ImaginativePRO Blog

GOOGLE PLUS TIPS: 15 WAYS TO INCREASE YOUR GOOGLE PLUS FOLLOWERS

 

Google Plus Benefits

Google Plus is the newest and most successful social media network from Google Inc which is directly competing with Facebook, Social Media Giant. Google Plus is claiming to have a database of 90 million users while Facebook is claiming to have 800 million users. Lots of analysts and internet marketing experts claim that Google Plus could be more popular than Facebook in the coming days. We need to wait and watch who is going to win the Google plus Vs Facebook Social Media War. So it is the right time to start increasing your presence on Google Plus in the form of Circle, Friends and followers.

In today’s post, I will share the benefits of having lots of Google plus Followers and 15 ways to increase Google plus Followers.

Google Plus Benefits

Google Plus button is more like Facebook Like button and can be added on a website or blog home and internal pages. Google plus One is going to affect search engine rankings in two ways on Google. Firstly, Google has already indicated that data coming against Google Plus button is going to be a ranking Factor on Google. So if you are able to get large number of clicks on your Google + button that will boost your website rankings on Google search. Secondly, if you use Google search while logging into Your Google Account, any one of your connection doing Google plus against that result will be shown up in the search engine result pages. So when you see any or some of your connections have shared a website page on Google plus, you would be interested in checking and clicking the Plus button against that website page. So this way, things can go viral in Google Plus network.

15 Ways to Increase Google Plus Followers

So here is the complete list of 15 ways to increase your followers on Google+:

1. Create Google Plus Circle

First of all, you need to create a Google Plus Circle. This circle will include those people whom you will be interacting with. You can group your Google + Circle in to friends, family, following, customers, online circle, team members, VIP’s etc. Then you can decide which circle will get which update that you will be making on Google Plus. There will be some updates you would be interested in sharing with your friends only and some updates to your family members only.

2. Create Google Plus Page

Like Facebook Profile and Facebook page, you can create profile and business page on Google Plus. So if you have an active website or blog, you should immediately set up a business page on Google Plus. I have already established a business page for Bloggers passion here. From this page, you can instantly add Bloggers Passion Google plus Business page into your Google Plus circle.

3. Ask Your Friends to add you on Google plus Circle

Google + is still in its early stage. So you need to ask your friends from other Social Media networks to add you in their Google plus Circles. You can invite your friends in your Gmail account to add you into their Google plus circle. And if they are new to Google Plus, ask them to join you on Google Plus.

4. Start Sharing Interesting Stories on Google Plus

You should start sharing interesting stories on Google Plus. You can easily share text, links, images and videos kind of content through Google Plus.

5. Mention Other Uses in Your Google Plus Sharing’s

You can involve other guys in your Google Plus updates by mentioning then using @ the way we use this tag while addressing other community members on Twitter and Facebook.

6. Go for Google Plus Mobile Version

Like other Popular Social Media websites, It has its own application that uses can use on their mobile phones to post new content and to remain engaged with their community members.

7. Find More People

When you login into Your Google + Account, Click in your Circle View All link and then ClickFind People Tab. This tab will suggest you some uses who are friends of your friends or may be having similar interest with you. You may personally know all or few of them. So you can add those people whom you think you know or are having the similar interested or are from the same industry. Apart from this, you can upload your address book and import people from Your Yahoo, Gmail and Hotmail accounts.

8. Follow Back Those Who are Following You

Google Plus will send you a notification whenever someone adds to their circle. You should return the favor by following them back. When you follow back your followers, there is every chance, and they will keep you added in their Google Plus Circle for long.

9. Send Your Updates via Email to Your Friends

There will be lots of your friends who are not logged into their Google Plus accounts and thus are supposed to miss your latest posts that you are making on Google Plus. You can send updates to your friends directly into their email box through the special feature provided by Google Plus. You will not see this ability to share your updates via Email with other popular social media network in the industry.

10. Comment on other people’s Updates

You should start commenting on latest updates from other uses in your niche on Google plus. This way as well you can get in touch with lots of new fellow bloggers and targeted readers of your niche.

11. Make Your Google Plus Presence Public

You should keep your presence on Google plus as public the way you do on Linkedin and thus share things related to your business only here on Google Plus and avoid sharing personal stuff.

12. Add Google Plus Buttons on Your Website

You should add Google Plus buttons on your website and blog home and internal pages at prominent positions. This way you will be motivating lots of your website readers clicking the Plus button and thus will help in increasing lots of Google Plus followers for your website and blog in whole.

13. Upload a High Resolution Photo

You should upload a high resolution photo for your profile on Google Plus to give the best look for yourself. Google plus does not look to be doing much justice with the low resolution images.

14. Google Plus Interesting Stories from Other Users

Except from commenting on other user’s stories on Google Plus, you should click the plus one button shown up against their stories. When you start doing it at regular intervals, lots of Google plus users will start noticing you and they would love to return the favor by adding you in their circles and by clicking Google+ button against your stories.

15. Buying Google Plus Followers

There are lots of small websites where you can buy Google Plus Followers. Ideally you should not go businesses demanding money in exchange for followers on Google Plus. Most of followers received through this medium may be in inactive or even fraud. There are also lots of small business websites that are promising to increase your follower base on other Social Media websites like Facebook and Twitter etc. So stay away from such websites or individuals.

I’m sure the above tips will help you take your Google Plus Followers base to the next level. Do you have a killer tip that can help us increase our Google Plus Followers over night, please share in the comments section below.

COMMENTARY:   All great advice. 

Courtesy of an article dated February 28, 2013 appearing in BloggersPassion

FOR GOOGLE PLUS ITS NOT ABOUT CONNECTING AND SHARING, BUT DOMINATION BY EXTENDING GOOGLE SEARCH

Scoff all you want, but these compelling, just-catching-on product rollouts and integrations will make Google win the battle for hearts, minds, and active users.

Despite being an echo chamber as far as the press was concerned only two months ago, now Google Plus is “bigger than Twitter,” according to many of the same media outlets. That might not feel true today, but it will in short order.

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A month ago, I wrote about how no one was willing to admit that Google Plus’s user acquisition strategy of using the carrot and not the stick was… well, working. Well enough so that I was willing to gamble a pie in the face on it. Google began by absorbing 100% of online writers by way of offering them the ability to claim their own work with Google Authorship. Then Google Plus started absorbing all local businesses by starting to merge Google maps and Google local business pages. It wasn’t clear at the time what the next steps would be to get everyone else on board too, but that’s changed. 

As I see it, here are the big carrots that Google will use to further tip the scales:

Introducing technology that rethinks how companies communicate (replacing Yammer, Eventbrite, Skype, etc.). 

Google Plus’s Ganesha-like arms can handle all of your company’s communications--if you let it. My buddy Andy Wilson, for example, runs an e-discovery company called Logik. He has swapped out everything with Google Plus. Instead of Yammer, employees post to their “work” circle. Instead of Skype, employees use Google Hangouts for cross-coast meetings and calls. Instead of Eventbrite, they use Google Plus events.

Now, while Andy’s certainly an early adopter of this strategy, he didn’t do this for his health, either--he did it because it worked better for his company and saved them money. Furthermore, if you think only tech startups run off Google Apps, and that all large enterprises still run on Outlook and Exchange, think again. Even the Department of the Interior moved to Gmail--and Genentech has been using Google Documents for years. If those organizations and others move to fully integrated office communications through way of Google Plus and its many offshoots, that would be a lot of new active users.

Google Plus business local listings: a bigger, better Yelp. 

Google Plus local business listings already integrate Zagat ratings, Street View, and Google Plus user ratings. Yup. I just described Yelp. And since Google Plus already has all small businesses because of Google Local and maps, the basic requisites to have all the competitive features of Yelp and thus be at least as good as them, is not a Herculean task.

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It’s the additional layer of Google Plus knowing a hell of a lot more about you as a person then Yelp does that will allow them to play some trump cards--enough so to get users to migrate. Imagine a Google version of Yelp where your friends’ reviews or places they like near you float to the top… or one where with a click you can ask your whole local network, “Hey, have you been to this taco truck? Is it awesome or no?” Finally, indoor mapping is starting to get real now with Google, and that would be a pretty big leg up to waltz around inside an establishment before you even go there, assuming they were willing to deploy some integration for themselves only.

Hangouts may be the most powerful arrow Google Plus has in its quiver, but they are currently “weird.” That will change quickly, and when it does, watch out. 

Google Hangouts are like Skype with a brain-dead-easy recording and production studio built in… plus you don’t need to download Skype, you can just set them up through Gmail. You can store Hangouts in YouTube when you are done. I mean hell, Obama did one, and then he left it up on the web. So it can’t be that weird.

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Maybe you want to do a hangout from across the world with your new one-day-old niece; you’re probably going to want to save that video. Hangouts can do that automatically and drop it off in your YouTube account, hassle free. While YouTube is certainly the 800-lb. gorilla today compared to Hangouts, one day who knows, they may have an equal number of users. Think of it like Picassa for conversations. They might be confusing at first, but you will quickly see the power they hold. This isn’t Chatroulette: it has practical applications.

There’s no better example than Daria Musk, a now-famous musician. One night, soaking wet with rain after lugging around her tiny amp to play at yet another empty club with no cover, she gets home and, frustrated, plays a show on Google Hangouts. It catches buzz and she ends up with a virtual “line out the door.” Dozens of hangouts later she has 2.4 million followers and is doing deals with big cellphone companies and playing shows around the world. She’s the modern-day “buy-my-mix-tape” hustler on the streets of Brooklyn who actually caught her break. Unlike ordinary musicians, “I bring my audience with me,” she told me, "I carry them around with me in my pocket and bring them with me wherever I go." Her story is the quintessential Google Plus success story.

Another example: Sarah Hill’s giant loan company Veterans United educates veterans about how to use their VA benefit to get a home loan over Hangouts (I’m trying to emulate this with my own sales team). It also partners with a nonprofit to use Hangouts for “virtual walks”--using able-bodied citizens to visit locations and be the virtual eyes and ears for disabled vets over Hangouts.

The bottom line is that a lot more people still have Gmail than Skype, and seeing whether your prospective customer is raising his eyebrows or messing with his smartphone instead of listening to you has enormous value to a phone sales organization like mine and avoids the friction of asking the customer to sign up for a new service like Skype. But because lots of them already have Gmail, there’s no need to.

All your forums are belong to us!

Google Communities--the new, instantly creatable, lightweight discussion forums that can be about any topic or group of people--will likely soon absorb Google Groups (Google Groups are the larger brother of Google Communities, but they are currently isolated on an island away from the warm loving bosom of Google Plus). This would be overnight nitrous for Google Plus user acquisition, because Google Groups are already so much more established than Google Communities. Once Google Groups are absorbed, communities can add Google Plus users at a strong clip.

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To paint a picture, let’s say a professional skier kicks off a Google Plus community for fun. With access to, well, everyone, Google may put that community on the list of suggested communities to new Google Plus users, or maybe even Gmail users who happen to be emailing about skiing. That type of reach could blast off the professional skier’s Google Plus community as a true competitor to whatever the incumbent #1 skiing forum out there alone on the Internet is. Overnight. With a core group of the already tight-knit skiers discussing skiing, new users will naturally gravitate to and sign up for Google Plus.

As venture capital badass Brad Feld told me: “I think Communities will end up being powerful once they promote them more clearly, especially in the context of integration with Google Groups.” Admittedly, I think Google is realizing that it needs to step it up in terms of its marketing strategy for Communities.

Google Glass (aka Google Goggles 2.0, for your face) makes the world way less boring.

Google’s wizard-nerds have now created magic glasses that you can wear to basically turn yourself into the Terminator--you’ve got your on-screen display on your face that can do pretty much anything a cellphone can do. The glasses display information like your smartphone does, and you can search the Internet by using natural language voice commands. While I’m certainly more the type to sit in my rocking chair and wave a stick at anyone wearing these if they get too close, my guess is that this is where the coolest acquisition gimmicks will come from. Remember when Arnold walks into the police station in Terminator and it highlights everyone’s face and displays their vital stats and threat levels? Yah, like that… But imagine those “stats” as people’s Google Plus profiles.

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But this isn’t just science fiction, it’s already being used today in practical--and awesome--applications. For example: designer Diane von Furstenberg had her models wear Google glasses in a runway show last year at New York’s Fashion Week, so the models could film their experience--turning the tables on who is watching who. Of course, you’re going to want to share what you see and experience, and you’re going to be doing that on Google Plus.

Scoff at one or two of these features if you like--but you can’t deny that in aggregate they represent a common theme that is representative of Google’s strategy to acquire new users: Build awesome stuff into Google Plus that people want to use. Then, integrate with other Google products or even simply the size and scope of the fact that you are Google to make that stuff better than the comparable incumbent. Google Plus might not really be the number-two social network yet, but the team working on Google Plus is smart and they haven’t fumbled yet. They’ll get it there soon, with only one stop left after that.

COMMENTARY:   From its launch at the end of June 2011, everyone viewed Google Plus as "Google’s version of Facebook," because that’s the only sticky, simple headline that we can wrap our brain around. Most social media experts and other people believe it’s just another social networking service where all of our friends are supposed to join and share photos, status updates, and messages with each other. But it’s really not that at all.

Sure, there’s a social networking aspect to it, but Google Plus is really Google’s version of Google. It’s the groundwork for a level of search quality difficult to fathom based on what we know today. It’s also the crazy glue that connects all the other Google products like YouTube, Google Maps, Images, Offers, Books, and more.  And Google is starting to roll these products all up into a big ball of awesome user experience by way of Google Plus, and that snowball is starting to pick up speed and mass.

What makes Google Plus different is that it is the new backbone of a company that does search better than anyone already--something Facebook could never compete with even with its new Graph Search app.   You use Google to search, right?  Well, imagine if Google knew every piece of data about you that Facebook knew.  Imagine how better equipped they would be to serve you what you are looking for. Google Plus is a way of entrenching Google’s dominance in that area, not a way of stealing Facebook users. If you are in first place, that’s the time to accelerate your lead.

For Google it has never been about taking on Facebook head-on.  That would not be a good strategy.   It's all about using Google+ user data and blending it with its other data sources, including Google search, data from its arsenal of Google apps, and data from other social networks, and allowing advertisers to benefit from this blended data to identify, target and attract new customers and close sales.  Google could care less about giving people the power to share and make the world more open and connected. 

Courtesy of an article dated February 11, 2013 appearing in Fast Company and an article dated January 7, 2013 appearing in Fast Company

THE GLOBAL MOBILE APP MARKET EXPLODES, REVS OF $18 BIL IN 2012, CONSUMPTION REACHES 127 MINS PER DAY IN U.S.

 

Simon Khalaf is a mobile believer. The Flurry chief executive built a case for the explosion in mobile devices and apps in a talk in mid-January 2013 at the Flurry Source 13 conference in San Francisco. If your company hasn’t gotten on board the mobile bandwagon, then you’re pretty late, Khalaf argued.

Smartphones Drives Mobile Apps Growth

The U.S. still dominates in the world in smartphones, but is very likely to lose that lead to China in 2013.

• U.S. leads in iOS and Android devices with 181 million units. 
• China is second with 167 million units. 
• The Unkted Kingdom is third with 35 million units.  
• Japan is fourth with 28 million units. 

While still dominated by America, mobile is a global phenomenon, Khalaf said. China grew 293 percent in iOS and Android device activations in the last year. Vietnam grew 269 percent, and Colombia grew 260 percent.

Khalaf said.  

“You go to any airport and any country, and it feels like the PC is gone.”

In terms of minutes of use per day, mobile app consumption in the U.S. has reach 127 minutes, compared to 168 minutes for TV and 70 minutes for web browsing. In 2010, it was 70 minutes for web browsing, 66 minutes for mobile apps, and 162 minutes for the TV.

Khalaf said.  

“These apps are challenging television.”

App revenues have grown at a 129 percent compound annual growth rate since 2008, starting first with ad revenue and then virtual goods purchases in free-to-play games. Now virtual goods revenue is significantly higher than ad revenue. That revenue ramp is steeper than the ramp in revenues for web sites (see graph at right).

 Khalaf said. 

“This industry did not exist in 2008, but in the last year, $18 billion in revenue was generated from mobile apps.  It’s taken the web about 16 years to get huge, but mobile is matching that in about four.”

The App Economy infographic by sounas.

People spend about 43 percent of their time with smartphones playing games. But social networking has come on strong, accounting for 26 percent of time spent. Entertainment accounts for 10 percent, while utilities are another 10 percent. In the past year, session time in social apps has increased 387 percent on mobile devices. Media and entertainment has grown 268 percent, and games have grown 107 percent.

Microtransactions are fueling the revenue growth. In September, 53 percent of transactions were under 25 cents in terms of average revenue per daily active user in the top 1,000 grossing iOS free-to-play games. A year ago, 82 percent of transactions were under 25 cents. About 32 percent of transactions are 25 cents to 75 cents, compared to 15 percent a year ago. And 15 percent of transactions are now above 75 cents, compared to 3 percent a year ago.

Social networks such as Facebook account for 47 percent of the time spent in mobile social apps. But 29 percent of the time is spent in messaging apps, 19 percent is video and photo sharing, and 5 percent is dating. For media and entertainment apps, prime time mirrors the prime time for television viewing in the early evening. In closing, Khalaf said,

“Wake up and disrupt something.”

COMMENTARY:   In the U.S. alone, The Conference Board estimates that the Mobile App Economy has created at least 2.5 million by mid-2012.  The growth in mobile devices, both smartphones and tablets, is drivng this incredible growth as you can see form the following graph.

The Growth of the U.S. App Economy - Number of Jobs Created - 2007 through 2012 - The Conference Board (Click Image To Enlarge)

Courtesy of an article dated February 28, 2013 appearing in Visual.ly and an article dated January 18, 2013 appearing in VentureBeat 

HOW THE PRENSILIA ROBOTIC HAND IS WIRED DIRECTLY TO A PATIENT'S NERVOUS SYSTEM TO ALLOW AMPUTEE'S TO FEEL WHEN THEY TOUCH

 

WIRED DIRECTLY INTO THEIR NERVOUS SYSTEM, THIS REMARKABLE ROBOTIC HAND WILL SOON ALLOW ONE AMPUTEE TO ACTUALLY TOUCH AND FEEL THINGS AGAIN.

Soon, the first feeling, articulating hand will be transplanted into a living patient (Click Image To Enlarge) 

About 50% of amputees don’t use their prosthesis because of relatively basic issues of design--comfort, aesthetic, and controllability. This has led inventor Dean Kamen to famously lament about humanity’s inability to offer our amputees anything better than “a hook on a stick.” Put in those terms, the lack of innovation makes your stomach churn.

It follows up research from 2009 (we believe, seen here) in which a patient was able to feel pin pricks in a tethered robotic hand. He could also wiggle its fingers (Click Image To Enlarge)

But soon, a new bionic hand made by Prensilia may change that. Through a highly experimental test surgery, in a project led by Dr. Silvestro Micera of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland, the prosthesis will be wired directly into one test patient’s nervous system, which should enable movement through thought alone, along with the ability for the patient to actually feel what touches his or her mechanical hand.

Today, the hand has been improved. It now has sensors on the palm, fingers, and wrist (Click Image To Enlarge)

The story almost sounds too amazing to be true. But the upcoming surgery is actually a follow up to a 2009 study in which a simpler, fixed model of the hand was wired into a man’s nervous system to provide a sense of touch. It only had basic sensors embedded in the palm, but the patient was able to wiggle his fingers and feel pricks of a needle. Now, the latest wave of hardware and software technology will enable the transplant of a fully articulating, bionic hand (with sensors distributed in each fingertip, the palm, and the wrist). It’s also built with an improved interface that should permit multiple feelings and gestures at once, while the 2009 hand had an extremely limited bandwidth.

 

That patient will wear the hand for just a month before it’s removed, and then two years later, they’ll receive a more permanent, polished version of the technology.

Plus, it has more bandwidth. So the patient should be able to both feel and move his fingers at the same time (Click Image To Enlarge)

You really can’t overstate the accomplishment at work. Hooked right into the amputee’s nervous system, this hand will be driven by thought alone (and probably a battery pack) (Click Image To Enlarge)

The human hand has always seemed like an invention that only nature could have made over the course of billions of years. Strong enough to crush an orange, deft enough to thread a needle, we’re downright lucky to be born with a pair of the most perfect tools that respond to our every whim. But it’s their ability to feel that elevates them from another tool to part of us, that enables the thousands of tiny compensations we make all day as we interact to the world with softness and force. That’s why this single invention and single surgery is so exciting--it could solve one of the ultimate human-factor issues in medicine. And better still? Researchers say if all goes well, we’ll see widespread clinical adoption of such prostheses in the not-so-distant future.

Successful or not, the hand will live on the patient for just a month, after which time the team will spend the next two years polishing a more final, potentially clinical-ready version (Click Image To Enlarge)

And for the first time in history, we may have developed a halfway decent solution for those missing our most crucial tool, the human hand (Click Image To Enlarge)

COMMENTARY:   Prensilia's amazing robotic hand is the closest thing to a real hand by allowiing amputee's to actually feel what they touch.  The sense of touch has been missing from artificial limbs and hands for a long time, and finally it looks like we have overcome that weakness.  I don't know how much that Prensilia robotic hand will cost, but I have a feeling that it will be relatively expensive until the company can produce them at scale.  Hopefully, federal gencies like Medicare and Medicaid will cover all or most of the cost.  The world needs this product because it fills such a huge need among disabled amputee's.

Courtesy of an article dated February 27, 2013 appearing in Fast Company Design

FOURSQUARE TO CONNECT USERS' CREDIT AND DEBIT CARDS WITH TARGETED DISCOUNT DEALS, COULD SPEEDUP PROFITABILITY

Historically, Foursquare has been better at helping its users find ways to spend their money than at making any of its own. It’s a state of affairs that can’t last much longer, and the local exploration service is hoping to change it with a new set of partnerships it’s announcing.

Starting today, Foursquare’s 30 million users will be able to sync their MasterCard and Visa credit and debit cards with the apps. Those who do so will receive targeted discounts from participating merchants, with Burger King and its 7,000-plus locations signed on as the pilot partner.

Foursquare Chief Revenue Officer Steven Rosenblatt (Click Image To Enlarge)

Steven Rosenblatt, who joined Foursquare last summer as its first chief revenue officer says.

“This is where you’re going to see merchants really realize the power of mobility.” 

Rosenblatt, who came from Apple, joined the company just in time for the launch of its first major monetization product, Promoted Updates. They’re discount offers and other targeted messages served up to users via the app’s local discovery engine, Explore.

Foursquare' Promoted Update (Click Image To Enlarge)

The new Promoted Updates enables businesses to send promoted content to users. These updates will appear at the top in a prominent position in the “Explore” tab in Foursquare. That’s the section of the app that is for users to find businesses nearby. The Promoted Updates, like Google search ads, there is “intent” there while users are looking for a restaurant, bar or other business nearby, says Steven Rosenblatt, Foursquare’s chief revenue officer. Businesses pay on a “cost per action” performance basis for these ads. In some ways these updates are also like Twitter’s promoted Tweets.

While the privately-held startup doesn’t disclose revenues, Rosenblatt says merchants have been impressed with the results from Promoted Updates. The “action rate” for the ads is about 3%, with more than 50% of users who engage with a Promoted Update checking into the merchant’s location within 72 hours.

He says.  

“We wanted to prove that we could drive people from the digital world to the physical world. That’s the thing marketers have been striving for forever and really never could prove it.”

Getting users to sync their credit cards is critical to the proving-it part, allowing Foursquare access to detailed purchase data that bolsters its claims to be an effective tool for vendors trying to drum up local busines. Rosenblatt says.

"One mass retailer recently told us for every dollar spent on Foursquare they drive $10 in ROI.”

The deals with Mastercard and Visa represent an extension of a partnership Foursquare has had since 2011 with American Express. But the AmEx deal was not revenue-generating,  according to The New York Times. With the new partnerships, Foursquare will get paid on a cost-per-transaction basis.

That could add up to a real business, and not a moment too soon for the four-year-old company. Rosenblatt says. 

“I can say we’re anticipating significant growth in 2013.  Expect a lot from us this year.”

COMMENTARY:  In a blog post dated January 29, 2011, I reported that foursquare had reached 6 million users, and that venture capital firm Andreeson Horowitz said that foursquare was worth $250 million, althougn the site had zero revenues.  

In a blog post dated November 23, 2012, I reported that foursquare had generated only about $2 million in revenues for the year, and sought to raise another $50 million in venture capital, on top of the $20 million it raised in 2010 when it was valued at $95 million and a $50 million round it raised from Andreesen Horowitz in June 2011 at a valuation of $600 million when it hit 10 million users. Since then, the company’s valuation has reportedly increased to more than $700 million. 

If you've been following my previous posts about foursquare, you already know that I don't think very much about foursquare, their CEO Dennis Crowley, or location-based social networks as a matter of record.  In fact, I think the entire LBSN category is headed for a train wreck and said so much in a previous blog post dated April 13, 2011.  

So when I heard that Foursquare was looking for additional investors, but had generated a paltry $2 million in revenues so far in 2012,  I just had to chuckle.   I don't know where foursquare came out with that valuation of $700 million, but if you do the math, this works out to 350 times revenues, which is a ridiculou number, when you consider that Facebook at the time of its IPO commanded a multiple of 26.  No wonder investors are taking a close look at Foursquare or are very hesitant of investing in a company lacking a successful business model. 

Courtesy of an article dated February 26, 2013 appearing in Forbes and an article dated July 25, 2012 appearing in Forbes

DISNEY DIRECTOR JOHN KAHRS COMBINES 2D AND 3D ANIMATION AND WINS AN OSCAR FOR BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM "PAPERMAN"

Paperman is an Oscar-winning short, directed by John Kahrs (Click Image To Enlarge) 

DIRECTOR JOHN KAHRS HAD A VISION FOR HIS ANIMATED SHORTPAPERMAN. THERE WAS JUST ONE PROBLEM. THE TECHNOLOGY TO MAKE IT DIDN’T EXIST YET.

A Pixar film is a beautiful thing. Long after Toy Story’s 3-D novelty wore off, artists refined their techniques, so Up could make us cry. But in these computer-generated worlds full of perfect shapes and gradients, we inevitably lost some of that old Disney magic--the nuance of incredible, hand-drawn lines.  John Kahrs thought.

“Isn’t there a way we can bring that hand of an artist back?” 

 

At the time, he was working on his storyboards for Paperman--what has since become Disney’s 2013 Oscar-winning animated short. It was going to be “an urban fairy tale in a beautiful world of light and shadow,” showcasing the latest in CG technology like global illumination and radiocity (light-based physics).  But another thought had been haunting him. Working on  Tangled  alongside legendary 2-D animator Glen Keane (The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast), Kahrs watched Keane sketch on top of the CG animations during the production process. Software allowed Keane to reshape 3-D figures with his pen strokes, but ultimately, his beautiful lines were lost in the process. It seemed like such a waste.

It tells the story of any two people who share a moment on a train platform, only to never see one another again (Click Image To Enlarge)

Late in the storyboarding process, Keane’s vision for Paperman was born anew. What if it could be a hybrid of the old and new schools of animation? What if it could be 2-D and 3-D at the same time?

But, without spoiling anything, I have a feeling that things may go different, thanks to a healthy dose of Disneyfication (Click Image To Enlarge)

Kahrs began investigating that possibility in the only place he could, Disney’s R&D department. He lucked out when he met software engineer Brian Whited, who had already been working on a new piece of animation software called Meander that specialized in 2-D interpolation (using software to reason out gaps in sketched animations). With modification and refinement, it just might work.

Watch the nuance of each frame. With 117 shots in the film, Kahrs’s team focused on the composition of each shot (Click Image To Enlarge)

Keane says. 

“You hear people talking a lot about innovation--innovation comes out of necessity.  The necessity in this case was we had to figure out how to have a CG underlayer that dragged these drawn lines on top of it.”

 

Eventually, Meander proved capable of stunning feats. Today, an animator can draw a frown on a protagonist’s hand in one frame, then, several frames later, draw a smile. Meander can both track the position of that hand in 3-D space, and it can fill in the gaps, turning that frown into a smile, naturally. But much of Keane’s emphasis was tweaking the feel. In classic Disney animation, the character outlines do something called boiling, as the imperfections in cel after cel stack up--and they’re important, subconscious cues to the experience of animation feeling authentic. 

Also, aside from the narrative plays on light and shadow, each frame has hints of hand-drawn animation (Click Image To Enlarge)

Keane says. 

“It’s part of the human hand.  Those were the sort of small details that we were big on pushing one way or another.”

Following months of preliminary testing, the team had developed two test shots that they thought were compelling. The last step would be to take a meeting with John Lasseter and the rest of Disney studio leadership and sell them on the aesthetic.

What you see is actually built on an entirely new 2-D and 3-D animation system called Meander, which layers drawings on top of 3-D figures (Click Image To Enlarge)

Keane recounts.

“I think John was a little bit skeptical. He’s a smart guy. He’s seen all these painterly effects. His concern was, does it get in the way of the storytelling, or is it a way of immersing you in this world and telling the story of the characters? Once he saw these tests, they all sat up and noticed that this wasn’t just some cheap trick.”

When your brain tries to dissect each frame, reasoning how someone can possibly draw on 3-D in 2-D, you’re bound for a mental meltdown (Click Image To Enlarge)

Indeed, Paperman is amongst the most stunning animations we’ve ever seen. It combines new aesthetics with standing traditions, marrying the tangibility of CG with the human grit of a pen on paper. And in a poetic turn of technology, it was actually the 2-D animators who got to put the finishing touches on each frame of Paperman. All of those beautiful lines that started the animation process would end it, too.

But ultimately, if you just soak in each frame for the visual paradox that it is, you’ll really enjoy the film (Click Image To Enlarge)

Check out all of this year’s Oscar-nominated short films at Co.Create.

COMMENTARY:   The "Paperman" is one sweet short animation film.  No wonder it won an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.  Disney and Director John Kahrs were able to marry 2D and 3D animation into the same film, and the result is just beautiful.

Disney Director John Kahrs (centere) accepts the Academy Award for Best Short Animation Film for "Paperman" (Click Image To Enlarge)

Courtesy of an article dated February 22, 2013 appearing in Fast Company Design

 

THE 85TH ACADEMY AWARDS HOSTED BY SETH MACFARLANE, THE FULL VIDEO AND WHO WON

If you missed the telecast of the 85th Academy Awards hosted by Seth MacFarlane, here's the complete show thanks to the folks at HULU.com.

 

You can also view The Oscars on the Oscars website.

List of the 85th annual Academy Award winners announced Sunday in Los Angeles:

• Best Picture: "Argo."
• Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis, "Lincoln."
• Actress: Jennifer Lawrence, "Silver Linings Playbook."
• Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz, "Django Unchained."
• Supporting Actress: Anne Hathaway, "Les Miserables."
• Directing: Ang Lee, "Life of Pi."
• Foreign Language Film: "Amour."
• Adapted Screenplay: Chris Terrio, "Argo."
• Original Screenplay: Quentin Tarantino, "Django Unchained."
• Animated Feature Film: "Brave."
• Production Design: "Lincoln."
• Cinematography: "Life of Pi."
• Sound Mixing: "Les Miserables."
• Sound Editing (tie): "Skyfall," ''Zero Dark Thirty."
• Original Score: "Life of Pi," Mychael Danna.
• Original Song: "Skyfall" from "Skyfall," Adele Adkins and Paul Epworth.
• Costume: "Anna Karenina."
• Documentary Feature: "Searching for Sugar Man."
• Documentary (short subject): "Inocente."
• Film Editing: "Argo."
• Makeup and Hairstyling: "Les Miserables."
• Animated Short Film: "Paperman."
• Live Action Short Film: "Curfew."
• Visual Effects: "Life of Pi."

Courtesy of Fox News, The Oscars.com and Hollywood Life

VERVE MOBILE STUDY: LOCATION-BASED MOBILE ADS DELIVER BEST ENGAGEMENT AND PERFORMANCE

Targeting ads by location has proven a strong selling point for mobile advertising. Mobile ad exchange Nexage last month reported targeted impressions more than doubled in 2012, driven in part by 30% per month growth in location-powered impressions.

Mobile campaigns leveaging location targeting outperformed non-location based campaigns by a factor of 2X (Click Image To Enlarge)

As a firm that specializes in location-based advertising networks, Verve Mobile is also benefiting from interest in the category. Verve provides mobile ad management and publishing tools for over 3,500 local publishers, NBC-owned TV stations, Hearst Newspapers and the Associated Press. It serves more than 6 billion impressions and reaches 108 million uniques a month.

Who Is Using Location Powered Mobile Advertising - State of the Market - Location Powered Mobile Advertising Report  for 2012 - Verve Mobile (Click Image To Enlarge)

In an analysis of more than 2,500 mostly location-based campaigns it ran last year, Verve highlighted some of the key trends and metrics that emerged: Geo-aware ads use real-time location to deliver specific messages based on a user’s proximity to a store or other site.

Restaurants and retail led all advertisers in the use of geo-ware and geo-fenced campaigns - State of the Market - Location Powered Mobile Advertising Report  for 2012 - Verve Mobile (Click Image To Enlarge)

Other ads are triggered by geo-fencing around a retail location. Marketers use ads leveraging location data coupled with third-party demographic or transactional data to determine audience “clusters” by geographic area.

Click Image To Enlarge

Targeting by designated marketing areas (DMAs) is still the most common form of location-based advertising in mobile, with 30% of Verve campaigns using this method. Geo-fencing was a close second, with 27% of campaigns adopting this strategy, followed by audience-data targeting, 24%, and geo-aware ads, 14%. Ads delivered by city or zip accounted for the rest.

Performance by location targeting strategy (Click Image To Enlarge)

Overall, Verve says location-based ads had twice the engagement rate of other types of ads.
 
Restaurants and retailers led the way in geo-aware and geo-fenced advertising, seeking to drive consumers to specific nearby locations. Given that 2012 was an election year, political advertisers ran the highest proportion of campaigns that combined location with other audience data, at 29%.
 
In terms of performance, geo-aware ads rated highest -- with a 1% click-through rate -- with geo-fenced ads, nearly at 1%, and ads targeted by city, at about 0.9%. Ads using third-party data were found to be the least effective, with click rates of about 0.5%. That’s still well above rates for traditional online banners, but considering that ads with higher levels of data targeting are usually more costly, the results are not impressive. 

Premium local inventory drove the highest click-through rates at 1.2%, compared to 0.8% for premium national inventory, and about 0.2% for exchange-based inventory.

Learn more about Verve’s offering, Place Insights^TM the first mobile place-based audience targeting solution purpose-built to help brands reach their optimal audiences based on the characteristics of a user’s location, by clicking HERE.

COMMENTARY:   Verve Mobile's "State of the Market - Location Powered Mobile Advertising Report - 2012 Annual Review" report can be viewed here:

State of the market location-based power mobile advertising report for 2012 - verve mobile from turk5555 

Courtesy of an article dated February 6, 2013 appearing in MediaPost Publications Online Media Daily

THE PIAMO ESPRESSO MAKER, AN INGENIOUS AT-HOME ESPRESSO MAKER FOR YOUR MICROWAVE IN LESS THAN ONE MINUTE

The Piamo is a charming, microwave espresso maker (Click Image To Enlarge)

HAS THE IMPOSSIBLE HAPPENED? HAS SOMEONE BUILT THE FIRST AMAZING MICROWAVE ESPRESSO MAKER? POSSIBLY.

Brewing world-class coffee is fairly inexpensive. All you need is a grinder and a kettle and some sort of combination of a funnel and filter. Good espresso ups the ante by about tenfold. You need pressure. Pressure is expensive, it’s counter-suckingly bulky and still requires a level of finesse to pull a perfect shot. Since the 1930s, the solution has been the moka pot, but a moka pot needs a stove.

In 30 seconds, it will turn your water and grounds into a very strong shot of coffee (Click Image To Enlarge)

The Piamo Espresso Maker, designed by Christoph and Hendrik Meyl, along with Lunar, is an elegant, microwaveable entry in the world of at-home espresso. It’s essentially a microwaveable moka pot, inverted. You pour water in a reservoir up top and fill grounds in the middle. Then you set the microwave for 30 seconds. Steam pressure builds in the reservoir, pushing water through the grounds into a cup. You’re done.

 

Lunar’s lead project designer Roman Gebhard told Co.Design.

“We really strived for creating a simple, on-the-go espresso experience that is communicated with a clear, unique, and iconic design expression.  There was a need and opportunity to form a brand new product icon/archetype that has the strength to become a symbol for this category.”

The Piamo has already been awarded a few patents based on its ingenuity, but its most brilliant move was to play off the already-iconic shape (and mouth feel) of the espresso cup. Because while I was able to find some “microwaveable espresso makers” on Amazon, their plastic construction oozed gimmick. And all their parts looked fragile and tough to clean. Even though I’ve never tasted Piamo espresso, I’m inherently drawn to the authenticity of that espresso cup. I trust it, and I want to drink espresso out of it.

The top (left) is the water reservoir. Then you have the compartment for the grounds--complete with metal shielding to stop them from burning. At the bottom is the cup (Click Image To Enlarge)

Of course, the larger design challenges had nothing to do with the branding. The team had to figure out, how do you toss ground espresso into a microwave for 30 seconds without burning away the intoxicating aroma? The solution was to implement metal shielding around just the grounds compartment of the Piamo. But don’t metal and microwaves not mix?

Steam pressure builds, pushing through the middle chamber’s grounds into the cup itself (Click Image To Enlarge)

Gebhard explains. 

"Any metal part in a microwave acts as an antenna. It needs to be designed in a way that its geometry is soft, rounded, and doesn’t have any pointy, sharp areas that create problems with the electrical fields that would result in the well-known sparks.  Furthermore, these metal parts need to be designed in a way that they are aligned with the standardized microwave wavelength and frequency."

Coupled with that espresso cup, which was actually built of ABS plastic to reinforce the metal’s shielding (better than ceramic would), the espresso grounds are kept safe from overheating. Ironically, moka pots are often chided for burning espresso before the water pressure mixes with the beans. Piamo’s design team may have solved this age-old problem despite the indiscriminate science of microwaves.

And it only takes 30 seconds (Click Image To Enlarge)

But before the snobs call me on this, it is worth noting that moka pots may not be the ultimate standard of espresso. Coffee consensus agrees that you need 8.8 bars (atmospheres) of pressure to pull an ideal shot. Moka pots, and the Piamo, both generate about 1.5 bars. So will the Piamo prove to be a replacement for your four-figure counter beast, brandishing a name that could be mistaken for an Italian sports car? Probably not. But could the Piamo be the all-around most convenient way ever to make a drinkable shot of super strong coffee at the inlaws’? Absolutely.

The Piamo is available for pre-order now. It’s $55 on the German equivalent of Kickstarter.

Order the Piamo Espresso Maker here 

COMMENTARY:   I'm not an espresso coffee drinker, but the Piamo Espresso Maker definitely appears to be a very simple alternative solution to what has become a complicated and fairly expensive solution to brewing a great cup of espresso coffee.  It's sort of a no-brainer if you want a quick cup of espresso coffee, and don't want to use one of those espresso machines.   

Courtesy of an article dated February 6, 2013 appearing in Fast Company Design 

 

TWITTER TESTS TWITTER CARDS, A NEW AD PRODUCT TO GENERATE LEADS DIRECTLY FROM TWEETS

Twitter is testing a new ad unit that gives direct marketers a way to generate leads directly from tweets.

You can see an example of the unit in this tweet promoting Twitter’s small business guide. Not only is there a small image promoting the guide, but if you’re logged in, it also shows a “Get it now” button. When you hit the button, you don’t get asked for a phone number or email address — instead, you get a message saying that “Twitter Advertising will reach out soon.” Presumably, the advertiser will get a list of interested Twitter accounts.

Twitter's new ad product allows direct marketers to generate leads directly from Tweets (Click Image To Enlarge)

Twitter says this functionality is being delivered through Twitter Cards, the technology that enables additional media and functionality (like embedding a photo or a video) in tweets. It also says this unit is still being tested. So it could change significantly, or it might not ever see a broad rollout at all. This does seem like something that would be pretty appealing to advertisers, since it gives them a new way to get their messages across, as well as to measure the success of their campaigns in a way that’s more meaningful to them than retweets or clickthroughs to a landing page.

Of course, as with any expansion to Twitter advertising, it could also spur some user whinging. For what it’s worth, this sample doesn’t seem particularly obtrusive to me.

I’ve asked Twitter for more details about the test and will update if I hear back.

COMMENTARY:

Introduction To Twitter Cards

Twitter cards make it possible for you to attach media experiences to Tweets that link to your content. Simply add a few lines of HTML to your webpages, and users who Tweet links to your content will have a "card" added to the Tweet that’s visible to all of their followers.

As a developer, Twitter cards can...

• Give you control of how your content is displayed with Tweets
• Drive traffic to your site
• Increase the number of people following your Twitter accounts through content attribution

Three simple steps

1. Review the documentation for the type of card you want to implement.
2. Add the meta-tags to your page and test your markup with our preview tool.
3. Apply to participate by submitting your working example link and related information.

Card Principles

Click Image To Enlarge

A "summary" Twitter Card on twitter.com with content attribution.

There are 3 card types that can be attached to Tweets, each of which has a beautiful consumption experience built for Twitter's web and mobile clients:

• Summary:  The default card, which includes a title, description, thumbmail image, and Twitter account attribution.
• Photo:  A Tweet sized photo card.
• Player:  A Tweet sized video/audio/media player card.

Summary Card

The summary card can be used for many kinds of web content, from blog posts and news articles, to products and restaurants. The screenshot below shows the expanded Tweet view for a New York Times article:

Summary Card as it appears on the desktop and mobile devices (Click Image To Enlarge)

The card is designed to give the reader a preview of the content before clicking through to your website. You’ll notice that this card makes use of all of the properties described in the previous section: URL, title, description, and image.

Photo Card

The photo card puts the image front and center in the Tweet:

Photo card as it appears on the desktop (Click Image To Enlarge)

Photo card as it appears on mobile devices (Click Image To Enlarge)

To define a photo card experience, set your card type to "photo" and provide a twitter:image. Twitter will resize images, maintaining original aspect ratio to fit the following sizes:

• Web: maximum height of 375px, maximum width of 435px
• Mobile (non-retina displays): maximum height of 375px, maximum width of 280px
• Mobile (retina displays): maximum height of 750px, maximum with of 560px

Twitter will not create a photo card unless the twitter:image is of a minimum size of 280px wide by 150px tall. Images will not be cropped unless they have an exceptional aspect ratio. All images will be fetched and proxied by Twitter to ensure a high quality of service and SSL security for users.

Specifying the width and height using twitter:image:width and twitter:image:height helps us more accurately preserve the aspect ratio of the image when resizing.

Photo cards are the only type of card which support a blank title. 

Animated gifs are currently not supported in Twitter Cards.

Player Card

The player card is for interactive media experiences like videos, music players, and live streaming events, and allows you to present your content inside of an iframe within the Tweet. Unlike the photo and summary card, you control the entire content experience, and are responsible for providing an implementation that works across Twitter clients including:

• Twitter.com and mobile.twitter.com
• Twitter for iPhone
• Twitter for Android

Photo card offers a different experience on the desktop and on mobile devices like tablets (Click Image To Enlarge)

Due to platform capabilities, player cards work a bit differently on each client and it’s important to understand these details before you begin building your card experience. All player cards require special whitelisting and approval by Twitter.

A few simple rules for Cards

Do:

• Build a responsive and equivalent experience that works within all Twitter Clients. Cards that do not work in all Twitter clients listed above will not be approved.
• Test your experience on the native browsers of Twitter Clients before submitting for approval.
• Provide a raw stream to video and audio content when possible.
• Use HTTPS for your iframe, stream, and all assets within your card.
• Use wmode=opaque if utilizing Flash for the twitter.com experience, so that the player renders at the correct z-index.
• Link to a HTML page which falls back to mobile friendly content in case Flash is not available.

Do not:

• Generate mixed content browser warnings. All Twitter clients use HTTPS, and you must not break the lock of the browser.
• Automatically play content.
• Require users to sign-in to your experience.
• Commingle sharing features from other networks inside your player.
• Set twitter:player to point directly at a .swf movie file.

A few things to check before submitting a Player Card for approval.

These are the most common problems we find when reviewing Player Card submissions (these will delay your approval until fixed):

1. The HTTPS lock is broken, make sure the video is served via HTTPS too, no exceptions
2. The content must have stop or pause controls
3. In Android/iOS browsers the experience must fall back gracefully (sized for mobile viewport, no broken Flash embeds, etc)
4. The content must not play automatically
5. The content must not implement its own sharing controls to third party networks (we do not support this currently)
6. The content must not require sign in
7. The content must not be entirely an ad
8. The player URL must not point directly to a .swf
9. Check if the player's z-index causes the content to overlap the page header
10. If the browser asks you whether you want to display insecure assets, you have an https problem
11. Make sure the image is at least 68,600 pixels (a 262x262 square image, or a 350x196 16:9 image) or bigger
12. The player URL is not HTTPS (did we mention this before?)

Twitter cards and Open Graph

You'll notice that Twitter card tags look similar to OpenGraph tags, and that's because they are based on the same conventions as the Open Graph protocol. If you're already using OpenGraph to describe data on your page, it’s easy to generate a Twitter card without duplicating your tags and data. When the Twitter card processor looks for tags on your page, it first checks for the Twitter property, and if not present, falls back to the supported Open Graph property. This allows for both to be defined on the page independently, and minimizes the amount of duplicate markup required to describe your content and experience. 

Twitter Cards Guidelines For Developers

The documentation for Twitter Cards for developers is available HERE.

Courtesy of an article dated February 19, 2013 appearing in TechCrunch