facebook cookie to anonymously serve ads to users, but no Facebook targeting options can be layered on top of their buys. Advertisers will only be able to tap into the inventory through the eight third parties, said spokeswoman Annie Ta. News of Facebook's exchange was first reported by Bloomberg.

AdRoll President Adam Berke said the arrangement with Facebook will operate much the way that company's retargeting of first-party traffic on Google, Microsoft, or Yahoo's display networks currently works.  He said, noting that retargeted ads tend to have higher click-through rates.

"We think it's going to add a lot of value to Facebook inventory the way it's added value for other display inventory sources." 

But it's not just about retargeting someone who may have visited a brand's site and is now logged onto Facebook; it's also about reaching segments of people whose demographic profile is a match with the typical buyer of the brand's product or service.

Advertisers want to target people in those segments in real time wherever they are on the web. But they haven't been able to reach those people on Facebook up to now with a single cross-platform media buy, says Mike Baker, CEO of Dataxu.   He said.  

"Facebook's sort of been a walled garden up to now."

The launch of Facebook Exchange also represents a sea change in Facebook's attitude toward advertising, since the company has historically urged marketers to buy ads that point within Facebook for purchases. It's also significant since Facebook's IPO roadshow was all about touting the performance of socially-layered and premium ad products, with marketplace given relatively short shrift.

eMarketer principal analyst Debra Aho Williamson said.

"It's opening up ad inventory to performance-type advertisers like Amazon and Ebay who want to direct advertisers back to their websites to make a purchase.  We bash the marketplace side, but clearly they think there are legs to it. This business we love to hate maybe is more important than we thought."

Dave Williams, CEO of the Facebook Ads API partner Blinq Media, thinks the move is an opportunity for Facebook to drive up the value of its effective CPMs, since it has the potential to make bidding on the platform more competitive and also to increase the perceived value of ads to the bidders on the back end.  He said.

"As advertisers are able to get closer to that user intent and further down into the purchase funnel, it's going to drive up conversions and also the value of the inventory."

The matching of Facebook's user data with outside sources is sure to raise privacy issues. Facebook said users will be able to opt out of ads from specific third parties, though not out of seeing display ads bought with third-party data altogether.

Bryan Wiener, CEO of 360i said.

"Between the additional data and real-time bidding, this should make buying on Facebook more efficient and targeted.  The challenge will be balancing increased targeted with potential privacy concerns."

COMMENTARY:    The Facebook Ad Exchange is big news because it marks a major departure from Facebook's "walled garden" to begin accomodating the needs of advertisers and brands for more precise targeting of ads based on the online behavioral attributes of a brands target customers using its own captured demographic and behavioral data or that of third parties.  This is big people.  

Facebook Marketplace display ad clickthrough rate CPMs are hitting new highs, but they have historically been horrendous, and since the format of Facebook actual Marketplace ads (see below) that appear on the right margin of a Facebook page remain unchanged,  it's yet to be determined if there will be a noticeable increase in clickthrough rates, and how this translates into actual revenue lift.  Advertisers and their agencies appear to be very excited about Facebook Ad Exchange, so time will tell.      

Click Image To Enlarge

The Facebook Ad Exchange will offer real-time bidding based on keywords that provide the targeting, this should drive up CPMs depending on how many bidders there are, the time of day, and so forth.  If you are commercial airline, and you are trying to fill passenger seats  for tourists who might consider vacationing in Tahiti, you would bid for keywords like "travel", "air travel", "tahiti", "tahiti vacations" and so forth.

Before an advertiser's display ads ever get published on a website, they travel through a convoluted series of channels that typically starts with an advertising agency, media buying platforms, demand side platforms (DSPs), ad exchanges and ad networks before the ad is finally placed on a website that will target the customer.  The Advertising Exchange Ecosystem (see chart below) reading from left-to-right provides a visual display of the different channels within the ecosystem and the various processes that the ad will pass through before it ever appears on a website.        

The Advertising Exchange Ecosystem (Click Image To Enlarge)

Typically a media buying service is hired by the advertising agency to bid for a certain number of ad impressions at a certain cost-per-thousand through ad networks, ad exchanges (like Facebook Ad Exchange) and DSPs.   The Facebook Ad Exchange will provide a certain amount of advertising inventory (ad impressions) based on a number of different parameters.  The advertising agency or media buying services acting on the behalf of the advertisers and brands will place their bids for that inventory.  Facebook Ad Exchange will then select the highest bidder meeting its asking price. If the asking CPM price is not bidded, then the inventory is put out for bid again until a bidder is found.  Sometimes, the ad exchange may have to reduce CPMS if there are not enough bidders or the bidding is too low.   The following flowchart provides a visual explanation of how the ad exchange network works.

Ad Exchange Bidding System Flowchart (Click Image To Enlarge)

Courtesy of an article dated June 13, 2012 appearing in AdAgeDIGITAL

MICROSOFT'S AWESOME SURFACE TABLET RUNNING WINDOWS 8 OS HAS WHAT IT TAKES TO BE A LEGITIMATE IPAD-KILLER

In unveiling its first piece of computer hardware ever yesterday, Microsoft signaled that it was ready to strut its stuff against longtime rival Apple for the booming tablet market. The new device, dubbed Surface, is expected to be available at an unspecified-but-competitive price when the highly touted Windows 8 comes to market later this year, Microsoft announced at a press conference in Los Angeles that had a sense of mystery and buzz about it that’s usually associated with the crowd from Cupertino. 

 

CEO Steve Ballmer said that unlike the iPad, the Surface has a detachable cover/touch keyboard for word processors and numbers crunchers, as well as a built-in kickstand for viewing videos. Ballmer, in fact, claimed that the device is “completely new and different” and “a whole new family of computing devices.”  Ballmer said.

“We wanted to give Windows 8 its own companion hardware innovation.”

At the same time, Microsoft’s focus apparently will remain on the eighth major iteration of Windows, which Balmer made clear remains the “heart and soul of Microsoft,” according to Michael A. Prospero, who live-blogged in Laptop.

Microsoft Surface tablet computer with computer and screen stand (Click Image To Enlarge)

Ballmer said.  

“It was very important to have the hardware fade into the background with this product and have Windows rise to the surface.”

The device will be about the same weight and thickness as an iPad but has a 10.6-inch screen compared to the iPad’s 9.7-inch high-res “retina display.” It sports cameras front and back, as does the iPad, but also has a USB port and connects physically to printers. Among the unanswered questions is whether it will use cellular networks or just connect to cyberspace via wi-fi.

Microsoft Surfact tablet computer showing reverse side of screen with stand expanded (Click Image To Enlarge)

Windows president Steven Sinofsky said,

“The Surface is a tablet that’s a great PC … a PC that’s a great tablet.”

Shira Ovide pointed out in the Wall Street Journal.  

“Ballmer and other Microsoft executives repeatedly use the words ‘no compromises’ to describe the tablet computers they envision running Windows 8 and Windows RT -- which means that users will be able to use work-oriented tools like Microsoft Word and Excel programs, not just be used for watching movies and surfing the Web.” 

Microsoft's Surface tablet computer comes with keyboards in five awesome pastel colors (Click Image To Enlarge)

That could be a big advantage, particularly in the business market where Microsoft has long enjoyed a substantial lead over its surging rival -- provided Apple doesn’t respond in kind.  On the other hand, it faces quite a challenge catching up with the more than 500,000 apps already for sale in Apple’s App Store, as well as its tight relationship with developers, which rivals Microsoft’s relationship with PC software engineers.

Apple’s, points out the Financial Times’ Matthew Garrahan,

“That’s why Microsoft is emphasizing the hardware innovations that it hopes will rival Apple, rather than show off any of the apps or content partnerships that many analysts believe it will need if it is to make the Surface a success.”

Microsoft's Surface tablet side view showing just how thin the keyboard is (Click Image To Enlarge)

IDC analyst Al Hilwa sees the combination of PC and tablet features as a "true converged" device, writes Ovide,

"A Swiss Army knife of a tablet?" 

Nick Wingfield writing in the New York Times said.  

“With its new tablet, Microsoft will effectively be competing directly with its biggest customers –- the PC makers who have shipped with Windows installed for decades."

When asked whether Surface would damage those ties, Sinofsky gently pushed a reporter in the direction of a stand of Surface tablets and said,

"Go learn something."

In an interview after the announcement, Ballmer was asked to describe how Microsoft’s partners felt about its latest moves.   Bloomberg Businessweek’s Ashlee Vance wrote .

“Ballmer responded that he had used very precise language on stage and would not go beyond that.”

Adds Vance (parenthetically):

“He said nothing on stage that I recall as to how they felt.”

The reaction to Surface in the blogosphere appears to be mostly positive.  Computerworld’s Richi Jennings writes,

“Wow, people actually like something new from Microsoft.”  

Jennings, who “curates” the observations of observers such as PC World’s Melissa J. Perenson, who observed: 

“The big question is, does it stand up to the hype? The answer...is yes.”

Reuters’“Breakingviews” columnist Robert Cyran writes that,  

“Microsoft has managed to pull off a welcome surprise.”

But the heading on his piece aptly sums up the rest of the commentary:

“Microsoft Tablet Suffers From Lack Of Greatness.”

He concludes:

“To catch up, good may not be enough.”

But what choice does it have?

The AP’s Ryan Nakashima in a story carried by the San Jose Mercury News writes.  

"Microsoft’s broadside against the iPad is a dramatic step to ensure that its Windows software plays a major role in the increasingly important mobile computing market.” 

Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi tells Nakashima.

"They are saying it's a different world now and are trying to put the sexy back into the Microsoft brand." 

Sexy? Hmmm. When it comes to what has made it attractive over the years, I think most analysts would say that Microsoft has displayed a pleasant personality. But all dolled up in sleek piece of compatible hardware, Windows 8 indeed may wind up turning some heads. 

COMMENTARY:    For the first time since the original iPad was introduced in 2010, I actually feel confident that Microsoft has a potential winner on its hands with the Surface tablet. The Surface tablet has a lot of pluses going for it.  

• The Surface tablet provides the laptop processing power, additional storage capability, external ports and screen closer to that of a full-size laptop.   
• The Surface tablet has access to a library of 100,000+ apps which is not shabby when compared to the iPad. 
• The Surfact tablet is Windows through-and-through so it supports Microsoft Office and enterprise-wide applications software, this will please many loyal Windows users and IT professionals.
• The Windows 8 OS' user-interface is a gamechanger because its mosaic appearance works more like a webpage than the Windows desktop of Windows 7.  In a blog post dated September 14, 2012, I profiled the new Microsoft Windows 8 operating system and was just dazzled with what it can do.  Check out the video below:       

 

Microsoft finally understands why product design and technology innovation are so important.  If you want to "make a dent in the universe," you have to make a statement, and the Surface is just awesome.    

I think the Microsoft designers and engineers did a great job of designing a tablet that is absolutely dazzling when compared to the iPad.  This is a scary thought, but the spectacular design of the Microsoft Surface tablet is what I thought the next iPad would look like.  Microsoft beat the Apple design team to the punch.   The awesome pastel colors of the Surface cover/keyboard really sets this tablet apart from the competition.  The VaporMG materials used in the body casing are definitely killer.  If Windows 8 OS can bootup quickly, run smoothly without any kinks or bugs, I think Microsoft can make a dent in the Universe and in the process put a huge dent in the iPads' market share.  

The Microsoft Surface Windows RT and Windows Pro are  larger tablets.   The screens measure in at 10.6-inches (with what's described to be full HD resolutions in Microsoft's press materials).  The Surface twins are also much heavier than the iPad, about 1.5 for the Windows RT version vs. 1.44 pounds for Apple's iPad.  The Windows 8 Pro model is nearly 2 pounds. 

Some other points of difference include storage size: the Surface with Window Pro can include a 128GB hard drive. Since that more robustly equipped model is designed to have a more powerful, laptop-compatible processor, the added storage could be a welcome addition. 

Of course, that would depend on how much it costs to take a Surface tablet home, and we've got no word on that yet. For those of you already stoked for the Surface, here's how Microsoft's new tablets stand up against the iPad 3.

iPad 3 vs Surface (Windows RT) vs Surface (Windows Pro)

Conceived, designed and engineered entirely by Microsoft employees, and building on the company’s 30-year history manufacturing hardware, Surface represents a unique vision for the seamless expression of entertainment and creativity. Extensive investment in industrial design and real user experience includes the following highlights:

• Software takes center stage: Surface sports a full-sized USB port and a 16:9 aspect ratio – the industry standard for HD. It has edges angled at 22 degrees, a natural position for the PC at rest or in active use, letting the hardware fade into the background and the software stand out.
• VaporMg: The casing of Surface is created using a unique approach called VaporMg (pronounced Vapor-Mag), a combination of material selection and process to mold metal and deposit particles that creates a finish akin to a luxury watch. Starting with magnesium, parts can be molded as thin as .65 mm, thinner than the typical credit card, to create a product that is thin, light and rigid/strong.
• Integrated Kickstand: The unique VaporMg approach also enables a built-in kickstand that lets you transition Surface from active use to passive consumption – watching a movie or even using the HD front- or rear-facing video cameras. The kickstand is there when needed, and disappears when not in use, with no extra weight or thickness.
• Touch Cover: The 3 mm Touch Cover represents a step forward in human-computer interface. Using a unique pressure-sensitive technology, Touch Cover senses keystrokes as gestures, enabling you to touch type significantly faster than with an on-screen keyboard. It will be available in a selection of vibrant colors. Touch Cover clicks into Surface via a built-in magnetic connector, forming a natural spine like you find on a book, and works as a protective cover. You can also click in a 5 mm-thin Type Cover that adds moving keys for a more traditional typing feel.

Surface for Windows RT will release with the general availability of Windows 8, and the Windows 8 Pro model will be available about 90 days later. Both will be sold in the Microsoft Store locations in the U.S. and available through select online Microsoft Stores.

I can't remember which blog post I said this, but the tablet wars are not over by a long shot.  They are just beginning.  

Courtesy of an article dated June 19, 2012 appearing in MediaPost Publications Marketing Daily and an article dated June 18, 2012 appearing in Fast Company and an article dated June 19, 2012 appearing in Fox News

IDC PREDICTS THAT MICROSOFT'S WINDOW PHONE WILL GROW BY 46% PER YEAR TO SURPASS iOS BY 2016 WITH A 19.2% MARKET SHARE

A new forecast suggests Microsoft’s Windows Phone will gain momentum in the coming years, edging out iOS to become the second-most-popular smartphone operating system behind Google’s Android by 2016. That would mark a dramatic reversal of fortune for the Microsoft platform, which currently has only a fraction of the smartphone market.

Technology research firm IDC predicts Windows Phone will jump from a 5% share of global smartphone shipments in 2012 to 19.2% in four years fueled by 46% annual growth. By contrast, IDC projects Android’s runaway growth will slow to 9.5% annually, and iOS’ to 11%. Android will remain the top smartphone OS, but its share will decrease from a peak 61% this year to 53% in 2016, while iOS holds roughly steady, from 20.5% to 19%.

Worldwide Smartphone Operating System 2012 and 2016 Market Share and 2012-2016 Compound Annual Growth Rate 

Smartphone OS	2012 Market Share	2016 Market Share	2012 - 2016 CAGR
Android	61.0%	52.9%	9.5%
Windows Phone 7/Windows Mobile	5.2%	19.2%	46.2%
iOS	20.5%	19.0%	10.9%
BlackBerry OS	6.0%	5.9%	12.1%
Others	7.2%	3.0%	-5.4%
Total	100.0%	100.0%	12.7%

Source: IDC Worldwide Mobile Phone Tracker, June 6, 2012

The same is true for BlackBerry, whose share will remain at about 6% through 2016, supported by demand for affordable messaging devices in emerging markets. Symbian -- only a few years ago the leading smartphone platform -- will all but disappear by 2014 as a result of Nokia’s switch from that Symbian to Windows Phone as the primary OS for its phones.

Ramon Llamas, a senior mobile analyst at IDC said.

“What remains to be seen is how these different operating systems -- as well as others -- will define and shape the user experience beyond what we see today in order to attract new customers.”

The firm projects overall mobile phone shipments this year will slip to 1.7 billion from 1.8 billion in 2010 as a result of sluggish global economic conditions and slowing feature phone sales. The 10% drop in regular phone shipments in 2012 will be offset by a 38.8% increase in smartphone shipments to 686 million units.

Falling average selling prices and component costs, subsidized by carriers, and lower-cost data plans are putting smartphones within reach of more people worldwide. 

Feature phones, however, will still account for 61.6% of mobile phone shipments in 2012. And IDC forecasts 2.3 billion phones overall will be shipped by the end of 2016.

COMMENTARY:    

Microsoft Windows Phone Sales for 2012

What’s happening with Windows Phone sales? Not much, to be honest, and certainly not as much as had been anticipated after the Windows Phone 7.5 debuted in August 2011.   It's expected that by the end of 2012, Windows Phone could eke out a 10 percent market share and surpass BlackBerry.   It’s still possible, but it’s going to take a massive effort. And Microsoft isn’t heading in the right direction:  As of last month, its share of smartphone sales had declined over the prior 12 months.

Research firm Gartner notes that Windows Phone and Windows Mobile combined held only 1.9 percent of the market in the first quarter of 2012, down from 2.6 percent a year ago. There have been some recent reports that Microsoft is doing well in China—better than iOS, with a 7 percent share—but one has to be skeptical:  Windows Phone devices were just launched in China earlier this year, while the iPhone has been sold on multiple carriers there for some time. And as much as reviewers like the usability of Windows Phone, not many people have been seen with a Microsoft Windows phone.  

There are many more consumers buying smartphones now than there were in 2008.  That’s evidenced by the Windows Phone market share; as noted above, it lost share, but in terms of sales, it actually rose from 2.5 to 2.7 million units for Microsoft in the first quarter. The whole market is rising and gaining users, so you can’t meaningfully compare app growth rates in 2012 to those in 2008.

Microsoft Windows Phone Apps Hit Milestone

Microsoft surpassed 100,000 apps for its Windows Phone mobile platform. The figure comes from All About Windows Phone, which tracks app data and has a treasure trove of detailed information about the software, ranging from price points to countries with the most apps available.

While the app catalog is growing, software for Windows Phone doesn’t seem to be boosting sales as much as software did for Android and iOS devices.

Apps are important, but there’s more to a phone than apps. Here’s the funny thing and part of the reason the number of apps really means little, or not as much as it used to. Guess where the most apps are available for Windows Phone devices? According to the data, the U.S. leads the way, with 77,450 of the 100,000 available. Going back to the China example, where the phone is allegedly doing well: 33,063 apps are available to Windows Phones in China. Something doesn’t add up.

Actually, the app numbers do make sense, but they have less relevance to actual sales than they used to.  As long as the top-tier titles are available for a platform, most users ought to be happy. And more of those titles are appearing on the Windows Phone. But—and this is key—few, if any, are launching first on Windows Phone, which suggests developers don’t see the platform as the best place to introduce their wares.

Microsoft simply hasn’t given developers—or many consumers, for that matter—a compelling reason to opt for Windows Phone over Android or iOS.  It’s not the apps; it’s a question of what Windows Phone can do for consumers and for developers already invested in Android or iOS. (As an interesting side note, 67 percent of Windows Phone apps are free.).  Xbox Live ought to help, and so too will Windows 8, which shares the Metro interface, so there’s hope yet.

App growth means less today than it did four years ago. A closely watched metric for apps stores of late is the growth rate, but I counter that it’s far less relevant now. In 2008, when Apple launched the iTunes App Store, soon to be followed by the Android Market (now Google Play), such growth was important for two reasons. One: Smartphones running platform-specific apps were a new concept for mainstream consumers. And two: The starting point was zero.

That sounds obvious, and yet today we keep hearing how a service is growing faster than Facebook or Twitter did.  So too with the app store. As All About Windows Phone says,

“Windows Phone reached the 100,000 milestone faster than Android (24 months), but slower than iOS (16 months).”

It’s not over yet for Windows Phone: Here’s what to watch for. Clearly, Microsoft is in this for the long haul, and although smartphone sales have boomed over the past few years, only one-fifth of the world’s population owns a smartphone. So there’s time yet. Instead of apps, which are of course important, the maturity of Microsoft’s mobile platform and supporting ecosystem are more important factors to watch than the total number of apps available for Windows Phone.

Later this month, Microsoft will give a sneak peek at the next version of Windows Phone, code-named “Apollo.” And earlier this week at the E3 gaming conference, Microsoft announced SmartGlass, a new way to share Xbox media content with smartphones, tablets, and Windows 8 computers. Perhaps with these new developments, Microsoft will finally give more consumers an answer to the question, “Why should I buy a Windows Phone over Android or iOS?”

The Nokia Lumia Series Windows Phone

Windows Phone is Microsoft's entrant into the smartphone wars, and it has won widespread critical acclaim (though not many users). 

In a blog post dated August 11, 2011, I wrote about the partnership between Nokia and Microsoft to produce phones running Microsoft's Windows 7 OS (since upgraded into Windows 7.5 OS and 8.0).      Like Android, Windows 8.0 OS is available on smartphones from several different manufacturers, most notably Nokia, with its Lumia series phones:   710, 800 and 900 series which became available through AT&T beginning in April 2012.   The  Lumia 900 (see below) phone is shown below. 

Nokia Lumia 900 smartphone images, including a side-by-side comparison of the footprint of the Nokia Lumia 900 versus the Apple iPhone 4 (Click Images To Enlarge)

Microsoft's Windows Phone is a hit with the critics, but should you consider buying one? Let's look at its advantages and disadvantages:

STRENGTHS

• Beautiful AND Fresh: It's arguable whose design is more beautiful: Windows Phone, with its large, square "live tiles," or Apple's iPhone, with its iconic rows of apps. Not arguable is that Windows Phone's Metro interface is newer and fresher than Apple's. Fashionistas and hipsters take notice: Microsoft(!) has the hottest design in smartphones today. Scrolling up, down, left and right is exceptionally satisfying and smooth.
• Simple To Use: Windows Phone comes with two screens total: One is your "live tiles," or your customizable home screen, and the other is an alphabetical list of all of your apps. It is the easiest smartphone operating system there is; it's even more intuitive than Apple's.
• Physical Camera Button: Microsoft has mandated that all smartphones running Windows Phone must come with a physical camera button somewhere on the device. That button also allows you to focus without touching the screen. It's a much more intuitive and natural photography experience than is offered by the iPhone and Android smartphones, which do not have camera buttons.
• All Conversations In One Place: Windows Phone does a neat thing with your messages, automatically grouping each conversation in one window, regardless of where the convo is taking place. So, if I'm talking to Bianca, I can text her, then message her on Facebook, then on MSN Messenger, and it all shows up in the same place -- no need to switch apps even if your conversation partner does.
• Keyboard/Editing Text: Windows Phone has an elegant solution for editing typo's or inserting a new word: Press your finger against the screen, a cursor like you would see in MS Word pops up. This makes it much easier to control editing documents, text messages and emails. Like Android, the autocorrect feature is a row of suggested words:
• Hotmail/Microsoft Word/SkyDrive Integration: Hotmail and MSN are easily accessed and manipulated by Windows Phone, as are the various applications in the Microsoft Office package (Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Word). Users who store data and media on Microsoft's burgeoning cloud storage app, SkyDrive (which we really like), will also find excellent integration on Windows Phone devices.

WEAKNESSES

• Mediocre App/Game Selection: Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare are beautiful on Windows Phone, but once you get past the major apps, the Windows Marketplace looks pretty barren. That's not a problem if you're only after the biggest applications, but if you want a deeper pool of utilities and games to choose from, you're better off with iPhone or Android. (To quantify: Windows Phone has about 100,000 apps; Android, 500,000; iPhone, 600,000). We've also seen major apps launch on Android and iPhone before they do on Windows Phone; WP users are still waiting for Angry Birds: Space, for example.
• Google, Where Art Thou?: The integration with Gmail is pretty bad; I especially miss the ability to archive emails with one press of a button. Gchat support is weak. Bing Search and Bing Maps don't stand up to Google Search and Google Maps in the discovery department; searching for shops near you by category is surprisingly hit-or-miss. Navigation is still much better than on iPhone, however.
• What Are These Icons?:  The MS OS is easy to use, but little icons, without text to explain what they are, are confusing for a first-time user. These are all over Windows Phone. Here's a mystifying example -- Windows Phone is on the left and Android is on the right:
• Where's The Voice-To-Text?: Windows Phone is the only OS out of the big three that doesn't have speech-to-text integrated across the whole system. That is, on iPhone and Android, the keyboard features a microphone button so that you can say what you want to type on the screen. Though Windows Phone comes with some voice features -- you can launch apps and text messages and search Bing -- you can't use your voice to type, which has always been what I've used microphones for the most on my smartphone.

CLARIFICATION: You CAN dictate text messages, either by long-pressing the Windows button or using the Speaker icon on the text message screen. What I want to see is that Speaker icon available anywhere you can input text: on emails, in search, on maps, etc., for faster input of text via speech.

Zune Software Needed: In order to update your phone's operating system, you need to download a Zune application for your desktop and connect your phone via cord. Android and iOS both come with wireless updating.

SO, WHO SHOULD BUY A WINDOWS PHONE?

First: Windows Phone is the best operating system for a smartphone newbie, someone who wants a simple smartphone that is easy to use and that can make calls, check email and surf the Internet. This person doesn't download a lot of apps or need to customize his or her phone or unlock it or anything: He or she just wants the basics of the smartphone in a beautiful, simple package. That's the meat-and-potatoes Windows Phone market, the shoppers who should most seriously be looking at Windows Phones.

Others who should be looking at Windows Phone include those with Hotmail accounts and those who do lots of work with Microsoft software. Those who value strong, clean design and hipness in their gadgets might also consider Windows Phone.

It's still difficult, however, for me to recommend Windows Phone over Android or iOS. This might change in a year, but right now the iPhone and especially Android just offer a far more robust, complete set of features and applications for buyers. Windows Phone -- despite its splendid aesthetics and smooth operation -- feels about a year away from being truly on level with Android and iPhone for a heavy smartphone user.

That said, if you're a casual phone user, and you don't think you'll be using your smartphone for much more than Internet surfing, email and checking your social networks, Windows Phone is a solid, fast and beautiful choice that won't disappoint.

I tend to agree with the IDC's predictions.  I don't care what Apple evangelists think of their cool Apple mobile devices.  It's a Windows World out there, and Microsoft is the logical choice to capitalize on the smartphone craze.  Working with Nokia gives them a great opportunity to test their Windows mobile OS 8 operating system.  I fully expect that Windows OS 8, and future versions of the OS, to become the mobile phone standard OS.   Again, I will say this one more time: It's a Windows World out there.

Courtesy of an article dated June 6, 2012 appearing in MediaPost Publications Online Media Daily and an article dated June 14, 2012 appearing in The Huttington Post

HOW KHAN ACADEMY IS GOING GLOBAL, BY USING VOLUNTEERS TO TRANSLATE ITS 2,600 15-MIN VIDEOS INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES

Inside the online education juggernaut's mission to make their free lessons available in more than a dozen languages.

Khan Academy, one of the world's most popular educational sites, has a problem. People around the world want to learn online. However, the majority of world Internet users aren't fluent English speakers. For Khan Academy, the answer is obvious: Translate content, using the Internet as its translators. Quickly.

Many American high school and college student--as well as many adult, non-students--are already familiar with Khan Academy. The site, founded by former hedge fund analyst Salman Khan, hosts thousands of free, high-quality educational videos. Though most of the site's content focuses on mathematics, hard sciences, and computing, recent videos have begun covering the liberal arts as well.

Salman Khan (Click Image To Enlarge)

The donation-funded non-profit has spent the past few years systematically porting their lectures and tests into over 16 foreign languages. Volunteer workers crowdsourced from the Internet work closely with Khan Academy supervisors to create subtitles for lectures, along with voiceovers for select videos.

According to Khan Academy Dean of Translations Bilal Musharraf (Yes, that's his official title; Musharraf is the son of former Pakistani Prime Minister Pervez Musharraf), the organization crowdsources translators through Universal Subtitles' Amara platform, which recruits volunteers worldwide to write foreign language and closed-caption translations. Other Universal Subtitles clients include TED and PBS.

 

Translated content availability for Khan Academy varies wildly from language to language. Estonian is the most frequently subtitled language, with over 500 videos available, followed by Polish and Spanish. Dubbed content is available in 16 languages including Bangla, Hebrew, Malayalam, and Swahili. Musharraf tells Fast Company that each language has an official "Language Advocate" whose job is to review translations for accuracy and fluency. Language Advocates review both subtitles for Khan Academy videos and audio dubs.

Creating subtitled Khan Academy videos doesn't just boost the website's profile in non-Anglophone markets. Subtitles also help Khan Academy work SEO magic and lure in new viewers via Google and other search engines. The not-so-dirty secret is that video transcripts are fully searchable and can help make Khan Academy's content easier to discover.

While any Khan Academy user can subtitle videos, dubbing requires a stricter approval process. Potential voice-over volunteers undergo strict vetting by the non-profit; Khan places great importance on hand-holding voiceover artists and close supervision to guarantee accuracy and a consistent tone. In most cases, Khan Academy tries to use one voiceover person for each foreign language. Translators are expected to contribute a significant time investment; Khan Academy's Bangla project, for instance, requires at least 20 hours a week of volunteering.

Khan Academy's subtitle project began at the end of 2010 and is ongoing. Current language priorities, according to Musharraf, are Spanish, Portuguese, and Bengali. In the longer term, Khan Academy also plans to add original foreign language content--lectures and chats conducted from start to finish in non-English languages with no translation involved. Volunteers for translation are still being accepted.

Khan Academy Highlights:

• 2,600+ learning videos in its library. 
• At the end of December 2011, Khan Academy saw 4 million unique users. That’s up from 1 million in the same period in 2010, and up from 3.5 million in October. 
• The Khan Academy team is currently made up of 22 people, and they’re hiring ~1 more per month. 
• “I’d say that 90% [of the videos are shot] in 1 take. 99% are 2 takes.” 
• “I will definitely do much more advanced mathematics in the next year than what we have now.” (This resulted in Michael Nielson, leading quantum computing expert and author of the standard text on the subject, to offer his assistance right in the thread)
• Foundation grants received todate:
  • Bill and Mellinda Gates Foundation in July 2011 - $1.5 million
  • Google in July 2011 - $2 million
  • The O'Sullivan Foundation in November 2011 - $5 million

COMMENTARY:   I've been blogging about the Khan Academy since August 2010 when I first learned of the bold effort by former hedge fund analyst Salman Khan, to produce 15 minute videos to teach math and science to school kids.  

In the old days, Salman Khan churned out video teaching lessons from a converted walk-in closet in his Silicon Valley home (Click Image To Enlarge)

Thanks to the benevolence of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has been able to raise sufficient capital to hire a CEO and sufficient staff to expand Khan Academy worlwide.  

 

Here's Salman Khan making an appearance at the Good Experience Live conference back on May 14, 2010.

 

On March 18, 2012, Khan Academy founder Salman Khan was interviewed by Sanjay Gupta for CBS' "60 Minutes" television program. It was an incredible interview showing Khan at work putting together his famous teaching videos. 

In March 2011, Salman Khan spoke at TED 2011.  Here's the video.

In a blog post dated March 20, 2012, I profiled Khan Academy's new mobile app for the  iPhone and iPad.  You can download the new Khan Academy iPad app here

The language barrier was going to become an issue sooner, rather than later, and I am glad the Khan is addressing that issue.  It will be a monumental task to translate all those videos into non-English languages. 

Courtesy of an article dated June 14, 2012 appearing in Fast Company

BISCOTTI AND TELYHD SET-TOP BOXES PROVIDE AN EASY WAY TO USE YOUR HOME HDTV FOR VIDEO CHATTING AND A WHOLE LOT MORE

Combine geek-dad gadget lust with the promise of an easier way to stay in touch with faraway family, and you can see how the latest generation of standalone video chat boxes might have a good sales story to tell for this Father's Day weekend. While Cisco's discontinued ūmi never caught on in a big way with consumers (possibly the introductory $600 price and $25 monthly fee had something to do with it), the idea of a slim HD camera pack that fits atop the living room TV, instantly connecting with similar hardware or distributed software chat apps, still seems promising.

Front and rear of the biscotti set-top video box.  Comes with HDMI port and camera and costs $199 SRP, but you can only call other Biscotti devices. (Click Image To Enlarge)

Biscotti set-top box and remote controller showing video chat call on HDTV screen (Click Image To Enlarge)

The two Mac and iOS-friendly set-top chat products making a move in the market now are the $149 Biscotti and the $249 telyHD. Both systems work in a straightforward way -- they connect to your TV via HDMI, capture an HD image with an onboard camera and tie into your home network to call friends and family.

Front and rear of Tely Labs' TelyHD set-top video box and controller.  Includes Skype client, camera and microphones all-in-one device for $249 SRP (Click Image To Enlarge)

TelyHD remote control and HDTV screen showing how you can make peer-to-peer video chat calls using your contact list (Click Image To Enlarge)

Neither unit requires a monthly subscription plan, thereby avoiding the Cisco problem. Of course, neither plays along with Apple's wasn't-it-supposed-to-be-open FaceTime protocol, so if you're looking for a portable video chatting device that works with Skype, Google Talk and FaceTime you might consider the $199 iPod touch.

Both the telyHD and the Biscotti interoperate with a public video chat service (Google Talk for Biscotti, Skype for telyHD) so you aren't limited to chatting with the folks who have the same hardware. Both platforms also got software updates in the past few days, adding to their utility and (in the case of the telyHD) delivering tighter integration for iPhone and iPad users who want to share photos or control their chat settings from their mobile device.

The Biscotti TV Phone system, shown above, is simpler and more no-frills than the telyHD. Biscotti can chat video or audio to Mac or PC users via the Google Talk web client; to chat with iPhone or iPad users, the free (and unofficial) Vtok app fills the client slot. It also provides high-quality chats between Biscotti units.

The hardware is slim and graceful, about the size and shape of an Italian biscuit -- hence the name. A basic remote supports pan and zoom of the video camera, and the latest update gives you an automatic audio calibration routine to improve voice quality. The new software update also allows you to import your Google contacts for use on your Biscotti, but be warned that all your Google contacts will be loaded; the company's still working on a way to subset and manage those. The Biscotti may also try to auto-invite all those contacts to chat -- careful which button you click.

Networking on the Biscotti is Wi-Fi only (and if anyone invents a way to quickly enter WEP passwords using a four-way remote, they'd make a bundle), but the unit has a clever HDMI trick; it includes both input and output ports, so your cable or satellite box can plug right in and the signal will pass through. The Biscotti interface will stay out of the way until you get a call or use the remote. In fact, for some TVs, the Biscotti can turn them on directly so you can answer. Maybe that's not an ideal bedroom feature; likewise the auto-answer setting for key contacts, which lets you turn the Biscotti into a video room monitor by having it pick up immediately when you try to connect, could get weird in the wrong circumstances.

For Skype-centric families, the telyHD interoperates cleanly with the world's leading video and audio chat service, delivering 720p high definition video (note that Skype just updated its Mac client). Under the hood, the telyHD is an Android device; it's got more flexibility and possibilities than the Biscotti, with an app-centric development roadmap -- granted, you could get an iGoGo TV if you want to run Android apps on your HDTV, but that's some pretty scary stuff.

Already you can do things with pairs of telyHDs that you can't do with other systems: share photos (from an SD card) and leave video mail for watching later on. The telyHD sports an Ethernet port along with Wi-Fi networking, but it lacks the Biscotti's passthrough HDMI approach; you'll need to switch sources on your TV to see it.

This week's update to the telyHD platform, the Entertainment Suite, is unusual in that it's a paid (optional) add-on rather than a free version update; it's also targeted squarely at iPhone and iPad users. Entertainment Suite adds AirPlay mirroring for photos (TelyProjector), so iPhone users can simply mirror their images right into a video chat with Dad. The ES also includes access for remote-control apps (both iOS and Android), coming to the App Store and Google Play shortly; lastly, the upgrade includes a full web browser for the unit, giving owners access to websites and streaming video from all across the Internet. The Entertainment Suite pack can be trialed for 30 days before the one-time $49 licensing cost kicks in.

The long history of video calling might be filled with false starts and closed, proprietary systems, but if your gift list for Dad includes "more face to face time with the grandkids" then one of these systems may be just what you're looking for.

COMMENTARY:    I like the TelyHD video chat set-top box because it works with Skype's video chat, but at $249.00 costs $100 more than the Biscotti unit which works through Google Talk.   Plus, I like the fact that TelyHD can work with Android mobile devices which works for those who are totally mobile or don't watch or own a TV, but watch their TV content exclusively through their mobile device.  Another nice thing about the TelyHD is the optional Entertainment Suite which will target iPhone and iPad users. Entertainment Suite adds AirPlay mirroring for photos (TelyProjector), so iPhone users can simply mirror their images right into a video chat with Dad. The ES also includes access for remote-control apps (both iOS and Android), coming to the App Store and Google Play shortly; lastly, the upgrade includes a full web browser for the unit, giving owners access to websites and streaming video from all across the Internet. The Entertainment Suite pack can be trialed for 30 days before the one-time $49 licensing cost kicks in. In my opinion the TelyHD video chat set-top box is the clear winner because it offers so much more for another $49.

Courtesy of an article dated June 15, 2012 appearing in TUAW