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.

Free, Easy, Angry, Loyal

Monday: Angry
Tuesday: Free
Wednesday: Easy
Friday: Loyal
Sunday: Lucia

Angry Smartphones

I was joking last week, when I saw a poster of an Angry Bird in the window of Barnes and Noble, that read "Birds and Noble", that maybe 2011 was the year that Angry Birds jumped the Cabbage Patch and over-saturated.  Probably not likely, but you can't swing a dead cat without seeing a bird or pig flip flop, tee shirt, stuffed animal or coffee mug this holiday season.  More importantly, however, is the vehicle that drove the birds and pigs to this swank party, the smartphone, and its impressive growth here in the United States and abroad.

Android Biggest OS, Apple Biggest Manufacturer

The Nielsen Company recently noted that Android and iPhones make up 71% of smartphone owners in the U.S. but 83% of the app downloads.  Of the embedded market, 44% own smartphones now, while 56% of new purchases are smartphones.  People want their Angry Birds.

Recently, in the United Kingdom, Kantar Worldwide ComTech found that the pent-up demand for the iPhone 4S accelerated new iOS phone sales shares to 42.8% of all smartphone sales in October.  Smartphones made up 69.1% of all new mobile sales!  It will be interesting to see 4Q numbers to see if the iPhone trend is local or global.  I normally would also not expect it to be sustainable, but the only wrinkle in that opinion is the massive amounts of litigation going on between Apple and Android licensees.  Tomorrow, there is a ruling which could result in an import ban for HTC, for example, and if it happened, that could boost other Android sales, like Motorola's new, stylish DROID RAZR, or maybe give Apple a bump.

Stay tuned.

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

Touch Me

No, we're not talking Penn State football today.  Is it too soon to joke about that?

We are doing many campaigns at work that integrate SMS or scanning of Quick Response (QR) codes that allow shoppers to engage more with retail or brands, while shopping.  Sometimes, it's additional information or comparisons.  Other times, its to get a quick link to something else, like an app download.  I do like this idea from J.C. Penney which effectively is a voice-card for holiday gifts that is recorded and activated through QR and your smartphone.  As I've said in the past, however, QR, as a technology has challenges that probably limit is shelf-life.

My good friend Loïc Hamon is Vice President of Marketing at InsideSecure, one of the world's largest providers of contact-less technologies, like Near Field Communication (NFC).  He rightfully looks at NFC not as a payment mechanism but more fundamentally as a new user experience, enabling the smartphone, in effect, to be a new form of mouse, or interactive device.  The NFC user experience is easier than QR: just tap to get more information, to take some action, to swap pictures or apps, or to pay.  They've been doing it in Japan for years with FeliCa, allowing people to tap their phone to get into the subway or make small payments at convenience stores.

At the heart of it, the use of the camera by QR or Augmented Reality (AR), while interesting for those apps, is a use for the camera that was not its original intent, so the user experience will always suffer and be more burdensome.  Unlock your phone, open an app, align a camera to an image...am I taking a picture or scanning something?  

I say, "just tap and go."

UPDATE: It's the Screen, Stupid!

I remember when the Palm IIIc came out, Palm was on top of the handheld organizer world.  You could not imagine a day when they would not be on the top of the PDA heap.  As they moved to color screens, they focused their engineering decision on cost and low-power, while HTC, who made the COMPAQ iPAQ chose the best screen possible for their color Windows CE PDA.  Hey, it was the focus on that criteria that put them to the top, but the world was changing beneath them.

When consumer came up to the glass case at their local COMPUSA or Circuit City (you remember them, don't you?) they would see this Palm device with a washed out screen next to the iPAQ with bright, clear colors and details.  Sold.  The iPAQ did well in the market.

Motorola DROID RAZR

I was bummed yesterday when I read the review for the new Motorola DROID RAZR.  The review focuses on the poor screen chosen for this slick, new Android smartphone.  I was thinking of buying one, and I guess I still might, but we still have not learned our lessons.  For some reason, engineers get caught up with buzzwords like AMOLED (LCD screens).  I've actually seen it on commercials for one company's big screen LCD HDTV sets.  Like my mom knows AMOLED from baking powder!  C'mon, we can do better than this, people!

Consumers don't give a rodent's posterior about acronyms.  In this case, they want bright screens, vibrant colors, and sharp details.  This is supposed to be the slickest, thinnest phone.  A revered phone brand revived to revitalize the return of Motorola.  Like that alliteration, huh?  Seriously, why do all the great things to make a great phone and mess up the most visible (and, hence, the most important) part of the experience of the phone: the screen?

Unfortunately, it takes a while to make a phone, so they can't scrape off the top and put it back in the oven.  Hopefully, there is a fix already in the pipeline.

UPDATE: I went to Best Buy for 1 hour on Friday to see both the DROID RAZR and the Kindle Fire, first hand.  The Kindle Fire seemed nice in some ways, maybe a bit jerky in scrolling.  The demo unit just played videos of the web browser and apps, which was strange.  The sales person brought us a unit we could really play with and it was okay.

The DROID RAZR's screen was better than the L.A. Times article noted, but was over-saturated and the whites were not white, so they were not far off with the review.  It was extremely thin, very fast, but also quite wide and tall.  I would love the thinness, with a smaller and better quality screen, for sure.

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!

Darn Youth!

I have often said that after the introduction of the iPad, and watching how my kids interact with modern smart phones and tablets, they will look at our computing as my generation looks at mainframes and minis.  It's not that they won't use it, but it will be like my computer classes back in college, in the late 80s, when I had to do my assignment in the CS building from a terminal connected to the mini.  Why would you want to?

It's not just smartphones and tablets either.  All of the technology trends that we create that catch-on with our youth and later seep into older society.  Yet, we as adults have designed these innovations.  Is it because we know more, but still can think and act like children.  I've been accused of acting like a child, quite often, around the house, actually.

It just made me think this morning of what if we gave a design brief or creative brief to kids?  What would they come up with?  Sure, a bunch of it would be nuts, but I'd have to think there would be an awesome idea in there that most adults, no matter how much vodka, would not come up with.

Maybe we should give them an Etch-A-Sketch and let them have at it?

Innovation

On the longest and toughest days at work, it's things like Oink that can wake me up, get me pumped and remind me why I like my work and my job so much.  Innovation.  It's like a stiff drink after a long day.  It's like a unsolicited kiss on the cheek from your kids.  It's the $5 bill you find in the parking lot of the grocery store.  When it happens, it's a sure smile and new energy.

Thanks to @rfijoey for tipping me to this one yesterday.  I love the different perspective of this service.  Don't just get me to a location, help me navigate inside.  What is the place known for?  Still, like Yelp and Google, it's dependent on crowd sourcing opinions, and sometimes dog+world can give you good advice, but as has been shown through research, nothing replaces the opinion of a trusted friend or family member.  Bubs, for example, is my go-to for dining in New York City.  Should be yours, too, but she doesn't blog.

This idea of enhancing our typical web services to dig deeper, inside of the places, is not unique to Oink.  Applying electronic mapping inside of big box retailers, for example, could help consumers map their path to get in and out most efficiently.  The path data from their (opted-in) consumers could help the retailers organize their product placement.  It could help those same retailers make more contextually relevant recommendations for additional purchase, "you're going to need some jelly with that peanut butter and bread that you bought."

Specific innovations aside, it's always great to explore and see innovators in action.  Sometimes, its a hit, other times a miss.  Sometimes, it's one small step to something bigger.  And, remember, if you are not trying to disenfranchise your service, someone else is.

Rant

My pedestal is not so tall now that ranting online will result in anything positive, but after walking out of the local Apple store yesterday, frustrated, I have write about it.  It is the first time I have every walked out of an Apple store upset and disappointed by poor customer service.

Back in May, I was traveling a lot and my iPhone's home button stopped working reliably.  So, I made an appointment at the Genius bar to have them take a look.  My Genius listened to me, plugged it in to run some diagnostics, and said it was not the hardware, but I had some software on the phone that was slowing it down.  He prescribed that I wipe out my phone completely and reinstall everything, not restore from backup.  So sorry that all of your app contexts would be lost.  That will solve it.

It didn't.  I only realize now that he was guessing.

Fast forward to yesterday, when after having the same issue, I was able to clear off Friday afternoon to run back down to the Apple store to let them know it was still an issue.  First, the Genius told me that he would replace the phone, but that I need to get into a habit of killing all the apps that were running and restarting my phone weekly.  I can imagine Steve Jobs rolling in his grave as he uttered these words.

I was a little incredulous.  I told him, as someone who manages developers that develop for iOS and having done some iOS development myself, that this surprised me, since the way iOS multitasking works that app processes are suspended in the background and not active.  He began to backpedal and started to process my return quicker.  Then, he realized that I was no longer in warranty, so it would cost me $149 to replace it.  I wasn't going to pay.  I was more upset about him trying to BS me than having to pay for a replacement.

I asked him why that when I came in earlier in the year when I was in warranty, and the advice I was given to solve it was wrong, that I am held responsible for that?  He said it was too far out of warranty now.  I admit easily that I should not have waited so long.  I travel too much and work too much, so my time at home is precious.  Getting in there today was a big deal.  Still, letter of the law, he is in the right.

As I walked out, having done what this Genius prescribed, I easily reproduced the issue again, where the phone locked up for over a minute.  I walked back in to let him know, for the next schlep that asks him for help, that his remedy did not work.

He apologized, and I walked out.  No responsibility for their ineptness in support, though.  So disappointed.

My Life as an Antenna

When I was a kid, we literally got a handful of television channels, over the air.  The reception was terrible, and my brother and I would lie on the floor with our feet touching the television to act as antenna to improve the signal.  We watched whatever was shown.  We actually believed the commercials.

Today, I get hundreds of channels, much more than I want, from a satellite in space.  If I'm not available to watch a show, I can record it, digitally and fast forward through the commercials, though my wife often has to remind me to do so.  I can even watch shows while away from home, anytime, via a series of tubes known as the Internets.  It does not even require me to touch it and act as an antenna.  As a result of these advances, my 5-year old daughter does not comprehend the concept of live television.  Doesn't even register.

She thinks she can play any content from any device, but I once put my mom's music on a tree.  One day, my brother and I hung my mom's Neil Diamond albums on the branches of the tree in the back yard.  We walked upstairs to our bedroom window and using his BB gun, we held target practice.  All while Bubs was in the kitchen, watching.  Proud moment in our childhood, really.  We had maybe 2 dozen albums.  Billy Joel.  Aerosmith.  David Bowie.  George Carlin.  The White Album with coffee rings on it, so it was not exactly white.

I have a lot of music today.  My iPhone holds a fraction of my collection, which still amounts to thousands of songs.  I can play them on almost any device, except the tree, and even send the music through the air to my television or my computer to play back.  I can play them in any order, and often times, my daughter would like to hear the same song over and over and over.  Devices can do this automatically, much to my dismay.

As many parents, we often reminisce about the way things were, and talk about "if our kids only knew".  Personally, I'm glad my kids aren't shooting my iPhone with a gun, while it hangs on a tree in the back yard.  They will make their own mischief, I am sure, but I actually worry more that with all the play dates and additional structure, they can't get into enough trouble to learn better.  I guess I'm not worried that new technology is a barrier to our kids growing up normally.

My grandmother, before she passed, was notorious for 15 second phone calls.  We learned not to take it personally.  I'm sure it was a remnant from when making any phone call was expensive.  Life moves on.  Our kids will adapt, just fine, thank you.  The question is, will we?

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?

Oldie, but a Goodie

When you work around technology as much as I do and have, it's easy to get caught up in a new idea or concept and believe it will take the world by storm.  On top of slow technology adoption rates, most new concepts have ecosystem challenges that even if solved, are not solved overnight.

There is an excellent Bill Gates quote that always tempers me: "We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten. Don't let yourself be lulled into inaction."

On the one hand, don't get caught up in the hype.  On the other hand, don't be a spectator when the action begins.  Great strategic planning helps you to know what to do in the first years and how to tilt the table to your advantage for when it really matters.

So, patience is a virtue, but inactivity is a trap.

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?

Saturday Morning Cartoons

As I sit here and type, at the crack of dawn this fine Saturday morning, my son's cat, Polly, sleeps, purring, on the hot-plate known as my Apple Time Capsule.  With only a peanut-sized brain, I don't expect her to have any remorse or shame for waking me up, and, if I 'm honest with myself, I've been getting up this side of the crack of dawn since I was very small.  I'm sure Bubs would be the first one to point this fact out, and she probably has a few extra gray hairs, with my names on them, to prove it.

When I was a kid, it was fun getting up Saturday morning.  Heck, I distinctly remember going out and shooting hoops in our driveway when I would wake up.  I can not imagine what our neighbors must have thought, and its shocking that I never heard from them about it.  For most of my childhood, we literally got only a handful of channels on the television.  When not torturing the neighbors with the pounding of the basketball on blacktop, I would pour myself a bowl of cereal, or cook pancakes swimming in butter, plop down in front of our television and watch whatever was shown.  There was not much choice then, especially for niches like cartoons, so you took what you got.

I watch my kids grow up today, and they really are the DVR Generation, in that regard.  My daughter truly does not understand the concept of live programming.  Sorry, Nielsen.  They have an expectation of any content, anywhere, on any device.  As a parent, it's occasionally frustrating, but as a technologist, it's fascinating.  If I think forward and assume the continued reduction of storage costs, the improvement in network throughput, and the improved services and content availability on the Internet, why not?  It's almost like that board game, Clue.  Dad watches Breaking Bad, on the toilet, with his iPhone 10.  Mom watches No Reservations, in the kitchen, on the fridge.  Junior watches Fringe, in his room, while texting and listening to Radiohead and surfing the web simultaneously, on his iPad 9S.

Why not?  As long as he keeps Polly in there with him in the morning, so I can sleep in.

iOS 5 for Digital Marketers

Listen to this guy, he knows what he's talking about:
Rockfish Mobile Blog: IOS 5: 5 Features that Marketers Will Love

Decision-Making 101

Disenfranchised!

Mobile phones have done some amazing things since their creation.  The ability to speak to someone from almost anywhere.  The first internet access to rural areas in emerging nations.  African merchants making payments via SMS to avoid being robbed while carrying money in transit.  Taking HD-quality video and sharing it instantly with friends and family.

In hindsight, it's always easy to spot the disenfranchised: pay phones, the yellow pages, digital cameras, and portable DVD players.  When you look back at how you performed the same tasks previously, you wonder how you put up with it.  I'm still amazed every time the local phone company puts the yellow pages on my porch.  Straight to the recycling bin.

So, what will be disenfranchised in the coming years because of technology?  Will NFC kill credit cards?  Will tablets kill books or even PCs?  Heck, I think our kids will look at our PCs like my generation looks at minis or mainframes.  Don't get too comfortable, or it might be you that gets disenfranchised.