ImaginativePRO Blog

MEET GUI DESIGNER ROB MASON, THE RECENT COLLEGE GRAD BEHIND FACEBOOK'S MINIMALIST VIDEO CALL DESIGN

Many things were written about the new video calling feature Facebook launched Wednesday, April 22—that it couldn’t compare to the new Google+ Hangouts, for example, because it didn’t have a group feature, or that it should be admired for its drop-dead simplicity.

But one thing that wasn’t written about was that the new feature that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg  trumpeted as being "awesome" was dreamt up almost entirely by a single baby-faced product designer, a recent hire who was tossed onto the project less than a month after stepping onto the company’s Mountain View campus last fall.

That designer, Rob Mason, pictured below, spoke with Fast Company about how he went about envisioning Facebook’s entrant into the video communication space—and along the way gave us insight both into why Facebook made some of the design choices it did (No mute button? What’s up with that?) and into Facebook’s overall process for designing new features.

Facebook's Rob Mason is the designer of the new Messenger Video Call app (Click Image To Enlarge)

Mason, 22, a recent graduate from England, arrived at Facebook last October. Before that, his employment history consisted mainly of doing contract design work on third-party Facebook apps.

Despite that seeming paucity of experience, Facebook leaders apparently didn’t hesitate to dump the important new feature into Mason’s virgin hands.

Soleio Cuervo, one of Facebook’s design veterans tells Fast Company.

"We have a pretty rigorous process for hiring new designers." 

Design at Facebook is a leadership role, he says. The company looks for people with strong vision, strong soup-to-nuts technical and design skills, and strong abilities to drive consensus.

Cuervo says.  

"When we looked at Rob’s portfolio and the projects he had created on his own, we saw they were highly focused, dirt simple, and very clean.  That high level of focus was something we thought was appropriate for this product."

Whereas design teams at other companies are inundated with marketing and product requirement documents, the only guidance Mason was given was the fact that the company would be implementing Skype’s video capabilities and that it was up to him to figure out what the new feature should do.

Screenshots of Facebook Messenger Video Calling Add-on (Click Image To Enlarge)

Mason then buckled down to the project, putting existing video chat products through the paces, sketching out new ideas, and building rough prototypes.

A month later, Mason sat down with Zuckerberg and vice president of product Chris Cox for his first design review. (Unlike at other companies where designers are separated by oodles of bureaucracy from the top dogs, at Facebook, designers work directly with Zuckerberg and Cox to hammer out new features.)

Mason pitched his idea:  

"A really minimal experience with none of the clutter or legacy of any other product on the market."

Mason says.  

"Making a video call today is very complex.  You have to make sure you and the other person are using the same software. If you’re not, you have to install that software on your computer. You have to create an account. And you have to get your friend’s user name and enter that into your software. There’s a huge untapped market of people who would get lots of value out of video calling, but it’s too complicated. They don’t even know where to start."

Which is why Facebook went in the completely opposite direction.

Mason says.  

"If you want to send a message to someone in Facebook, you just click on them and type in your message.  Video calling should be the same."

Over the following months, working in concert with Zuckerberg and Cox, and Philip Su, the engineer who built the feature, Mason refined the idea and nailed down its essential elements, including:

No Controls

Once you’re inside the video calling window (you’ve called another person and they’ve accepted your call), the window in which you’re speaking to each other has no controls, other than the standard ones (full screen, minimize, and close).

If the goal is simply to enable two people to communicate, Mason says, bells and whistles risk getting in the way—even a mute button, which you’d think would be a core control for a calling service.

Mason says.  

"It seems like such a simple feature, but if you accidentally mute a call, you can end up in a state where you have video but no sound.  It adds a lot of confusion."

Placing The Call Window At The Top

Although you can move the call window around, when it first appears, Facebook positions it at the top of the screen, right below your camera. That way, when you’re looking at the person you’re talking with, your eyes are looking in the same general place as the camera, which increases the chance that it captures some measure of eye contact.

Similarly, the picture of you that’s embedded in the call window also appears at the top. That, says Mason, is so that if you check out your own picture during the call, you don’t lose eye contact with the person you’re speaking with.

Making Your Picture Tiny

The picture of you that gets embedded in the call window is noticeably small, thumbprint-sized, rather than profile-photo-size, or larger.

Mason says.  

"That’s so that you’re not self-conscious.  You can see that you’re in the frame, but you can’t see any imperfections."

Keeping The Video Window In The Foreground

Try bringing another window to the forefront of your screen when you’re on a Facebook video call, and you’ll quickly find that you can’t. That’s entirely intentional, Mason says, and again harks back to the idea of making video calls simple and easy even for the most novice users.

Mason says.  

"It’s really important for our members to be confident that they know when they’re being seen and heard.  With the video window always on top, you never forget you’re in a call.  Cuervo says that, in an increasingly real-time world, making video calls—to chat with family and friends—is going to become increasingly commonplace. Requiring people to install software and click through setup wizards is "an archaic way of thinking about how people want to interact with their friends."

Facebook’s new service, on the other hand, is the kind of typical low-end disruption that Clayton Christensen pinpoints in his business classic The Innovator’s Dilemma—a product that can seem underwhelming at first when compared with legacy products but that strikes a chord with an emerging class of customer.

Cuervo says.  

"My parents can now call me.  All those years of frustration with video chat clients will finally be gone."

COMMENTARY:   Facebook’s introduction of free mobile video calling as part of its mobile Messenger app, puts it in direct competition with Skype, Google Chat and Hangouts and Apple’s FaceTime.  Previously, Messenger allowed users to make voice calls; the new feature comes as other social media platforms have unveiled new capabilities including video calling.

To use the Messenger video call function, Facebook members just have to tap a video icon within the app and choose the contact they want to call. They can also open up a video call from within a text or voice call if they feel the need.

In one major difference from its competitors, Messenger allows users to make video calls between different operating systems -- for example, with one user calling from an Android device and the other user receiving the call on iOS. cThat’s an important distinction from Facetime, which like most other Apple products is exclusive of other operating systems.

Video calling on Facebook Messenger works through a mobile data connection and WiFi. This means that someone with a strong LTE signal on their iPhone in the U.S. can still have a video chat with someone in a third-world country that has a weaker 3G signal on their Android device. Facebook is also currently experimenting with group video calling and video stabilization, according to TechCrunch.

The video calling feature for Facebook Messenger is currently available for iOS and Android users in Belgium, Canada, Croatia, Denmark, France, Greece, Ireland, Laos, Lithuania, Mexico, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Poland, Portugal, the U.K., the U.S. and Uruguay. It will gradually roll out to other countries over the next several weeks.

Here is a video that demonstrates how video calling on Facebook Messenger works:

 

According to Facebook, over 600 million people use Messenger every month. The social media juggernaut recently introduced Messenger Platform, giving app developers the capability to integrate their products with Messenger, as well as Business on Messenger for business-to-consumer communications.

In March 2015, Facebook announced that users can send money to friends via Messenger, pitting it against other peer-to-peer payment services like Square, Venmo, and Snapcash, introduced last year by Snapchat and powered by Square.

The service will become available over the next few months for Android, iOS, and desktop users. Facebook is offering the service free, with no transaction fees, and currently says it doesn’t plan to monetize it. It also emphasized that the service only allows payments between individual Facebook users, not payments to businesses.

Courtesy of an article dated April 28, 2015 appearing in Fast Company Design and an article dated April 28, 2015 appearing in MediaPost The Social Graf and an article dated April 28, 2015 appearing in Forbes

COMPLETE GUIDE TO APPLE'S NEW HEADQUARTERS 2, EVERYTHING KNOWN ABOUT THE NEW SPACESHIP HQ, PLUS: DRONE FLYOVER VIDEOS

Apple's building a new campus to compliment its campus at One Infinite Loop. Here are 46 facts about the new Apple campus, which is referred to by many as the 'Spaceship Campus' due to its flying saucer-like design.

Apple's got so big that it is building a new campus to compliment its campus at One Infinite Loop. Here are 46 facts about the new Apple campus, which is referred to by many as the 'Spaceship Campus' due to its flying saucer-like design.

Speaking of flying saucers, someone flew a drone over Apple’s ‘spaceship’ campus, in January, watch the video below to see how the new campus is shaping up.

Watch it here: 

 

The mystery person went back with their drone in February, showing us how much difference a month can make at Apple's new campus.

Watch it here:

 

Then, in March, AppleInsider posted a drone captured video to Vimeo entitled "Apple Campus 2 Tour", which you can see here:

Apple Campus 2 Tour - March 2015 from AppleInsider on Vimeo.

The most interesting video, however is one that was released at the end of March. This is the best glympse so far of Apple's new spaceship campus, showing us the sheer scale of the project. You can see that here:

 

How big is Apple's new campus?

1.    The new Apple Campus will be set in a 2.8 million-square-foot area.

2.    That's an 176-acre site.

3.    It will house over 13,000 Apple employees in the one building.

4.    The building is more than a mile around.

5.    There will be 300,000 square feet of research facilities and underground parking.

6.    In May 2014, Apple leased 290,000 square feet of new office space in Sunnyvale known as Sunnyvale Crossing. It is thought that this additional space composes of seven buildings and will provide room for around 1,450 workers. It is located near to the new 'Spaceship' campus as well as the current 'Infinite Loop' campus.

Rendering of new Apple HQ 2 (Click Image To Enlarge)

Watch this video of Apple's presentation about the new campus to the City of Cupertino:

 

7.    The four-story circular structure will have huge walls of glass that will allow employees to look out from both sides of the ring.

Rendering of an exterior view of the inner circle of the new Apple HQ2 (Click Image To Enlarge)

8.    Peter Arbour, an architect for Seele, the company that makes the glass staircases in Apple stores around the world, told Bloomberg: "It is something like six kilometres of glass."

9.    British firm Foster+Partners have been appointed as the architects for this colossal building. Previous projects include Wembley Stadium, Canary Wharf Underground Station, Stansted Airport, London’s Millenium Bridge, HSBC HQ at Canary Wharf, the Maclaren Technology Centre and the Hearst Tower in New York.

10.    In an interview with Architectural Record, Forster+Partners founder and chairman Norman Foster explained that he was inspired by the idea of a London square, where houses surround a park. This eventually evolved into the present design: a circular structure surrounding a large outdoor park.

11. Foster reveals in the video created to promote the Campus 2 project to the City of Cupertino's planning commission (watch it above) that in the original plans there was no circular 'spaceship' structure. Foster said: "It didn't start as a circular building, it really grew into that. So the idea of one building with a great park was really borne out of a very intensive process."

Rendering of an exterior view of the cafe and lounging area of the new Apple HQ 2 (Click Image To Enlarge)

12. Despite aiming to be self-sufficient and earth-friendly, the range of materials used in the construction will without a doubt be the top of the line. "As with Apple's products, Jobs wanted no seam, gap or paintbrush stroke showing; every wall, floor and even ceiling is to be polished to a supernatural smoothness. All of the interior wood was to be harvested from a specific species of maple, and only finer quality 'heartwood' at the centre of the trees would be used," an insider told Business Week.

13. As a consequence of the large size of the building, the sections have been broken up with cafes, lobbies and entrances.

14. In the interview linked above, Foster explains that, when planning the layout of the building, the architects had to consider the different departments that would need to work together, and considered vertical proximities as well as horizontal ones.

"Of course, you have got an enormous range of skills in this building: from software programmers to designers, marketing, retail," he said. "But you can move vertically in the building as well as horizontally. The proximity, the adjacencies are very, very carefully considered."

15. A significant segment of the building is the restaurant, which opens up to the landscape.

16. The car park is buried below the landscape so there are no rows of parked cars to spoil the view.

Rendering of the underground parking garage of the new Apple HQ 2 (Click Image To Enlarge)

17. A video made by Technology Integration Services was created based on publicly available information about Apple Campus 2; the company has no affiliation with Apple. The video depicts additional buildings along with the main 'spaceship' building and gives an indication of how vast the greenery will be in the area. A fountain can be seen in the middle of the campus along with a performance stage, presumably for presentations to Apple employees. Watch the video here.

Rendering of an overhead view of the cafe and lounge area of the new Apple HQ 2 (Click Image To Enlarge)

18. This picture shows the Apple Campus 2 site when it was being prepped for foundation work with the first walls having been erected, running around the perimeter of where the main building will stand. This is where construction crews poured foundation.

Apple Campus 2 site when it was being prepped for foundation work (Click Image To Enlarge)

19. Phase two of the project, includes the creation of research & development buildings and other secondary buildings for meetings and presentations, requires demolition to clear land along N. Tantau Avenue then took place. Current residents, Panasonic, are based opposite the site. Panasonic's response to Apple's new headquarters is not known although tensions could run high between the neighbouring businesses should Apple ever branch out into the TV market.  

How much input did Steve Jobs have in the new campus?

20. According to Norman Foster, Apple's late CEO Steve Jobs requested that he be considered a part of the team rather than the client.

21. Jobs wanted the new campus to reflect the Californian landscapes from his childhood, Foster claims in the video.

22. Apple's 'senior arborist', David Muffly, reveals in the video that part of Apple's plan was to bring California back to Cupertino.

23. Steve Jobs was inspired by a large space known as the Main Quad on the Stanford campus.

The new Apple HQ2 will have an interior area inspired by the Main Quad of the Stanford campus (Click Image To Enlarge

When will Apple's new campus be ready?

24. Although the project was intended to be ready by mid-2015, setbacks put the plans behind schedule. Apple plans to move into the main structure by 2016 whilst other secondary buildings will be completed on a rolling basis. 

How environmentally friendly will the new Apple campus be?

25. The new Apple Campus will aim at being self-sufficient. Most of the power for the facilities will come from an "on-site low carbon Central Plant", according to an Apple Insider report.  Apple intends to use alternative energy sources to power the campus, as part of its pledge to use 100 percent renewable energy at its facilities.

26. After revisions to the original plan, Apple showed that will be able to complete the project without having to remove any dirt from the area.

27. The structure will be outfitted with solar panels around the top of the building. It will run mostly off the Cupertino power grid but will use it as a backup electrical supply.

28. 7,000 trees will surround the campus. Apple has hired a leading arborist from Stanford University to help landscape the area and restore some of the indigenous plant life, including apricot orchards.

Rendering of the interior quad area of the new Apple Headquarters 2 (Click Image To Enlarge)

29. All landscaping is intended to make the area look very park-like. It will include jogging paths and walking trails around the building.

30. The former HP campus on which Apple's Campus 2 is being built was covered in buildings, concrete parking lots and non-indigenous decorative trees ill-suited to the specific Pacific climate. The strongest of the trees will be replanted and augmented with sturdy species that will flourish to create large open expanses of greenery.

31. Apple VP of Environmental Initiatives Lisa Jackson reiterates that 80 percent of the site will be so-called "green space", while the main building will go without air conditioning or heating for 75 percent of the year thanks to natural ventilation. Further, 100 percent of the campus' energy will be sourced from renewable assets like solar power and bio fuels.

32. Foster compared the new Apple campus to an airport, telling Architectural Review: "If you compare these very large buildings in terms of the area enclosed by the amount of external wall, they're very efficient, so they consume less energy. They're also a better experience, because you're not leaving one terminal, going outside, onto a road, or into a tunnel, or onto a train to get to another terminal. You're not worrying about what the hell is happening to your bags as they leave one place and you hope that they end up in the other place.

"Overall, it's a better experience - it's more sustainable, it's more economic. And, architecturally, it's more interesting. The same is true with the very large Apple building."

33. The new campus will reportedly use recycled water and will use 13,300 feet of pipeline to share the supply between it and Cupertino.

How much will the new Apple campus cost?

34. The budget for the new spaceship-like headquarters has ballooned from less than $3 billion in 2011 to almost $5 billion.

35. Not everyone is happy. It has been reported that angry shareholders have attacked the $5 billion project, labeling it wildly extravagant.

36. According to Bloomberg, although $1 billion is less than 1 percent of Apple's cash reserves, shareholders have complained that too much is being spent on this vast project while nothing is being handed back to stockholders.

Rendering of the interior quad area of the new Apple Headquarters 2 (Click Image To Enlarge)

What facilities will there be at the new Apple campus?

37. The main building will include a wellness centre. This $75 million fitness centre will probably cater for the needs of the entire Apple community in Silicon Valley, which is around 20,000 people.

38. The headquarters will be fitted with a new 1000-seat underground auditorium which will allow Apple to have presentations in the same building, instead of having to go to San Francisco every time.

39. The new underground parking facilities will increase the number of spaces from 10,500 to 14,200.

40. Due to its underground location, this will triple the amount of landscaped area in the campus.

Rendering of an exterior view of the front of the new Apple Headquarters 2 (Click Image To Enlarge)

41. Despite rumours and an unsuccessful campaign by David Greelish, Apple will not open a museum at the new HQ. As Phil Schiller explained, Apple is "focused on inventing the future, not celebrating the past".

42. There will be miles of jogging and cycling trails.

43. 1,000 bikes will be kept on the site and available to staff to get around the campus.

Rendering of the many walking and jogging trails on the property of the new Apple Headquarters 2 (Click Image To Enlarge)

44. A new Caffè Macs employee cafeteria has recently opened at Apple's Cupertino campus. Designed solely for Apple employee use, the general public is not allowed entry to the building, having been designed as an area for Apple employees to discuss work in a secure and private area. The cafeteria, built over two years and in a 21,468 square foot space, has been designed by Foster + Partners, the same agency responsible for Campus 2.

The building’s kitchen, server and espresso bar have been billed as smaller versions of the ones that will feature at Campus 2, enabling the food service team to test the design and layout of the kitchen and serving areas on a smaller scale. The cafeteria at Apple Campus 2 is expected to be eight times larger and span two floors. 

The structure of Caffè Macs Alves is reminiscent of design plans for the new campus, containing high ceilings, stonewalls, glass façade and terrazzo floors, all of which are design signatures of Apple Campus 2.

Exterior view of Apple's new Caffe Mac at the present campus in Cupertino (Click Image To Enlarge)

Interior view of the new Caffe Mac at the present HQ in Cupertino (Click Image To Enlarge)

What will happen to the old Infinite Loop Apple HQ?

45. Even with this new colossal project opening in 2016, Apple has no plans to destroy its existing headquarters building located at 1 Infinite Loop in Cupertino.

What used to be on the site?

46. It is located on the former Hewlett Packard campus.

47. The local area of Cupertino has missed revenues from Hewlett Packard since they left the site however the construction of Apple Campus 2 has lead to the City Council's budget being boosted by an extra $30.6 million. $8 million of the extra revenue will be used to pay off the city retiree medical unfunded liability, with another $8.3 million being used to fund pavement maintenance. The remaining extra funding will be transferred into the city's capital reserve.

Rendering of the main entrance to the new Apple Headquarters 2

COMMENTARY:   When I first blogged about Steve Jobs' new Apple HQ 2 aka Spaceship HQ, the budget for the construction of the new campus was $1 billion.  Now I am reading that there have been so many modifications to the original cost estimate that the cost has ballooned to $5 billion. WOW.  No wonder the stockholders are pissed off.  I would be too. 

Courtesy of an article dated April 2, 2015 appearing in Macworld

APPLE BEATS WALL STREET FORECAST FOR Q2 2015, REPORTS $58B REVENUE, $13.6B PROFIT AND $2.33 EPS

Apple has just released its fiscal Q2 2015 earnings, reporting $58 billion in revenue, $13.6 billion in net profit representing $2.33 per share. Compared to the year-ago quarter, it corresponds to a growth of 27.2 percent in revenue, and an impressive 40.4 percent jump in EPS (adjusted for the 7-for-1 split).

Expectations were pretty high following Apple’s blockbuster quarter three months ago — the company reported the largest corporate quarterly earnings of all time. And it turns out that this quarter was Apple’s second-largest earnings of all time. In particular, services are now a $5 billion business, and Apple reported a gross margin of 40.8 compared to 39.9 for Q1 2015.

Apple is increasing its share buyback program with an authorization of $140 billion compared to $90 billion last year. Stockholders will also get a 11 percent higher dividend of $0.52 per share.

Fortune’s consensus among analysts was for Apple to report earnings of $2.21 per share on $56.85 billion in revenue, with both revenue and EPS exploding more than 24.7 percent and 33.1 percent, respectively; this is an insane growth prediction.

Apple inc. | Create infographics

Apple’s own guidance from its last earnings release predicted between $52 billion and $55 billion in revenue, with gross margin between 38.5 percent and 39.5 percent. Apple’s guidance has been accurate for the past couple of years, except last quarter. Q1 2015 was the largest corporate quarterly earnings of all time, and even Apple couldn’t predict that.

Apple CEO Tim Cook wrote in the release.

“We are thrilled by the continued strength of iPhone, Mac and the App Store, which drove our best March quarter results ever.  We’re seeing a higher rate of people switching to iPhone than we’ve experienced in previous cycles, and we’re off to an exciting start to the June quarter with the launch of Apple Watch.”

Hardware

This quarter, Apple sold 61.2 million iPhones, 12.6 million iPads and 4.6 million Macs in the quarter. Compared to Q2 2014, iPhone sales grew by 40 percent while iPad sales declined by 23 percent. Mac sales are up 10 percent. Read all the details about iPhone sales and Mac sales.

The iPhone’s average selling price is now $659 compared with $597 last year. This 10.4 percent increase in the average selling price (despite the unfavourable USD exchange rate) is probably the key growth driver for the company’s gross margin.

Apple q4 2013 - hardware | Create infographics

International Revenue

International revenue now represents 69 percent of the company’s total revenue. Q1 is always Apple’s biggest quarter because it’s during the holiday season in most of the world. But Chinese new year happens during Q2 and not Q1. That’s why revenue has been growing in China quarter-over-quarter, driving the company’s bottom line. Read more on China in our separate post.

Apple - International Revenues Q4 2013 | Create infographics

Stock Market And Guidance

Minutes after the release, shares are trading at $133.91 in after-hours trading, 0.95 percent above today’s closing price. Apple has been doing incredibly well on the stock market for the past three months.

Apple’s own guidance for Q3 2015 predicts between $46 billion and $48 billion in revenue with a gross margin between 38.5 and 39.5 percent. The company reported $37.4 billion in revenue last year.

Click Image To Enlarge

COMMENTARY:   On April 27, 2015 Apple issued the following press release announcing their Q2 2015 revenues, earnings, cash flows and earnngs per share.

 

You can read a complete transcript of Apple's earnings call with its stock analysts by clicking HERE.

Courtesy of an article date April 27, 2015 appearing in TechCrunch and an article dated April 27, 2015 appearing in The Wall Street Journal Digits

http://techcrunch.com/2015/04/27/apple-q2-2015/#.hwjgoe:cMsj

28 SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGEMENT TOOLS RATED, SCORED, AND REVIEWED (STUDY)

Global hotel chain Hyatt tweets 1,600 times a week. Chevrolet tweets 4,300 times each week. But American Airlines makes that little blue bird sing loudest, tweeting an astonishing 6,400 times every single week.

How do they do it? And why?

To answer those questions and find the best social media management tools for big, medium, and growing brands, we surveyed 1,133 social media managers who build their companies’ brands on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, and emerging mobile social networks. With help from Texifter’s DiscoverText technology, we analyzed over 250,000 tweets. We tracked the 1,600 brands with the most followers and the most engagement in their use of social media.

And we talked to dozens of vendors. Everyone, apparently, has a social media management tool. Small wonder, when social has become critical to almost every company’s marketing strategy.

But which one is the best for you?

Click Image To Enlarge

The answers are now in.

For enterprise, Oracle is surprisingly good, as are Sprinklr and Komfo. For smaller companies, Meshfire, Sendible, and Hootsuite lead the pack. And for the midsize company, Sendible, Meshfire (again), and Oktopost are leaders. Other tools you can’t ignore? TweetDeck, Buffer, SocialFlow, Spredfast, and Crowdbooster.

Those are just a few of the results from VB’s social media management report, released today.

But it’s not just about the tools. Even more important than tool is technique, and as our analysis of brands clearly shows, those who truly engage are much more successful than those who simply broadcast.

VB analyst Stewart Rogers said.

“Most surprising for me when it came to how big brands use Twitter was the big difference between the ‘high message volume’ users and the rest,  The vast majority of those sending hundreds of tweets per day are engaging with their audience: answering questions, solving problems, and ‘being social.’ But when you look at the rest of the list, the majority use Twitter as a broadcast channel.”

In fact, nearly 70 percent of big brands use Twitter in broadcast mode. The ones who don’t, however, use the right social media management software to “fully engage even with the highest volume of tweets,” Rogers said. That speaks to brands who tweet hundreds or thousands of times a week: they’re not sharing their second-by-second status, but engaging with customers who have questions, concerns, complaints … and, hopefully, kudos.

A strong social media management plan, therefore, consists of not just posting to social networks, but also following the right accounts, listening for both brand mentions and sentiment, and engaging in the right conversations at the right time.

Accomplishing that at scale is a challenging endeavor.

Click Image To Enlarge

The right tools, of course, can help. And they can vary by social network as well company size and type.

In fact, many companies use multiple tools, both because some tools are better at listening or engaging or other aspects of social media management, and because some tools work best with specific networks. For example, Royal Dutch Airlines largely relies on Radian6 to listen to both followers and those that mention the brand online, and will typically use that tool to respond directly. It also uses Hootsuite and the Twitter web client to deliver messages, in addition to Twitter Ads for promoted content.

I asked Rogers what tool works best with Facebook, for instance.  Rogers said.

“Sendible scores highest, according to the opinions of our survey respondents, and supports a wide range of networks, including Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, and more.  For Twitter, however, it is hard to look past Meshfire for SMEs and mid-sized companies alike.”

While brands do use Hootsuite frequently, individual social media managers for smaller companies use it more than twice as much as the next contender:

Click Image To Enlarge

Interestingly, while 22 percent of the over 1,100 social media marketing professionals we surveyed are using marketing clouds, many are not using the social tools in their clouds.

For instance, within Adobe Marketing Cloud users, 19 percent use Adobe Social, but 27 percent use Hootsuite. And when we asked Oracle Marketing Cloud customers, 25 percent of them use the included Oracle Social Relationship Management product, but an equal 25 percent use Hootsuite.

The entire report on 28 major social media management tools, and the most successful social techniques, is available now on VB Insight.

COMMENTARY:   The criteria used by social media managers for selecting SMM software depends on a number of different factors including costs, features and capabilities, accessibility, platforms supported, scalability, ease-of-use and customer support.

It is very important that your firm be ready to make the transition to SMM software before you have too many social media accounts and too much social media activity to track.  How many accounts are too many?  In my personal opinion you should not have more than four social media accounts to track.  Any more than this, creates a a social media environment that is unwieldly or even chaotic to manage without a good SMM system.

Buyers Guide To SMMS Platforms

Technological change and innovation has hit social media at a speed that makes it very difficult for social media managers and marketers to keep up.  In most instances that change and innovation is good, especially when it helps us do our jobs more efficiently and offers value to our respective communities.

Consider for a moment how far social media monitoring platforms have come just over the last two or three years. Back in 2009 social media marketing professionals were happy with a tool that helped them monitor mentions of their brand for the purposes of crisis mitigation. Now these same professionals have the ability to create sophisticated dashboards and raise the collective intelligence of their organizations by listening to the online chatter of the consumer.

Social media management software tools have undergone a similar evolution as brands have looked for ways to more effectively scale social media efforts.  

Over the last few weeks Oracle and Salesforce.com have jumped into the ring to take advantage of the obvious CRM applications of these tools. Time will tell how these tools evolve after being purchased by much larger enterprises, but in the meantime marketers are looking at and evaluating them to help their companies.

Because social media tools have evolved at such a rapid pace there is quite a lot of confusion at the point of purchase. What should you be looking for in one of these tools if you are purchasing one for your brand? A few things come to mind:

• Easy to navigate user interface - These are the absolute minimum requirements:
• Scheduling content - keeps us from having to be at the computer 24/7/365. Most of the current tools on the market have this functionality, but check before buying.
• Ability to post to all major social channels – Again, a core functionality of most tools, but you should be able to post to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube without much difficulty. 
• Uploading multimedia content – Can you easily attach photos and videos to posts in your current SMMS? We know how important visual content can be for brands so if you can’t upload multimedia with your posts it might be time to start looking elsewhere.
• Geo-targeting – A feature of some tools, but not all. If you are posting information about an event in Chicago chances are good that your fans or followers in Dallas, for example, do not care. The more relevant the content to a particular audience, the more engagement it is likely to receive. Check to see if your current tool allows for geo-targeting.
• Post tagging – This is critical for reporting down the line, but you should be able to assign tags to individual posts. Properly tagging posts will save you from having to go through every single post at the end of the month.
• Robust analytics dashboard - This is the biggest source of frustration because some of the SMMS tools that are thought to be best in class have what we would categorize as awful analytics dashboards.  What data should your SMMS tool be offering?
  • Everything you can get through Facebook or YouTube Insights – Listen, this isn’t a technical problem anymore. Both Facebook and YouTube have made their Insights platforms available via API. Wouldn’t you like to access that data from the same platform you are using to post? Yeah, so would we. Does your platform offer this currently?
  • Twitter data – We realize gathering Twitter data is a little more complex, but your platform should be offering up impressions, clicks, retweets and replies.  
  • Competitive data – There are tools currently on the market that offer Facebook data on competitors within the publishing platform. That’s invaluable competitive intelligence as you evaluate your own performance. We wouldn’t categorize the lack of competitor data to be a deal breaker, but it is certainly helpful.
• Avoid SMMS with arbitrary black box algorithms - We could spend a lot of time on this point, but we are not a fan of algorithms within SMMS tools that place an arbitrary value metric on your content. The threshold should be that if you cannot stand in front of the CMO and defend what you are presenting, do not use it.  In almost every instance, that describes these algorithms.
• Reliability - This would appear to be a “no duh” point, but you would be surprised how unstable some of these platforms can be. Double posting, inability to upload multimedia at random times, broken links and out of date data are all frequent issues with these tools. We totally understand the occasional outage, but if you are having constant technological challenges it is time to look at another tool.
• Scalability - The SMMS platform you select should have the ability to grow as you add more social media accounts and keep up with the volume of activity.  The SMMS tool should be modular so that you can add additional module to handle the demands of increased volume as you need it.
• Mobility - The SMMS platform should offer the ability to now or in the near future access your publishing engine or data via mobile devices.  If you are on your computer 24/7/365 access to your SMMS publishing engine or data via mobile devices is a must. 
• CRM connectivity -  A big plus would be for your SMMS platform to be social CRM capable or  having customer data merged with social content data. 
• Monitoring platform integration – We feel strongly that the winning combination will be some form of listening tool and SMMS platform. Imagine the power of being able to monitor for mentions of your brand, post from your brand page and then gather the data all from one platform. Very powerful combination that has yet to truly come to fruition.

19 Questions to Determine Corporate Social Media Readiness

In order for companies to realize the maximum benefit from social media marketing, there must be a certain level of understanding about the nature of online communities, social media sharing web sites and applications. One of the most effective ways TopRank Online Marketing has found to assess a company’s awareness, capabilities and resources for social media marketing is to conduct an external audit and an internal survey.

Identifying a company’s current state of social media readiness helps determine benchmarks and sets a baseline from where to build from. This is part of developing a social media strategy and helps avoid the random testing many companies are calling their “social media strategy”.

There are a number of free or low cost tools that one can use to identify a brand’s current social web participation, ranging from social media monitoring software to profile checking tools like KnowEm to social search tools like How Socialable, 48ers or socialmention.

With many companies, there are often a mix of official and unsanctioned social media accounts setup. It’s important to get a handle on such participation, who’s managing the accounts, whether they are run by employees or fans and what the company can learn from them. Getting a handle on the difference between how social the company is and will need to become is essential for planning, training and strategy development.

As part of the evaluation process, here are a few questions companies might ask themselves and answer as they embark on a social media marketing journey:

1. What goals do you hope to achieve from a social media marketing effort?
2. What measures of success will be used to evaluate a social media marketing program?
3. What are your current social media channels and destination web sites/pages?:
4. Do you employ a full-time community manager?
5. If not, do multiple staff share the role of community manager?
6. Are you conducting a formal effort at monitoring social channels using a social media monitoring/analysis software application? (Ex: Techrigy SM2, ScoutLabs, SocialRadar, Radian6)
7. Is there a particular business unit, division or product that can serve as a test case?
8. If active, how long has the company participated with social media sites and which? Blogging, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, Wikis, Delicious, Digg, StumbleUpon, etc
9. Are current social media participation on different sites coordinated?
10. Is a dashboard and campaign management tool used for social media content promotion?
11. Have you noticed any particular preferences within the target audience in their social web participation?
12. Do they prefer particular sites? (Twitter vs Facebook – blogs vs forums)
13. Do they comment, do they contribute content, do they tend to observe, do they not participate at all?
14. Have you identified and engaged and/or networked with influentials in your target industry on social web sites?
15. What unique value do current social media efforts offer clients/prospective clients? What need do they satisfy better than the competition?
16. Are text content or media regularly shared on other social media sharing sites?
17. Is there a user generated content component of your web site? Profiles, comments, reviews, content sharing: text, image, video or audio?
18. What departments, business units, cost centers and approval entities would be involved with the Social Media program? Is there an internal social media council?
19. What internal human resources are available within the company for support and implementation of social media marketing initiatives? (Content creation, network development, promotion, monitoring & analytics, community engagement)

Obviously each situation is as unique as the company and its objectives, but the list above can provide valuable insight into a company’s state of social media marketing readiness as well as provoking new thoughts and concepts. The more informed companies are about the social web, the more successful they will be at qualifying and managing social media marketing agency engagements.

Comparing Social Media Management Software

If you are seriously considering implementing an SMMS platform at your company, I would highly recommend this valuable online tool by G2 Crowd for comparing different social media management software platforms.

G2 Crowd helps you compare the best Social Media Mgmt Software products. You can compare products on a Grid similar to the Boston Consulting Group Matrixx, or by selecting any of the products for a side-by-side comparison. In addition, you can download the full report for more detailed information about Social Media Mgmt Software products. Only products with 10 or more reviews are included in the Grid. For a full list of products, click on the Products tab.

Courtesy of an article dated April 21, 2015 appearing in VentureBeat, an article dated September 2009 appearing in TopRank Online Marketing Blog, an article dated June 21, 2012 appearing in SocialMediaExplorer, and the Social Media Management Software comparison grid by G2 Crowd

 

 

https://www.g2crowd.com/categories/social-media-management

 

                    

FOURSQUARE'S SWARM APP NEARLY A YEAR AFTER LAUNCH, AND WHY SWARM WON'T SAVE FOURSQUARE

Foursquare's Swarm app automatically shares your location with your Facebook and foursquare fans, but the honeymoon is over 

The first thing ReadWrite's Selena Larson did after downloading Foursquare’s new Swarm app when it launched back in May 2014 was to distill her friends list on Foursquare from over 100 people down to just 19. 

When Selena joined Foursquare a years earlier, she was living in Arizona, still in college—a completely different lifestyle.  As the years went by, things changed but her friends list kept growing.  She stopped using Foursquare for checking in, and started using it as a location recommendation service, similar to Yelp.  It was her opinion that foursquare wasn’t really a social network anymore—in fact, she started keeping it among the travel apps on her iPhone.

This was the concept Foursquare wanted to build: to move beyond the check-in business model. The company split the original foursquare check-in app into two separate apps—Swarm by foursquare, the social network; and the new foursquare, a discovery app that helps users figure out what to do next.

Foursquare isn’t the first social network to experiment with splitting up its services. Facebook, most notably, has been trying to unbundle itself for years, sometimes failing along the way. Its move—forcing Facebook users into Messenger if they want to chat on mobile devices—was largely criticized, for example.

Foursquare took a huge gamble by dividing its original foursquare app into two distinctly different services seemingly working in opposite directions. Foursquare's location discovery application will use your check-in data from Swarm, but Swarm also wanted to create a different social experience entirely.

Swarm—Creepy Or Convenient? 

Swarm was Foursquare's way of ripping the check-in from its flagship app. The new social app uses your phone's GPS function to broadcast where you are at all times, and view others' locations, too. 

Named after the Foursquare “Swarm Badge” that signifies a busy location, Swarm is the latest “ambient location” app to launch this year. "Ambient location" apps rely on mobile phones' location services to display your general area to your friends in a passive way, without the need to check into any specific location. That's how Swarm works. 

 

Swarm by foursquare screenshots (Click Image To Enlarge)

If you decide you want to share your exact location with friends, Swarm's check-in feature is basically the same, but now you can also share your future plans with friends and invite them to join in. Ambient location sharing can be turned off, but it’s on by default.

Selena is skeptical of location sharing in general.   She rarely checked-in to places until she was ready to leave, and even then, she didn’t see the benefit. And with Swarm, her general location is visible to anyone at any time. There are only a handful of people she would be okay with knowing that information, and it's not anyone on the friends list she had amassed since joining Foursquare four years earlier. 

Selena is probably not alone here. Ambient location apps haven’t taken off, and even Facebook’s attempt to get friends to share their general locations has fallen flat. Most people don’t mind telling their friends where they are, as long as they’re okay with those friends joining them. I bet most people don’t have 100 or more friends they’d enjoy meeting up with randomly on the street. 

Foursquare doesn’t disclose monthly active user numbers, but the company boasts over 50 million app downloads. Still, one would imagine users stay in contact with friends over Twitter and Facebook more often than they do with Foursquare, and moving check-ins to Swarm may not help Foursquare in that regard. 

Foursquare is simply not as popular as Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, even though the company is technically in the same category as those companies. In 2010, Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley was even dubbed "The New King Of Social Media"—but four years later, Foursquare may be doing more rebuilding than refining.

Swarm, Foursquare's new social arm, will more or less need to build its community from the ground up; Crowley says the company is building tools to make it easier to bounce between Foursquare's apps, but I doubt users like Selena, who primarily use Foursquare as a recommendation tool, will find Swarm appealing. 

A New Direction For Foursquare

As Swarm tries to popularize proximity apps, Foursquare will have its own hurdles to jump.

The new Foursquare app which was released in August 2014 offered suggestions on where to go and what to order, based on users' unique location histories. On the plus side, Foursquare’s directory of places consists of over six billion check-ins, which is more than any other service—arguably enviable by Google or Yelp. 

Foursquare will learn your behavior based on your previous check-ins and ambient location data—such as where you like to eat, or when you like to go to the movies—and tailor suggestions for where you should go next. The Foursquare app delivers push notifications when you are at a new location, and serve up suggestions for what to do there. 

Many places have “tips,” or small reviews written by Foursquare after they check in. Unlike Yelp, these Foursquare reviews tend to be short and concise. As Foursquare moves away from the check-in, these reviews will be the focal point of the new application.

The only way for Foursquare to collect your location data once check-ins are removed is to use location services running in the background to track where you’ve been, which is concerning for privacy-conscious folks. In order to receive tailored push notifications, you’ll have to let Foursquare track you.

Foursquare’s collection of places is likely robust enough on its own to succeed as a competitor to Yelp. But will users be comfortable giving up their location information to both Foursquare and casual contacts on a regular basis?  Selena is not convinced.

COMMENTARY:  If you have been following my blog posts about foursquare, you must know by now that I, along with other social media researchers, predicted the demise of location-based social networks (LBSNs) like foursquare, and often quipped about the amount of venture capital (now $100 million) thrown at foursquare.  

It has now become obvious that foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley's effort to re-invent foursquare requires a lot more than splitting up the original app into two separate apps,   For the new foursquare app to feed you "tips" on where to go next (based on the historical data about where you have been, it needs your Swarm check-in data.  It really wasn't necessary to breakup the original app, but eliminate the check-in and badges and add the location discovery capability. 

In August 2014, Foursquare’s relaunch reversed a startling downward trend in the Apple App Store charts. But after relaunch hype subsided, interest in the new Foursquare and its check-in companion app Swarm dropped. Data from comScore that depicts the rise and fall of Foursquare’s unique app visitors makes this trend painfully clear.

Foursquare iOS App Rankings - 2010 through October 2014

App download rankings from app tracking site App Annie back up comScore’s figures. Here’s a closer look at Foursquare’s download rate rankings overall in the U.S. Apple App Store, from Foursquare’s 2010 launch to today.

Click Image To Enlarge

As of October 22, Foursquare ranked #923 overall in the U.S. App Store — #25 among travel apps in the U.S. At its peak, Foursquare ranked #44 overall in 2011 — #2 among social networking apps.

Foursquare Android App Rankings - 2012 through October 2014

The results are similar in the Google Play store, where Google estimates Foursquare has been installed on somewhere between 10 million and 50 million devices.

Click Image To Enlarge

For its part, Swarm saw an immediate rise in Swarm usage and number of users when it was launched in mid-May 2014, often rising into the Top 10 and Top 100 apps list, but this has all changed and Swam now ranks about 150th for both iOS and Android versions.  I looked at the historical ranking data from App Annie for Swarm, and the numbers show this quite clearly.

Swam Rank History - Android Version (Since Launch)

Click Image To Enlarge

Swarm Rank History - iOS Version (Since Launch)

 

Courtesy of an article dated May 16, 2014 appearing in ReadWrite and an article dated August 6, 2014 appearing in TechCrunch and an article dated October 23, 2014 appearing in VentureBeat 

FACEBOOK REPORTS MIXED Q1 2015 EARNINGS, REPORTS $3.54B IN REVS, MISSES WALL STREET FORECAST, BUT USER GROWTH HITS 1.44 BIL

Facebook failed to beat earnings estimates in Q1 2015, coming in with mixed results after 10 straight quarters of beating them. Its revenue of $3.54 billion fell short of its $3.56 billion estimate, though it exceeded the 40 cents EPS estimate with 42 cents.

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In the release, Facebook blames fluctuating foreign exchange figures, including the weakening euro versus the dollar, for the missed revenue, saying it would have made $188 million more in revenue this quarter and and beat estimates if not for this issue. That would have let it easily beat on revenue with $3.728 billion. Several other public companies have made similar claims blaming the euro.

Facebook’s user count is now 1.44 billion monthly, up 3.6% quarter over quarter, faster than Q4’s 3.18% growth, showing the social network hasn’t hit saturation yet. It has 936 million daily users,

Click Image To Enlarge

On mobile, Facebook reached 1.25 billion mobile monthly users (up 5%), and 798 million daily mobile users (up 7.1%). While the mobile monthly growth rate slipped a bit from 6.2% last quarter, the more important daily mobile user growth rate grew from 5.97% last quarter. That means Facebook might not be signing up casual users quite as quickly, but its turning more people into non-stop social networkers.

581 million users now only access Facebook from mobile, up more than 10% QOQ, showing Facebook’s continued growth in developing nations where desktop and laptop computers are less common.

Click Image To Enlarge

Ad revenue hit $3.32 billion in Q1. Mobile now accounts for 73% of ad revenue, up from 69% last quarter. Facebook’s daily video views grew to 4 billion, up from 3 billion in January. The more organic video views Facebook gets, the more paid video ads it can seamlessly slide into News Feed. And with the enhanced video ad targeting from its LiveRail acquisition, and the vividness of the medium, Facebook has huge potential to grow ad revenue through video.

Facebook’s continued user growth despite its massive size, and its ability to turn volunteered personal information into ad targeting data help keep its business relatively strong despite coming off the holiday quarter. Versus Q1 2014, this quarter’s revenue was up a massive 42%. On mobile, app install ads are thought to be a particularly large money maker as developers are desperate to get their apps discovered outside of the crowded app stores.

Q4 was the holiday season where competition for advertising space and big campaigns jack up ad revenue for Facebook, so a decline isn’t totally unexpected. It appears that ad revenue dips of over 11% in the Europe and Rest Of World regions were predominantly responsible for the decline.

One alarming figure is Facebook’s decline average revenue per user (ARPU) in the Rest Of World region that includes many developing countries where its user growth comes from. Ad ARPU in the Rest Of World declined 15.2% this quarter from $0.92 to $0.78, falling even lower than in Q3 2014. For Facebook to keep revenue growth strong as it runs out of users to sign up in key markets to sign up and has to rely on the developing world for user count increases, it needs to figure out how to squeeze more ad revenue out of people with little buying power.

Click Image To Enlarge

Overall, Facebook’s earnings look very healthy despite the miss on revenue. For this late-stage of a public company, increasing revenue 42% year over year on 17% daily user growth is remarkable. It’s a testament to just how ridiculously good Facebook is getting at ad targeting.

COMMENTARY:  For quite a while now, I have commented that Facebook's inability to increase average revenue per user (ARPU), particularly in developing countries, could eventually hurt its revenue growth in spite of its growing user base.   Facebook clearly faces the challenge of finding ways to increase revenues from these poorer nations which depend almost exclusively on their mobile phones for their daily internet and social media consumption.

So how can Facebook increase its future average revenue per user (ARPU)? 

Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger are three huge platforms that have barely been tapped as sources of revenue. Combined, these "family of apps" that Facebook owns, serves over 1 billion people.

On Instagram alone, more than 200 million people use the image sharing app on a daily basis and spend an average of 21 minutes on it every day.

According to Facebook's COO Sheryl Sandberg, one out of every five minutes spent on a mobile device is spent using Facebook or Instagram.

Investors on the call were eager to hear when Facebook would launch more ads on these platforms, but Zuckerberg said the company would continue to roll ads out slowly because they want to focus on "quality" of ads first.

Courtesy of an article dated April 22, 2015 appearing in TechCrunch and an article dated April 22, 2015 appearing in CNN Money

THE NEW REALITY OF WATCHIG TELEVISION WITH DEVICES VIEWERS USE TO WATCH VIDEO PROGRAMMING WHILE WATCHING TV

Our viewing patterns are shifting and can now watch where we want, when we want. The explosion of devices has given us more access to content and brands than ever before. While the television is still the screen of choice for viewing video content, device proliferation and social-media interaction is shifting the power from the provider to the people.

Click Image To Enlarge

HOW WE WATCH: SCREEN SIZE MATTERS

Two-in-five New Zealanders (40%) say video programmes are an important part of their lives, but when it comes to the way we like to watch video programming, size does matter. Over half of respondents (51%) think bigger is better when it comes to screen size, but they also appreciate the convenience and portability of mobile devices. Nearly four-in-10 respondents (37%) think watching video programming on their mobile device is convenient. In addition, the same number (37%) say a tablet is just as good as a PC or laptop computer for watching programming. 

WHY WE WATCH LIVE: PUSH HAS NOW BECOME THE PULL

Real-time conversations on social media are replacing physical gatherings around the water cooler to talk about our favourite TV show. Live TV has become a social event that goes way beyond the confines of our living rooms. Nearly a third of Kiwis (30%) said they like to keep up with shows so they can join the conversation on social media, and a fifth (21%) say they watch live video programming more if it has a social media tie in. Thirty percent of respondents say they engage with social media while watching video programming. And nearly half of respondents (47%) say they browse the Internet while watching video programming.

Social media can increase programme awareness, make the experience more enjoyable and keep viewers engaged. Second-screen strategies should include an interactive component that allows users to take part – making them feel involved and deepening their connection to the programme. But the content needs to be fresh to maximise time spent and to drive repeat visitation. Designers can not focus on one screen, they need to ensure accessibility wherever users are and that the user experience is enjoyable across all devices.

WHAT WE WATCH: DEVICES PROLIFERATE BUT THE TELEVISION DOMINATES

Click Image To Enlarge

Whether it is watching a sporting event, news show, documentary or movie, TV remains at the centre of video consumption. It is the most frequently cited device for watching nearly all types of programming genres included in the survey—by a wide margin. The exception: short-form video (typically less than 10 minutes long), which is cited as more commonly viewed on computers, mobile phones and tablets. A computer is the second-most commonly mentioned viewing device for nearly all genres, and it tops the list of devices used to watch short-form content. A smaller, but notable, proportion of consumers watch video content on a mobile phone or tablet, while viewing on e-readers and/or gaming consoles has not yet gained traction.

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ABOUT THE NIELSEN GLOBAL DIGITAL SURVEY

The Nielsen Global Digital Landscape Survey polled 30,000 online respondents in 60 countries, including 500 New Zealanders, to understand how the changing digital landscape is affecting how, where and why we watch video programming. Video programming was defined as any type of content, such as TV, professional video or user-generated content that is watched on a TV, PC, mobile device such as a phone, tablet or e-reader. The study also examines consumption preferences for video programming, including the devices most commonly used for selected genres and the devices used to view video at home and on the go. While an online survey methodology allows for tremendous scale and global reach, it provides a perspective only on the habits of existing Internet users, not total populations. In developing markets where online penetration is still growing, audiences may be younger and more affluent than the general population of that country. In addition, survey responses are based on claimed behaviour rather than actual metered data.

COMMENTARY:  The Nielsen survey of devices being used by viewers when they watch television should give marketers food for thought and insights as to how they should target mobile device consumers.  Not only should their marketing message be targeted to these viewers according to their video content preferences, but how they consume that content on their mobile devices.  TV programming content should make references to social networks and mobile apps where they can discuss the specific TV programming.  In short, marketers should provide a tie-in or connection between the TV programming and the mobile device preferences of their target customers.  This provides a means for marketers to harvest valuable marketing informaton about what they thought about the TV programming and how it could be improved.  Furthermore, you can now provide a way for these consumer/viewers to provide feedback through rewards and contests geared to create brand ambassadors.

Courtesy of an article dated April 19, 2015 appearing in Nielsen Insights 

THE 3D ROBOTICS SOLO MAY BE THE SMARTEST DRONE EVER AND AT $1,000 OPENS THE DOOR TO ALL AMATEURS

 

What goes up must come down — and if it's a drone you're talking about, it often comes down in the most unfortunate ways possible.

It bounces off a tree trunk, smashes into a highway tunnel, or careens into the side of a building. It runs out of battery and falls into a body of water. Your four-figure investment is typically only as good as your ability to handle it once it's aloft — which is why I'm a bit anxious when I first take the controller for the Solo, which 3D Robotics is billing as the smartest drone ever.

Competition for that title gets tougher all the time: just last week, DJI announced Phantom 3, the next version of its best-selling consumer drone, with improved cameras and the ability to live-stream video from the drone to YouTube. But Solo represents a step forward in a few big ways: onboard computers in the controller and the drone, allowing for enhanced controls; full access to GoPro camera controls in flight (a first); and software that allows novices to create intricate multistep shots using just a couple taps. Solo also offers a level of customer support previously unheard of in the industry. 3DR will give you a 30-day money-back guarantee if your drone bores you and free replacement if Solo breaks while in flight.

The company is betting Solo will appeal to drone enthusiasts and novices alike — and that it can begin to chip away at the consumer drone market that the Phantom helped create. It is a critical time for 3DR, which has raised $85 million from investors.

3DR’s Colin Guinn says. 

“We are a player, but we are the underdog player.  How big of a defining moment is it? It is the moment. This is the introduction to the world of 3DR.”

3DR’s Colin Guinn shown flyig the new Solo drone (Click Image To Enlarge)

Meet the Guinnmeister

Guinn came to 3DR from DJI, where he was CEO of DJI's North American division. He helped lead design and marketing efforts for the Phantom, the Chinese company's hugely popular consumer model. Thanks in part to a series of popular YouTube videos where Guinn showed off the Phantom’s capabilities, he became well known to hobbyists. One drone blog continues to refer to him in headlines as "The Guinnmeister."

But Guinn's relationship with DJI executives in China soured over business terms, lawsuits were filed, and last February he decamped with his team for 3DR. (Guinn declines to comment on the lawsuit, which was settled.) Now at 3DR, Guinn's official title is chief revenue officer. But his role at the company is much larger than the bean-counter title suggests: the new Solo drone is hisbaby, 3.3 pounds of precision-engineered flying plastic robot.

"WE’RE BASICALLY GIVING PEOPLE A SUPERHUMAN POWER FOR A THOUSAND BUCKS."

And even all that doesn't really get at the main thing about Colin Guinn, which is that he isobsessed with drones. Because he once ran an aerial photography company, shooting scenes for Hollywood films, Guinn has an all-encompassing knowledge about how to make movies in the sky. When he speaks, what comes across is this overwhelming sense that to own a drone is to have a superpower — and that if you could only master that power, you could bend the universe a little more exactly to your will.

3D Robotics Solo Drone up close (Click Image To Enlarge

He mentions the history of comic book and fantasy characters who have the ability to see the world through the eyes of a bird.  Guinn asks.

"What is the difference between those powers and Solo, with a high-definition video feed coming from the GoPro?  We’re basically giving people a superhuman power for a thousand bucks."

3DR’s Colin Guinn smiles as he operates the Solo drone (Click Image To Enlarge)

It's time for me to try out my powers.

3D Robotics Solo Drone controller (Click Image To Enlarge)

Flying Solo

On a blustery day in Berkeley, California, we take a pre-production Solo unit onto the roof of 3DR headquarters. Guinn pops the drone out of a separately sold backpack and spins on the rotors. He snaps in the battery and attaches a GoPro to the gimbal. The whole process takes about 60 seconds.

3D Robotics Guinn uses a handheld controller to fly the Solo Drone (Click Image To Enlarge)

I pick up the controller and press a button marked "FLY." The rotors spin up, and suddenly Solo is safely in the air, hovering 10 or so feet off the ground. Autopilot keeps it roughly in place while I think about what to do next. We decide to shoot a selfie, a pre-scripted shot you can find in the app that runs on your tablet. With a couple taps, Solo zooms off into the sky, then slowly flies back in, keeping me perfectly in frame. We watch it all unfold on Guinn's iPad Mini, which snaps onto the controller and accesses most of Solo's functions. When it's all done, we save the video to the iPad's camera roll. If I wanted, I could post it to Instagram while I'm still flying.

The 3D Robotics controller includes toggles to control the flight of their Solo drone and an Apple iPad Mini (which snaps into a special slot) that displays what the drone's 12 megapixel camera is seeing while in flight (Click Image To Enlarge)

Solo does more complicated shots, too. A "cable cam" lets you set up a virtual line in the sky and then have Solo traverse it automatically, as if suspended on a wire. We use it to create dramatic shots that rise up above the railroad tracks next to 3DR headquarters and smoothly pan to reveal the San Francisco Bay behind us. 3DR is already seeding Solo units with filmmakers; Guinn says director Michael Bay's review of Solo, having used it once, was: "Fuuuuuck."

I'm no Michael Bay, though I'm pretty sure I could get the drone to explode if I could only figure out how to turn off the autopilot. Over a handful of 20-minute flights, I never even develop the muscle memory for what the control sticks do; I just fly Solo using trial and error. It's a luxury that most drones simply haven't afforded up until now; it helped me to relax and enjoy myself in a way I can't imagine being possible even a year ago.

Toward the end of one flight, while trying to get a shot, I find myself walking backward while keeping my eyes focused on Solo overheard. THUNK. I trip over a small HVAC unit on 3DR's roof and fall flat on my ass. Various bits of plastic fly off the controller, and the battery comes loose, barely tethered to the unit.

I'm dazed, my video team is laughing, and Guinn is asking if I'm alright. And Solo? It's still humming away up above me, perfectly content in the 20 mph winds, ready to do whatever I ask, with 70 percent of its battery remaining. We reassemble the controller and land it safely with two button taps.

I crashed; the drone didn't. Score one for the robots.

A pair of 3D Robotics Solo drones being assembled by 3DR engineers (Click Image To Enlarge)

How it works

3DR is unveiling Solo today at the National Association of Broadcasters Show in Las Vegas, and it will begin shipping in a few weeks. For a base price of $999, with an optional $399 gimbal for enhanced camera controls, Solo is the first drone to offer full control of a GoPro camera. (I asked GoPro what they liked so much about Solo, and they sent back a bone-dry statement that didn't really answer the question — I assume because they worried about offending their other partners.) But the integration turns out to be a big deal: with Solo you can start and stop recordings, or change the camera's frame rate or other settings while in flight. It's stuff filmmakers have been asking for forever.

Most drones use a single computer, located in the flying unit, and broadcast signals to it using a controller. Solo, on the other hand, has 1 Ghz processors in both the controller and the quadcopter. The processor on the quadcopter is devoted entirely to autopilot functions necessary to keep it aloft. Meanwhile, the controller serves as Solo's "frontal cortex," and operates higher-level functions — some of which will arrive through future software updates. (My favorite of these, which I used in a test unit, is a flight "rewind" feature — simply tap and hold the "pause" button, which normally functions as a kind of emergency brake, and Solo retraces its steps. It's expected to ship within 60 days from launch.)

"IT'S STUFF FILMMAKERS HAVE BEEN ASKING FOR FOREVER"

The Solo app will warn you when your battery is running low, flying home automatically to ensure you make it on time. (You can override the feature, but the controller will start vibrating until you land safely.) 3DR is also rolling out the world's most expansive customer service program for drone owners, for a product where service has been downright medieval. (Drone drop into the ocean? Sorry about that! Feel free to buy another.)

It's the first drone to offer a 30-day money-back guarantee if you aren't satisfied with your purchase; you'll just have to complete a five-question survey, providing data 3DR will use to improve future versions. Meanwhile, a team of nearly 100 in-house technicians will respond to calls for help, using the data that Solo continuously logs during flights.

The Solo app detects crashes and will ask you if you want to submit a trouble ticket in the event something goes wrong. If it's your fault, 3DR will offer to sell you a refurbished unit at a lower cost. And if the flight logs show Solo was at fault, 3DR will replace your drone — along with your gimbal and GoPro, if they also perished — at no cost.

3D Robotics Solo drone with high resolution GoPro Hero 4 camera (Click Image To Enlarge)

Catching up to Phantom

Will all that be enough to make 3DR the biggest player in the game? We may soon find out. The company was founded in 2009 by Chris Anderson, the author and former editor of Wired, and engineer Jordi Muñoz. (Anderson had been inspired in part by a 2007 incident in which he crashed a camera-equipped, remote-control plane into a tree at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory.) The pair met on a web forum Anderson created, DIY Drones, whose community had developed powerful open-source software for controlling flying objects. Today the company has 300 employees, with offices in Berkeley, San Diego, Tijuana, and Austin, Texas.

Last fall 3DR introduced a consumer drone named Iris+. But it has lagged in sales behind DJI and Parrot, according to estimates from Gartner Research. DJI sold an estimated $500 million in drones last year for professional and amateur use, focused on aerial photography and videography. (Last summer, its Phantom 2 Vision+ was The Verge's pick for best consumer drone.) The market for consumer drones is still well under $1 billion, according to Gartner.

But an FAA ruling in February finally gave explicit permission to what had previously been a legal gray area. And the cost of consumer drones is coming down, albeit slowly. The big three manufacturers are betting that if drones become a bit easier to use and develop an expanded range of applications, the market will grow more quickly.

"YOU PRESS THE BUTTON AND YOU GET THE SHOT."

Anderson says. 

            "As the product becomes more sophisticated, the users can become less sophisticated.  In the             same way the iPhone transformed the phone by turning it into a single button — all that             complexity reduced to a single button — what Solo does is it takes all the complexity of             flying and robots and data acquisition and turns it into what is effectively a single button.             You press the button and you get the shot."

It's in that sense that 3DR sees the latest drones as the start of a new age in drones. Anderson says.

            "The first era of our industry was getting robots to fly. It was super hard! But we got there.             The next era was making them easier to fly. I think we all got there. The next era is not             flying them at all — making it so that their intelligence can be so profound that you can             almost not care about the vehicle itself."

3D Robotics Solo drone with high resolution Hero 4 camera (Click Image To Enlarge)

Life after gravity

For all the time I spend with Solo — I visited the team several times over the past six months, flying prototypes in Austin and Berkeley — I never see a true production model. Even days before Solo is set to premiere, the team is still refining the software and hardware. Guinn pays fanatical attention to the product, and he rattles off requests to the software team throughout my visits. ("He's killing me," one executive laments.)

In my tests, Solo performs mostly as we would hope. But Guinn fixates on a small tremor in the gimbal that might make captured footage less than butter-smooth, and while it's quite windy for my last flight, I can't help but notice that Solo sometimes has trouble staying still. Instead, it floats around in a roughly 3-foot cube, and I wonder how that might affect the footage I shoot. Meanwhile, it's hard to see what I'm shooting, because the glare is so bad on the iPad Mini. (Not Solo's fault, of course, but it does affect the user experience.)

FLYING SOLO IS A BLAST

Flying Solo is a blast, and yet I’m still not sure I see the regular use case for myself. Getting great shots requires travel, and bringing Solo with me on vacation will mean checking one more bag and lugging it around. There are only so many drone-shot selfies a person needs, no matter how fun they are to shoot. So while I’m convinced Solo will make it easier and more fun for novices to fly drones, I’m skeptical of how much it can broaden the market for drones beyond hobbyists and filmmakers.

Whether or not there’s space for three players in the consumer drone market or not, 3DR isn’t content to remain in third place. The Guinnmeister may not want to talk about his days at DJI — about the fact that the Solo, had he stayed at the company, would have been the Phantom 3 that was announced last week — but there's no doubt that he wants to win. He says.  

    "We’re an order of magnitude less well known than our bigger competitor  But I think that’s all     gonna change really soon."

He notes that Solo is launching in 10 countries and will be available at thousands of big-box retail locations, featured in giant kiosks with flight simulators.  He says  

    "The world is about to know who 3DR is."

COMMENTARY:   Took the opportunity to look at the DJI Phantom 3, and it is my opinion that the 3D Robotics Solo drone is going to give the Phantom 3 a run for its money.  Both drone makers incorporate the "Come Home" capability and use iPads to view what the drone attached to the camera is looking it.  However, the Phantom 3 lacks the one-touch button "FLY" button or auto-pilot capability of the 3DR.  A big plus for the Phantom 3 is its 4K ultra-HD camera which is slowly becoming the new standard for video filming.  The 3DR Solo incorporates the GoPro Hero 4 camera that takes 12 MP stills and can shoot video at 1080p and 120fps.  

In my opinion, the DJI Phatom 3 is designed to be marketed to professional filmmakers while the 3DR Solo is designed for the amateur photographer/videographer.  At the $1,000 starting price poiint, the 3DR Solo should do well with entry-level users and photographers.  Either way, both are designed to meet the needs of their target markets and have features that will appeal to those markets.  Checkout this video of the DJI Phamtom 3 and decide for yourself.

 

Courtesy of an article dated April 13, 2015 appearing in The Verge

http://www.theverge.com/2015/4/13/8394359/3d-robotics-solo-drone-quadcopter-gopro

NIELSEN SURVEY: LIVE TV + MULTIPLE SCREENS + SOCIAL MEDIA = ENGAGED VIEWERS

From keeping tabs on friends via social media to skipping lines at the store by shopping online, technology continues to reshape our everyday habits. In fact, nearly seven-in-10 (69%) global respondents to a recent survey think face-to-face interactions are being replaced with electronic ones. And the digital landscape is only getting more crowded, as a new wave of digital devices, such as wearable and connected car technologies, gain traction.

Today, we have more control over when, where and how we watch video programming, but scheduled viewing hasn’t gone away for most of us. In fact, 65% of global respondents still prefer to watch video programming live at its regularly scheduled time. But more and more frequently, real-time conversations on social media are replacing physical gatherings around the water cooler to talk about a previous night’s episode of a favorite TV show. Not only does watching in real-time avoid spoilers, live TV has become a real-time social event that goes way beyond the confines of our living rooms.

• More than half of global respondents (53%) say they like to keep up with shows so they can join the conversation on social media.
• Nearly half (49%) say they watch live video programming more if it has a social media tie in.
• Forty-seven percent of global respondents say they engage with social media while watching video programming.

Regionally, Asia-Pacific and Africa/Middle East respondents are particularly engaged in social media while viewing, exceeding the global average for attitudes related to social media use. For example respondents watching live programming if it has a social media content:

• 65% of Asia-Pacific.
• 57% of African/Middle Eastern.
• 49% overall globally.

In addition, more than six-in-10 respondents say they like to keep up with shows so they can join the conversation on social media:  

• Asia-Pacific (64%).  
• Africa/Middle East (62%).
• More than half of global respondents (58%) say they browse the Internet while watching video programming.

Using social media while watching video programming is only one example of second-screen usage, and many content providers are incorporating interactive multi-screen experiences for viewers. Getting ancillary content, researching information about characters, playing mobile games or reading/watching behind-the-scenes interviews are becoming common practices. 

Megan Clarken, executive vice president, Nielsen Global Watch Product Leadership said.

“The second, third and sometimes fourth screen is becoming a fundamental extension of the viewing experience.  While multiple screens give viewers more options, they also give content providers and advertisers more opportunities and ways to reach and engage with viewers. Well-designed experiences can not only make the viewing experience more enjoyable, but they maximize the time users spend interacting with brands, too.”

Click Image To Enlarge

The report also discusses:

• How content is consumed in rapidly shrinking media boundaries.
• Device preferences by programming type and viewer activity.
• Digital expansion opportunities by generation.

For more detail and insight, download Nielsen’s Global Digital Landscape Report.

COMMENTARY:   In an article dated June 11, 2012, Nielsen reported that more television viewers were also watching a second or third screen from a mobile device like a tablet or smartphone or a laptop.  This new survey confirms the survey of 2012.

Consumers have become attache to their mobile devices more so than ever before.  Even when we are not watching TV, we are glued to some kind of a mobile device whether it is at work, during a meeting or while eating out.  It comes as no surprise that TV viewers have their eyes glued to more than one screen while watching TV.  The engagement factor increases with the popularity of the show as viewers text their friends about shows they are watching.  This is particularly true of sporting events.

Courtesy of an article dated April 6, 2015 appearing in Nielsen Newswire 

APPLE UNVEILS THE NEW APPLE WATCH, PRICES START AT $349, AVAIL EARLY 2015

 

Apple CEO Tim Cook introces the new Apple Watch at a special announcement event in Cupertino on April 9, 2015

After years of rumors and speculation, Apple on Tuesday unveiled its first wearable device, officially called Apple Watch. It starts at $349 and will be available in early 2015.

There are two different sizes of Apple Watch for men and women, and three distinct collections: Apple Watch, Apple Watch Sport, and Apple Watch Edition, which is made from 18-karat gold — rose or yellow.

The Apple Watch Edition with a wide variety of wristbands. 

You can personalize the watchfaces and their capabilities. You can choose a modular watchface with digital information showing the time, date, and weather; a watchface that shows you astronomy, or where the sun is in the sky; animated watchfaces with butterflies or Mickey Mouse; a simple watchface that simply shows you the time; and many more.

You can also choose from up to six differently designed straps, which offer different types of functionality: A sportband is sweat- and chemical-resistant, while the leather loop is soft and quilted for fastening and adjustment. The modern leather buckle closes with a solid metal clasp that goes symmetrically around the wrist. There's a classic buckle, too, and there's a stainless-steel link bracelet. 

 

There's also a Milanese loop that's formed from stainless-steel mesh that's "infinitely adjustable."

With a crown on the side, which allows you to navigate the watch without blocking the screen, the Apple Watch features a shrunk-down version of iOS 8, highly specialized for Apple Watch. The digital crown, when held down, will activate Siri.

You view all of your apps as tiny circles on the screen, and touch each one to open it. To zoom in to objects, you use the Apple Watch's digital crown.

You can also swipe through information efficiently, and you can even share data with other watches nearby. You can send drawings and taps to friends in a Snapchat-esque way, since the drawings almost immediately disappear after they show up on the receiver's Apple Watch.

"We're not quite finished yet," Apple CEO Tim Cook said, before introducing the Apple Watch. "We have one more thing."

"We love to make technology more personal and allow our users to do things they never have imagined," Cook said. "We have been working incredibly hard for a long time on an entirely new product."

Besides the digital crown, it senses touch and the display also senses force. Tiny electrodes around the display recognize the difference between a tap and a press, which provides instant access to a wide set of contextually specific controls.

There's something called the S1, which encapsulates the electronics inside and basically miniaturizes the entire computer system into the size of a single chip.

There's a gyroscope, accelerometer to give you an idea of your fitness milestones. There's also a unique charging solution: It's not wireless, but a magnetic plug can attach to the Apple Watch at any orientation.

"A precise, customizable timepiece: It's completely customizable so you can find one that reflects your personal style and taste," Cook said.

"I am so excited and so proud to share it with you this morning," he said. "It is the next chapter in Apple's story. And here it is."

There's also a huge focus on fitness. It'll keep track of your fitness goals, as well as how long you've been sitting or standing. You can create and set workouts based on distance or calories you want to burn. And during your workout, you can see from a glance how far, or how long, you've been at it.

There are a ton of other features as well: You can control your Apple TV with the Apple Watch, or use it as a viewfinder for your iPhone's camera.

The Apple Watch requires an iPhone to work. It will work with iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone 5S, iPhone 5C, and iPhone 5. This means 200 million people can already use Apple Watch.

The device was rumored to be called iWatch or iBand.

Previous reports said the iWatch would run on iOS 8, the company’s latest software update for mobile devices, and connect and communicate with the company’s other gadgets, such as iPhones, Mac computers, and Apple TV.

It was rumored the device would connect to those devices using Bluetooth 4.0, which has been included in every iPhone since the iPhone 4S. There were also rumors the new watch would complete stand-alone functions like tracking and measuring one’s biometrics like heart rate and oxygen levels, as well as control aspects of one’s home environment via HomeKit.

Earlier reports said the iWatch would start at $399, the same price point of Timex's Ironman One GPS+ watch, which will arrive in November. Competing fitness bands from Nike and Jawbone cost about $100, while the first Android Wear devices from Samsung and LG cost about $200.

COMMENTARY:    Customers preordering Apple smartwatch on Friday, April 10, will have to wait at least a month for delivery, a sign of strong early demand for company chief Tim Cook's first new major product.

People flocked to Apple's stores and selected boutiques around the world to get a close-up look at the Apple Watch, the tech company's foray into the personal luxury goods market, with Apple predicting demand would exceed supply at product launch.

Cook, interviewed on cable television channel CNBC, said initial orders were "great" for the device, available for preorder online and to try out in stores by appointment, but not to take home.

Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster wrote in a note to clients.

"We view this as an indication of solid demand paired with very limited supply.  We continue to expect modest sales in the June quarter as demand ramps over time."

A key factor in the watch's success will be from majority adopters once an initial wave of interest from early adopters subsides.

The Watch goes on sale officially on April 24, online and through appointments in shops, including trendy fashion boutiques in Paris, London and Tokyo, part of Apple's strategy of positioning the wearable computer as a must-have accessory.

But soon after online preorders opened on Friday, Apple's website listed shipping times in June for some models of the watch and four to six weeks for others.

There was immediately brisk bidding on eBay for confirmed orders for watches, with hundreds of sellers looking to make a few hundred or even thousand dollars by passing on their watches, once received.

Testing Apple's mastery of consumer trends, the watch is an untried concept for the Cupertino, California-based company. It straddles a technology market accustomed to rapid obsolescence and luxury goods whose appeal lies in their enduring value.

The Apple Watch sport starts at $349 while the standard version comes in at $549 in the United States. High-end "Edition" watches with 18-karat gold alloys are priced from $10,000 and go as high as $17,000.

At a San Francisco Apple store, dozens of customers crowded around newly installed wooden cabinets, snapping pictures of the gadgets on display under glass. Apple employees, admittedly still unfamiliar with the watches' finer points, guided customers through features like text messaging, maps and fitness tracking.

At Apple's flagship store in New York, Jack Weber, who was visiting from Charlottesville, Virginia, said he would give his wife a top-of-the-line "Edition" as a 50th-anniversary gift.

He said.  

"What more perfect wedding present could there be than this watch?"

Apple Watch Forecasts

Sales estimates for the Apple Watch for the year 2015 vary widely.

• Piper Jaffray predicts 8 million units.
• Global Securities Research forecasts 40 million.
• Morgan Stanley forecasted 30 million units back in November 2014.

By comparison, Apple sold nearly 200 million iPhones last year.

Apple's watch is widely expected to outsell those by Samsung, Sony Corp and Fitbit. It will likely account for 55 percent of global smartwatch shipments this year, according to Societe Generale.

"Apple will outsell its wearable rivals by a very wide margin but it will do this on the power of its brand and its design alone," independent technology analyst Richard Windsor said.

Courtesy of an article dated April 9, 2015 appearing in Business Insider and an article dated April 12, 2015 appearing in The Telegraph