Foursquare, We Have a Problem

I've been using Foursquare for a few months, mostly as a function of my job, to see its potential impact on my client's businesses.  For a while, I was only annoying my less socially-connected friends by my constant posts on Facebook about every time I went running in the morning on the local bike path, for which, I am the mayor, thank you very much.

Embarrassingly too much Tex-Mex

Then, in November, my mom and I went to dinner at ma peche in New York City, and while sitting at the bar, I received a buy-one-get-one-free deal for drinks.  Score!  Then, the week of Thanksgiving, American Express started with their small business deals, getting me money back when I spent at local businesses, here and there.  Very sweet!  Life was good.

The deals have waned, which makes me wonder if this is really enough to get me to check-in.  Even for me, it's a chore to whip out my smartphone every time, when one time out of 8000 gets me a deal, and my wife's stare is burning holes through the back of my head.  I'm not saying that the City of Dallas needs to celebrate my presence on the running trail every morning, but maybe once in a while, a small marching band would be appropriate.

Today, though, as we brought my wife's niece to the local, up-scale mall, I encountered a more serious Foursquare's challenge: connectivity.  There never is any at this mall.  That's why so many teenagers must hang out here, so their parents can't get a hold of them, and they have a valid excuse.  I was able to sneak a check-in for American Eagle Outfitters, but when I clicked on their deal, the Interwebs failed me.  Most other places, I could never check-in, even though I really wanted to and tried very hard, against my nature.  Most humans would never try the second time.

Clearly, malls are not on the rise, but this is not the only place that I have had Foursquare connectivity issues, sometimes not seemingly caused by connectivity issues.  The problem is not that this will not improve.  In fact, Foursquare might consider subsidizing fempto cells in some shopping areas and malls or encouraging some of the innovative schemes that exist to improve data network and spectral efficiency.

Anything to improve the experience, because most people's bozo bit is more sensitive than mine for new technology and services like this one.  Once it gets flipped, it's hard to reset.

Privacy

Waves of articles about the embedding of the Carrier IQ quality of service agent in phones in the past few weeks have captured the attention of media and mobile phone users.  It's raises the topic of privacy and the importance of clear disclosure to end users.  Because the bottom line is this: if the phones visually notify the end users of what data they were capturing, what they are going to use the data for, and how the end user can opt-out of such measurement, this is a non-issue.  These 3 privacy commandments are critical not just for market research but for any mobile and internet startup, as well.

Now, in the case of CIQ, this all may have been done, in all cases.  From the press articles, it seems that there may have been some breakdowns between all the parties responsible for delivering the end solution.  Given that the situation has attracted the attention of Senator Franken, and the Senator still does not seem to have received all responses or seem to be happy with those he received, there will likely be more disclosures to the public to understand more.

The commandments sound simple enough, but its amazing how the smallest and the largest companies don't do justice to them.  I have met with startups who gloss over this when we discuss privacy, and when companies are small, they want to focus on building the framework of their business, expecting to plumb the details when money is flowing in.  Fair enough, but the early investment likely does not cost much, if anything, and the importance of embedding the edicts of user privacy are important to seed early and often.  Large companies often do everything legally required, but often embed disclosures and  how to opt-out in the middle of much larger, user agreements that no one ever reads.

The reality is that most users are willing to make the trade-off.  Given clear and definable value, they will let you use their information for benefit and profit.  Actually, being very up-front and transparent about privacy and data usage helps users gain more confidence in companies.  Thinking about opt-outs, data storage and removal, and breaches up front and early is infinitely cheaper early on.

Tell the user up-front and right away what data you want to use and why, make it clear and easy to opt-out, and if you give a service of value, they will give you invaluable access and demographic information.  Win-win.

Invisible Computer

I've commented before about a book, The Invisible Computer by Donald A. Norman, that I forced myself to read about 10 years ago.  It discusses the unnecessary complexity of computers and their software, at the time, and the opportunity to embed computing in smart appliances, where the "computer" was invisible.  It would seem, at least in hindsight, that companies like Apple and Google had learned similar lessons with the advent of iPhone and Android smartphones, but one could say that, as an industry, we are still nascent in our progress.

Newer appliances, like the Nest Learning Thermostat, are excellent examples of what Mr. Norman was forecasting.  What once constituted a computer, it's memory and processing power can be found in extremely miniaturized and inexpensive silicon that are economical to integrate into consumer electronics.  Additionally interesting, that the Nest takes advantage of, is the ubiquity of connectivity in the home, via Wi-Fi, and the value that connectivity adds to a consumer device.  Controlling your thermometer from your smartphone, making it ice cold in the dead of winter for a friend or loved-one, when you are warm and cozy in a hotel room traveling for work, for example.

But for every Nest, there are 10s of examples of connected refrigerators, smart washers and connected televisions that have not found the right formula.  The idea of a connected television sounds like a slam dunk, but the video world is so complex in terms of rights and legacy, the obstacles are challenging.  What is the magic, then?  If I knew, I would be retired on the beach, so take this with a grain of salt, but in hindsight, the final answer is always: how did I do this before?  That is, these great technological advances make something so easy, that you look back at the way you did it previously, and it makes you wince.  How did I do this before?

I don't think the majority of the potential innovations that are hanging before our minds are complex.  Simplicity is key, both for the actual advancement and the user experience of the result.  Simplicity usually indicates a focus on what is most important, keeps costs down, allows for easy investor and consumer messaging, and means a normal human, like my mom, actually might understand it and be able to use it without calling her IT department: me.

Think Big, Go Small

Sometimes, you want to bake a cake from scratch.  Other times, someone has baked an excellent cake and offered you a slice, for free, and you would be a fool to pass.  In this case, Google has made an excellent website for brands to understand the importance of mobile in their digital marketing strategy and provides resources to build their mobile site.  They call their initiative GoMo.  It even provides a tool to assess the readiness of your website for mobile, and asks the right questions.

As an example, this year, on Black Friday, online retail sales grew 24.3%, according to IBM Coremetrics data, yet mobile traffic increased 255% and mobile retail sales grew over 300%!  This does not specify the impact that mobile has at the beginning of the consumer journey or the impact that it increasingly has with mobile loyalty schemes.  iPhone and iPad, alone, accounted for 10.2% of all online traffic this Thanksgiving.  The bottom line is designing a web presence today without building in optimized support for tablet and mobile is asking your customers, viewers and fans to go elsewhere.

So, where to start?  First, since mobile web is the principle destination from search, having an optimized mobile web presence is key.  With modern, responsive design techniques, one design can scale from larger PC and tablet sizes down to smaller smartphone and feature phone form factors, optimizing what content and actions are available based on key user scenarios.  In smaller form factors, the focus can be on quick hitting information and actions.  Starting the design from the smallest form factor also helps to focus on simplicity and impact, which can benefit the designs for larger form factor devices, as well.

From there, brands can branch out to offer optimized app experiences that many fans and consumers prefer.  Companies like Facebook and LinkedIn have done an excellent job of blurring the lines between mobile web and apps, but for most brands, they can think of an app on the user's home screen like a loyalty card in their wallet.  If they like a brand enough to carry their card, it is a meaningful indicator of the affinity they have for the brand.  A brand needs to capitalize on that and deliver value from the app, or run the risk of abandonment.

For many companies, they need to walk before they can run, but ignoring the growing impact on mobile in digital marketing is an increasingly dangerous gamble.

The UX Teeter Totter

I think it's very impressive the mobile work that companies like LinkedIn and Facebook are producing today.  Click on their app or their mobile website and the experience is almost identical, as much as the two mobile channels will allow.  Especially in the case of Facebook, which I do wonder how it remembers who I am, in mobile Safari, without cookies enabled...hmm...

I believe companies shade too far away from utility towards fancier user interfaces, on mobile.   Bob Robinson, Executive Creative Director at Rockfish, always talks about the balance of user experience and brand experience in digital design.  On the web and on tablet, a company who demands more brand experience can reach more and push the envelope, but on mobile, the platform itself demands more utility, by its nature.  People browse longer on tablets and frequently want quick information and action on smartphones.  User experiences need to be optimized for both, which might limit, in the case of mobile web, how much responsive design is used, if a more brand oriented experience is chosen for the tablet or web.

The recent LinkedIn mobile app re-design, while visually interesting, strays too far from utility in its approach and at times is confusing on what a user should do where.  I find LinkedIn an awesome tool for business, and before I meet someone for the first time, I constantly find myself looking them up on my mobile, reminding myself of their experience and taking a quick mantal snapshot of what they look like.  Something about the redesign though makes me think that the mapping of mental model to conceptual model is not right yet.  It does not intuitively click for me, even after some months of use.

I have more issues with Facebook's redesign, though.  I was using Facebook more and more on mobile, as are many people according to Eric Tseng, but in hindsight, since the redesign, I find myself coming back to my laptop more and more to interact with Facebook.  While there still seem to be some defects in the iPhone app that cause more user action than is required, especially with notifications and updates, I feel like any action that I plan takes several more steps than what might be optimally required.  It would be interesting to do an industrial engineering time study on Facebook mobile use.  Maybe this is why I find myself hovering back to my laptop when I want to engage with Facebook?

The different models of how users expect to interact with the different channels challenges the design to balance reuse and optimal experience.  It's expensive and difficult to do an optimized design for each platform and channel.  A good approach starts with the right content architecture that allows for the same source data, without sacrificing performance on the apps, by splitting the presentation from the data.  In this way, each platform can be optimized to host that data with the best experience.

In the coming weeks, we'll dive into some approaches on how this might be done.

Confident, Cookies, Cliff, Xmas

The (Short) Weekly Wrap

Tuesday: Xmas

Wednesday: Confidence

Thursday: Cliffs

Sunday: Cookies

Enjoy!

When Mobile Stole Xmas

From the initial indicators, mobile is having a distinct impact this holiday shopping season.  With online sales growing almost 40% during Thanksgiving, mobile traffic almost tripled!  iPad and iPhone traffic alone accounted for 10.2% of Black Friday traffic, according to a report from IBM Coremetrics.  There are recommendations for apps to load to simplify or make holiday shopping better.  Holiday couch commerce is born.

The important point for most retailers and consumer package goods companies to realize is that mobile, even more than traditional PC, has an impact all the way through the consumer journey: from awareness through loyalty.   Sometimes the shopping experience might start with the PC web or tablet or even the mobile, if the consumer is on-the-go, but can be finished through any other channel, often in store.   For what can be controlled, it's important that the experience is holistic, and the consumer state is passed seamlessly from one channel to the next to continually crown the customer and make them feel special.

There's no one-sized-fits-all strategy for mobile, as many consumers start with web or mobile search and end in the store.  However each consumer uses mobile this holiday shopping season, one point is clear: consumers don't leave home without it.

Free Beer

I live in Texas, and I’ve dreamed of improving my guitar skills, starting a band, and leaving the marketing and technology world behind.  I would name my band Free Beer.  We’d play Texas Rock, some Blues, and throw in an occasional Radiohead song to keep the audience on their toes.  You’d drive down the local Farm-to-Market road by Joe’s Roadhouse, and the sign would read, “Free Beer Tonight.”  Sure, we might need to find a new town to play in, every night, to make the marketing ploy effective, but, hey, Texas is a big place!

Jamming or constipated?

Yesterday, our excellent Marketing Director sent me a link to a new mobile app produced for Moosejaw outfitters, called Moosejaw Xray (Android, iPhone).  Download it.  It corresponds to their winter catalog, and it uses augmented reality to give shoppers a more risqué view of the models in their catalog, without all those puffy, winter outer garments. 

As the male of the species, I found the marketing ploy intriguing.  I must study this catalog, intently.  As a marketer, however, I wondered if their budget would have been better spent elsewhere.  Hey, I admit, I downloaded it and looked at their catalog.  I even tweeted about it, and now I am writing a blog entry, referencing their campaign.  It’s got sexy women in lingerie, for Pete’s sake, what am I supposed to do, ignore it?

The reality is, however, they don’t sell the under garments, from what I can tell, so the campaign is really about generating buzz and brand awareness.   I don’t know Moosejaw, but I’d guess that the campaign is in line with their brand, as well.  It’s probably not a bad idea, in the end, but I just wonder if they will need to find a new town to play in the next time.

Bad Design! Bad, Bad Design!

I stumbled across this website today, which points out the poorer choices in mobile web design that many have made across the Internets.  It's educational, entertaining, and just fun.  It's like the People of Walmart for nerds and designers.  Just not quite as funny.  Or shocking.

Having said that, I agree with some of the sentiment that is noted in tweets that they present, there is no mobile web, just the web.  With good, modern responsive design, companies and agencies can develop one website for most modern devices.

The Boston Globe did this and claimed a lot of notoriety for their work.  I like the way that the user experience scales down appropriately as you resize the browser window to smartphone and feature phone sizes.

It's interesting, as the questions for brands has shifted from "should I do a mobile web site" or "should I do mobile web or mobile apps" to "should I redesign my .com site to be responsive to serve all devices"?

Me, Myself and I

Nothing that Mike likes talking about more than Mike.

"Your customers are mobile, are you?"

If you are really a glutton for punishment, or maybe high and need a giggle, and you missed ad:tech New York City, you can check out my two sessions on Tablets In Marketing:

How We Really Use Them
Innovations Beyond the Screen

Android, Where Art Thou?

At work, we have a large client for whom we develop an application for on both the Android and the iPhone.  We have driven a lot of downloads of the application without any use of paid media, so far, but most interestingly is the ratio of iPhone downloads vs. Android downloads, where there are 1.6 times as many iPhone downloads than Android.  So, I started to dig into this mystery.

First, if I look at more instantaneous data, the weekly downloads were equal.  So, maybe while early on in the apps life, before the sales of Android devices grew and surpassed iPhone sales, the iPhone installed base grew big.  Second, maybe the demographics of this client's customers are more skewed towards iPhone ownership?  Hey, although we have not used paid media to get any of the downloads, maybe the marketing is more skewed towards iPhone owners somehow.  Dunno.

With Android commanding almost 1.5 times more market share, however, it needs more explanation.  When I was back at The Nielsen Company, we had a set of data we had collected, which did not specifically show, but implied, that there still are swaths of Android owners that don't know they have an Android phone.  It was the free phone with the 2-year contract, or buy-one-get-one-free with their spouses new phone when they switched carriers.   They have a Porsche on the Autobahn, but still are driving the speed limit.

If this is true, it might explain the lower usage on Android devices vs. iPhone and could also explain this download phenomena, as well.

Free Beer

I live in Texas, and I’ve dreamed of improving my guitar skills, starting a band, and leaving the marketing and technology world behind.  I would name my band Free Beer.  We’d play Texas Rock, some Blues, and throw in an occasional Radiohead song to keep the audience on their toes.  You’d drive down the local Farm-to-Market road by Joe’s Roadhouse, and the sign would read, “Free Beer Tonight.”  Sure, we might need to find a new town to play in, every night, to make the marketing ploy effective, but, hey, Texas is a big place!

Jamming or constipated?

Yesterday, our excellent Marketing Director sent me a link to a new mobile app produced for Moosejaw outfitters, called Moosejaw Xray (Android, iPhone).  Download it.  It corresponds to their winter catalog, and it uses augmented reality to give shoppers a more risqué view of the models in their catalog, without all those puffy, winter outer garments. 

As the male of the species, I found the marketing ploy intriguing.  I must study this catalog, intently.  As a marketer, however, I wondered if their budget would have been better spent elsewhere.  Hey, I admit, I downloaded it and looked at their catalog.  I even tweeted about it, and now I am writing a blog entry, referencing their campaign.  It’s got sexy women in lingerie, for Pete’s sake, what am I supposed to do, ignore it?

The reality is, however, they don’t sell the under garments, from what I can tell, so the campaign is really about generating buzz and brand awareness.   I don’t know Moosejaw, but I’d guess that the campaign is in line with their brand, as well.  It’s probably not a bad idea, in the end, but I just wonder if they will need to find a new town to play in the next time.

Come see me and other industry leaders from Sam's Club, BBC America, The Daily, Ogilvy & Mather, Nutro, The Weather Channel, and Starcom Mediavest talk about tablets in marketing at ad:tech New York City this Thursday at 3:00PM Eastern and 4:30PM Eastern.  If you can't make it, tell a friend and live vicariously through them!

Calamari Pancakes and Digital Messes

It's Sunday, so I normally take a break from my mobile and digital world to wax poetically about food and dining.  I don't want to disappoint, and as I am heading to New York City this week on business, I am reminded of one of my favorite appetizers: the Sautéed Calamari and Artichoke Tart over Fresh Radicchio Salad at ViceVersa on 325 W 51st Street.

It's a fav and when on business, I like to wander over to ViceVersa, or its sister restaurant EtceteraEtcetera, sit at the bar to order an appetizer and a drink, and chat it up with the bartender.  The calamari tart is like a crisp, loose pancake that combined with the bite of the radicchio is just wonderful combination of flavors and texture.  Having said all of that, however, thinking of going to New York and eating well make me think of a great Slate piece on restaurants' websites that I read this year, discussing the bad side of restaurant website designs and implementations.

It brings up the interesting hypothesis that many nice restaurants with bad site designs are likely due to their own Executive Creative Directors, the chefs, trying to control digital like they do food.  It's an interesting theory that makes a lot of sense.  At work, our ECD talks about the continuum between user experience and brand experience, and it would seem that for many nice restaurants, the designs are likely straddling the fence in uncomfortable ways.   Neither very usable or brand-right designs.

Although the sites are sometimes over-the-top or annoying, I'm just glad the chefs don't straddle the fence when it comes to the food design and preparation.

Come see me and other industry leaders from Sam's Club, BBC America, The Daily, Ogilvy & Mather, Nutro, The Weather Channel, and Starcom Mediavest talk about tablets in marketing at ad:tech New York City next Thursday at 3:00PM Eastern and 4:30PM Eastern.  If you can't make it, tell a friend, and I will think of you while I eat my Calamari and Artichoke Tart!

$5

I was walking into Whole Foods Market the other Sunday, and I saw a $5 in the parking lot.  I picked it up and looked around to see if it would recognize its previous owner, and, alas, it did not.  Nothing like finding a $5 bill to add some unexpected joy to the day.

Marketers can find that mobile can offer that same level of surprise, when treated with respect and a understanding of their customer.  No need to search farther than their pocket or pocketbook for the delight.  Not many retailers or brands have gotten to this point, yet, but it will come.  The more that they know the consumer holistically, across online, mobile and physical retail, the better.

To get to this point, however, the retailer or brand has to earn the trust of the customer to begin with.  This is nothing new.  The mobile or tablet or online channel are just that, channels, and equivalent to another physical store.   They offer specific capabilities and opportunities, but like any other channel, if the customer has a great experience, and it adds to the total customer equity.  If they have a bad experience, and it could affect the equity across all channels.

But, treat your peeps right, and what joy they will have when they find their own 5-dollar bill in their pocket.


Come see me and other industry leaders from Sam's Club, BBC America, The Daily, Ogilvy & Mather, Nutro, The Weather Channel, and Starcom Mediavest talk about tablets in marketing at ad:tech New York City next Thursday at 3:00PM Eastern and 4:30PM Eastern.  If you can't make it, I'll miss you, but tell a friend who can!

Mobile, Tell Me Something, Quick!

During the day, I run the mobile practice at a digital agency.  Mobile includes tablet, although I don't consider tablets to be "mobiles", as much as I don't consider tablets to be PCs or TVs, though I can browse the web on them or watch videos.

Where the two can offer similar apps and services, it pays to optimize a mobile experience for quick hitting information and click-to-actions.  As the dialogue from the robbery scene goes, "In and out, no one gets hurt."  I might play games, check information and even browse content on my mobile at work and at home, but its highest value is on-the-go or at my particular destination.  Optimized user experiences allow me to find the nearest deal or location, look up comparison pricing, check ratings and reviews.  The quicker I can get the phone started, initiate the query and get to relavent information, the better.  In the moment.

Tablets offer a more relaxed browsing experience.  Flipping through the web, media, or catalogues while lounging at home (sipping a vodka gimlet, of course).  Time is not necessarily of the essence, and neither is screen real estate.  Richer, more engaging content can soak more time from the viewer, shopper, or fan.  While it could be done, I don't see many people up and down the aisles at big box retailers aiding the shopping experience with tablets, or people in the streets holding their iPads above their head filming protests.  Tablets offer the opportunity for deeper engagement at times when people can spare their attention.

Come see me and other industry leaders from Sam's Club, BBC America, The Daily, Ogilvy & Mather, Nutro, The Weather Channel, and Starcom Mediavest talk about tablets in marketing at ad:tech New York City next Thursday at 3:00PM Eastern and 4:30PM Eastern.  If you can't make it, I'll miss you, but tell a friend who can!

Gamey

The industry often talks about gamification in mobile apps.  Sometimes, it's done well, but often times, it's gamey.  I think its rare that someone wants to take their time out of other tasks to play a game, and if they do, they will likely play an actual game, with good game play and graphics.  I play Angry Birds and 9 Innings, ad nauseam.  I'm not sure big box retailer or their suppliers want the shopper's attention diverted, shooting imaginary fiends in the rafters, though.

However, consumer do respond to their score and how their actions affect a score.  The introduction of badges to services like Foursquare add a fun element to the check-in process.  Doesn't cost anything but engages the consumer more in the experience.  Just like the bounty that a company puts on sales, the care needs to be given on the targets, the prize, and the resultant bill.

There are even gamification movements in education to revamp the way we measure success.  Some theorize that current grading methods place caps on the levels students can achieve.  If Junior has already reached Level 12 of Chemistry Zombies, why should he be able to advance to Level 13.

It makes sense to me, as long as it doesn't mean my kids are playing Flight Control during study hall.

Mobile Lovers

Nothing will get my wife more riled up then when we are out on date night, and there's a table nearby, with a similar couple, but they both are looking at their mobile phones as opposed to talking with each other.  Make me giggle actually.

I always imagine them texting each other.

Female: "ur really making me hot, 2nite!"
Male: "yea, u 2"
Female: "what are u gonna order?"
Male: "dunno, maybe the steak?  u?"

I've actually been at a restaurant, where a couple had their laptops out on the table, across from each other.  Really?  I mean, I guess you could just be there for the sustenance, but that's a little extreme, don't you think?

Different strokes for different folks.  Hey, I've been caught my fair share of times, checking a score, or texting someone at a meal, so I'm no saint.

Making Calls with Smartphones

It's an amazing idea: the ability to make a phone call with a cellular phone!  Who would have thought!?!

Actually, jokes aside, this is not to bash on the spotty coverage of your mobile operator, but to stress the fact that mobile, as opposed to tablet or PC, at its core, is a communication device first.  When you think about it that way, it's very easy to understand which apps and usage is most popular: calls, SMS, Facebook, Twitter, or quick mobile web checks for items like store locations or phone number look ups.  It's also why email has done well on mobile since its first good implementation on Blackberry.  This also explains the typical shorter session durations in apps and mobile web versus tablets found in research.  In and out, nobody gets hurt.

This is not to say that commerce or entertainment and gaming or information management do not have a place on mobile.  Au contraire, I make quick purchases and product look-ups, play Angry Birds and 9 Innings Baseball, and my mobile calendar manages me like a general.  Which is actually kind of sad, when I read it back.  Still, mobile apps that communicate get daily engagement.  It could even be daily communication from a trusted brand.

So, actually having a call to action that's actually a call is an okay response in a mobile app or site.  Sometimes, it's quicker than going through a long web form or a series of screens.  As long as your carrier doesn't drop the call or your in a dead zone.  Can you hear me now?

Have Content, Need Connection

At work, we work with retailers on how to apply digital and mobile to their marketing and to their business.  It's a ton of fun, even if that sentence just made you yawn.

In the case of mobile retail, consumers are using their phones more and more while they shop.  To price compare.  To look up more information.  To compare products.  To get coupons.  Actually, retailers have such a large opportunity here, that is largely untapped.  Maybe in a future post here or at The Rockfish Blog, I'll talk about how the current conceptual model being applied to m-commerce is incomplete, since it is based on a shopping basket and not the person pushing the basket.

Having said all of that, there's no good having lots of on-premise electronic content, if the signal in your building stinks and you don't offer free Wi-Fi that's been tuned to give great performance where you are trying to engage consumers via links, QR codes, SMS codes, and NFC taps.  Equally worse, if the content that does load is not optimized for mobile.

Never worth it to do something half-assed.

Friction

If you clicked the link to this post thinking that I was going to be talking motor oil or sexual aids, I'm going to disappoint.

As my colleague, Eric Swayne (@eswayne), likes to say: social media is not doing anything new, it reduces the friction for something that people already do.  It's a great barometer for the usefulness and value for many mobile or digital projects.  Does this reduce the friction?  Substantially?  Was there no friction to begin with?  That's probably a sign that you are not solving a real problem.

I think its a great barometer for a lot of what we do in digital and mobile marketing.  What friction are we reducing?  I was using an online ordering site for a restaurant the other night, and it took me 10 minutes to enter an order, for what takes less than 1 minute to do by phone.  The implementation on the site was pretty, but it was clearly inefficient.  It added friction, and I likely won't go back again.

The friction of finding, flipping through, and locating the number in the yellow pages became a barrier when it was easier to find the phone number of a local business on the computer.  Now, it's even easier to find it on my mobile.  Apple implements Siri on the iPhone 4S, and if it works, it will become even easier to find that same phone number.  Smaller digital friction coefficient.

Just like electricity, people will choose the path of least resistance.  What's your product's digital friction coefficient?