about Foursquare vs Gowalla by JESS3

about Russia's answer to Facebok

I met some really cool russian dudes at social ad summit last month (what up Igor!)

and they were telling me about http://vkontakte.ru/ its apparently huge in russia.

about FourSquare Mayor deal strategy

Foursquare, Yelp, Google location sculptures and how it all reminds me of Kodak Moments at Disney World.

I have started to realize the potential of individual store owners to leverage this platform. We are building an exciting system for Busboys and Poets, Eatonville and Luna Dinner (all locations) and it pulls in the tweets (they manually favorite the tweet they want to show up so that no trouble makers can game the system, like me...) and we are also pulling in the Mayor of each location.







I have been trying to convince them to give away a free drink with every meal the Mayor buys, or some kind of sweet "FourSquare Mayor only deal".


A while back I started to think that Yelp + Foursquare would be a killer app.

Charlie O'Donnell says "Think about it from Yelp's perspective. Yelp helps you figure out where to eat, and gives you recommendations, but it only knows about the people who write reviews. That represents only a small percentage of the overall Yelp traffic--so while Yelp tries to make the business case for advertising and using it's retail services, it doesn't really know how much real live foot traffic it drives. Foursquare is the missing link, enabling you to come full circle from a review or recommendation to an in person visit from a real customer. Best of all, it has figured out a compelling reason to get you to submit that data--in the form of a fun game you play with your friends.

Additionally valuable is that the game syncs up with Twitter and Facebook, so Foursquare users are telling the world where they are and the places they've visited at any given moment."

--


At JESS3, We are integrating FourSquare into our new exciting iPhone app StadiumStream.




Here are a couple interesting examples of inspiration,











foursquare says "While we’re feverishly working on the stuff that will make promos like this look pretty in the iPhone, local bars, cafes and coffee shops are doing it guerilla style with flyers and Twitter."


at SXSWi when foursquare was released I remember Digg got a custom badge for their Digg Shindigg party, and a few others as well like the Karaoke RV. This is a smart way to get branding in at a low barrier to entry, kind of like Facebook Gifts.



some other great posts on TechCrunch and Fred Wilson and I saved all my research on delicious.




"Each statue has its own name plate. For instance, the Google gorilla in front of Foreign Cinema says: “Tiffany Shlain has chosen Foreign Cinema as one of her favorite places in San Francisco. Visit google.co/favoriteplaces to see more. Google Maps. Summer 2009.”

I think what google has done with these "kodak moment spot" inspired sculptures in key places around the country is a great idea. This to me shows how a standard location pinpoint can be the meeting point or location of record for a business. When you look at that low tech flyer for the foursquare promo, or our slightly more hightech social media display for eatonville, I cant help but put the dots together and see the that business owners are going to have a key check-in point at the door. The google example shows how large and obtrusive they can be.

I believe in the next wave of innovation we will see real time feedback, when you walk by something or walk into a store, your photo will show up somewhere, or your name will light up.. The key to that technology is no click check ins.

Also right now you can check in and say you are somewhere you might not be, in the future we will see more official validated check ins. Once its more official we will see more business giving out free stuff.

I think in the future google or someone will put little micro chips somewhere and that will serve as the official check in point.

Kodak Moment Spots are found in Disney parks. but you also see this kind of thing all over the world where a person or a group of people pose in a natural setting in just the right spot, or a cosmetic setting that has some funny gag to it. Like putting your head in side the statue of liberty. Or even the urban clubs have those popular backdrop photos, or the asians love printing stickers and making content like this.

What are Kodak Spots?

In the case of the expression Kodak spots, this was a connotation that was created by Kodak in collaboration with Disney. All over the different theme parks in Disney you would be able to find Kodak-sponsored signs with the words “Kodak Picture Spots.” These are specific areas around the different areas around Disney theme parks that have been considered as favorites of tourists. The selection of these spots was also made with the help of professional photographers. These Kodak spots were selected as perfect places to help you tell more about your visit through your pictures. Just like the case of the Kodak moments advertising campaign, the Kodak spots around Disney stuck. When someone now points to a particular location and calling it a Kodak spot, it means that the site is not only a picturesque. Kodak spots are those places that could provide you a story to the picture that you take.

I bet we will see google and the like copying the kodak moments campaign,

It is a Kodak Moment!

As the years went by, Kodak began to face a lot of stiff competition from other companies. In order to maintain its status as the leading imaging and photography company, it launched a series of commercials as part of its advertising campaign. The tag line that was used for this advertising campaign was “These are the moments. Kodak moments.” The advertising campaign was simple yet eye-catching. The commercial featured scenes that happen every day which are then preserved through the use of the films and cameras from Kodak. Some of the scenes that were included as part of the advertising campaign were a baby taking his first step or a child caught off guard as a frog jumps away. The advertising campaign worked. Kodak was able to strengthen its hold on its position in the market. But the advertisement did something that the company never expected. That is, that the tag line Kodak moment would become extremely popular to the point that it has become a common expression. Today, when a person calls something a Kodak moment, it means that the situation or event is so priceless that it is worth being preserved forever in a picture.

about Facebook vs the State of the Union

I am totally digging this. This is a glimpse of the "TV" of the future

about Facebook launches real time chat

I noticed that the bottom bar of the browser now has a chat client.

about this is why I dont go on myspace

--

from Boing Boing by Xeni Jardin

"hit me up on my mufuggin MySpace."

about Twitter in Plain English

kathy sierra mentioned this in one of her talks

about Mark Zuckerburg interview at SXSW

the crowd was very entertained by this, and every one at sxswi was talking about it. I was at fogo de chao with nick and leslie and we saw her talking to brian solis, who took these lovely photos below. brian always takes great photos and he inspired me to get the d80











lacy's video response



check the coverage in the blogosphere this video, nick wrote about it

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The dozens and dozens of negative tweets started coming in shortly after the keynote started, and have only gotten harsher since then. Here's a selection:

• jonnygoldstein: did sarah lacey suck on purpose to make zuckerberg look good by comparison?
• JoynerEmily: so glad to be out of the zuckerberg keynote.....wow. train wreck. hopefully the afternoon will go better.
• brendathompson: Lacy's interview w/Zuckerberg truly embarassing (for her) and awkward (for him and for audience).
• ceonyc: Other potentially better interviewers: The MicroMachines Guy... Helen Keller... My nana (shes 90 and has never used a computer)

Of course, Robert Scoble chimed in, saying "I've never seen such a bad interview of someone on stage here. Totally disappointing."

Lacy herself responded on Twitter, saying "seriously screw all you guys. I did my best to ask a range of things."

- valleywag article

about Growing Up Online.

A clip from the PBS documentary "Growing Up Online."

about mosoto and the social network reindeer games

I was sent a link for mosoto.com

Facebook released an API last year and new startup Mosoto is putting it to good use. Mosoto is a Flex 2.0 application that sits on top of your Facebook account via the API and allows you to share files, chat with friends, and discover new ones. The app has a desktop layout, where you control different mini applications for sharing files, chatting, discovering friends, and sharing music. And what struck me as awesome was the ability to login with your facebook identity and pull up your information into their layout. I predict we will see lots more of these sites. Open source has always scared big companies because giving away their code seems like giving away the secret sauce. I think any company with an API should be thinking ".. What if a company comes along and builds something better and allows all my customers to transfer their content to the opossing service..", basically making it easier than normal to jump ship and switch providers.

If social networks were banks, interest rates and atm locations would be the issue. If bank A can cut interest rates by not having as many tellers and atm machines, and builds a base around those cheap rates and services.. And then bank X comes along and says well give you those same rates and well will provide atm machines everywhere too.. And we will allow you to keep your same pin number for the atm machines..

So on one side we want to open the doors and let people (including our competitors) share information freely.. and on the other hand.. We need to make money and hold our cards.. Bottom line is people are winning when this kind of shuffle happens, our thoughts are taken into consideration.. And in some cases are the deciding factor.

I recently saw a great post on mashable.com - 10 Awesome Things Built on the Facebook API

Including facebook to twitter which allows you to send an SMS update when you edit your status. (which is essentially the core functionality behind twitter)

So, lets come up with some new ways to use facebooks api and play the reindeer games.