08.28.08
Posted in Info at 6:20 am by Jono
“Wow!”
That’s pretty much all I can say about this fantastic new Firefox add-on. Ubiquity is just incredible. I really don’t mean to gush, but this is a seriously cool user interface.
New from the Mozilla Labs, essentially what Ubiquity does is allow for the use of dynamic commands in Firefox to complete common web tasks quickly and easily. What this means is that you can create mash-ups on the fly, map things, tweet, quote text and reviews, email sections of text… pretty much anything you can think of.
At the moment, it seems to function very well as a command-line browser. The added benefit is when text is already selected in the browser, the commands will act on that text. Still, the most exciting application is it’s capability to extract items from web pages and to compile them in whatever you’re creating.
Ubiquity seeks to solve the problem of a “disconnected web” – so now, for example, rather than just adding links to emails – users can make their own mash-ups by inserting pictures, maps, reviews or anything else that may be relevant.
It does this by connecting the web with natural language.
Naturally, much of this amazing functionality would not have been possible previously due to closed APIs. Today, micro-formats allow data to be mashed up and visualised in any way you want. Although much of this is still experimental – it’s easy to see the huge potential.
The example that is given on the introductory video uses a list of addresses for apartments in San Francisco from CraigsList. The addresses are highlighted and the command is given in Ubiquity to “map these”. Immediately, the addresses are plotted onto Google Maps – so you are able to visualise where each is.
Other cool applications include being able to do translations and look-ups anywhere on the web.
Of course, users are encouraged to participate, author commands and share through the wiki. This is the first Alpha 0.1 version – and I can not wait to see how it’s improved and grows in the future.
Permalink
08.26.08
Posted in Social Media at 12:17 pm by Jono
There was a lot of debate in the local blogosphere last week about spam and social media spamming particularly.
While there are several very salient points here – I think the two questions that occurred to me most profoundly were: how much reach does social media really have in the South African context, and, what is spam?
The first is a little more tricky to answer, so I will tread carefully and deal with the spam question first.
The definition of spam is broadening. It has gone from merely being unsolicited mail, to meaning noise generally. An article published by eMarketer last week highlights a study conducted my MarketingSherpa and Q Interactive in November 2007, which indicated American users’ attitudes to spam are changing. The main finding was that just because users opt into an email list, this does not give marketers the go-ahead to send endless, irrelevant material to them.
The study showed that while the main reason respondents reported email as spam was still because they didn’t sign up (52%), 41% percent marked email as spam if it was of no interest to them. A quarter said they marked email as spam if they received too much email from a sender.
I am sure the same rules probably apply to all mediums, such as Twitter. Probably the best analogy I can think of is that it’s like when an alarm is going off and eventually you can hardly hear it anymore. People tend to tune superfluous noise out.
The challenge for marketers then, is to stay interesting.
Now, to move onto the second question about social media reach.
There is no doubt in my mind that there is enormous power in social media, and that referrals are undoubtedly the best leads and the future of marketing. Also, I really do feel that there is enormous reach through social media networks in South Africa. When one considers the growing abundance of internet-enabled cellphones – this reach is sure to mushroom in the coming years.
I think that there is a tendency to target the SEO/Internet/wired crew who follow Twitter, update their Facebook profile regularly and read tech blogs. There is no denying that this is a relatively small group of people in this country.
With reference to the Jail4Bail social media campaign specifically, I am reticent to say that anything “went wrong” - because I can’t say for sure that anything did in fact go wrong. Perhaps the message was far wider reaching than I anticipate and perhaps people were sending off their SMSs fast and furious.
I think what can be learned from this however, is that it’s important to know your audience, and what they care about.
As a marketer, you can’t shout your message and expect people to listen, or care.
Social media marketing is about conversations – and those by definition have to be two-way and engaging.
Permalink
08.14.08
Posted in Social Media at 8:55 am by Jono
Facebook has made a move towards standardising the often convoluted world of web metrics by switching its engagement rating for applications and widgets from daily usage reporting to reporting on active users monthly, Adweek reported yesterday.
Since opening development to third parties in May 2007, more than 24,000 applications have been built for Facebook.
This new monthly measurement is apparently more in line with the approach taken by large internet marketing research firms like Nielsen and comScore. These already report engagements, and favour the monthly model because this is less open to manipulation.
A model based on the number of installs was previously used by Facebook to rank the popularity of applications. This was then changed in favour of a daily active-users measurement to iron out the potential skewing of popularity (because many people may try an app once but not actually use it ever). It’s felt that a monthly metric gives a more accurate representation of what is popular because some applications may be date (or day) specific.
The obvious benefit of the monthly metric for marketers is that they can more accurately assess the popularity of apps by seeing the number of active users on a monthly basis.
What this will mean for application developers is that they will have to think more carefully about the longevity of the widgets they create. To create apps that deliver value for clients – applications will have to be more than a proverbial ‘flash in the pan’ and will have to cultivate “longer-term engagement”, according to the Facebook Developers blog.
In short, this is a way to entice widget developers into creating more ‘useful’ applications.
Other news from the Facebook camp is that an “applications you might like” algorithm is currently being tested. The algorithm suggests applications to users based on a number of factors including apps their friends have installed and applications that have engaged similar users.
Permalink
« Previous entries