A Practical Magician's post

PasikBlogan #5: Ang Karangalan ng Pilipinas sa Social Media

2011-08-05T23:36:00.005+08:00

PasikBlogan Challenge #5: A Different Tongue

Blog in a language/dialect that you typically don't blog in.
If you typically blog in English, now blog in Filipino (or your own dialect). Kung karaniwan kang mag-blog sa Filipino, gumamit ka ng Ingles o Cebuano.

Naawatam? Quamo mi paqueman? Anggapo la. Jaaaavid! ;-)

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Pinili kong mag-blog tungkol sa pasksang ito dahil sa kanyang pagka-angkop sa itinakdang madlang babasa nito.

Simula nang nailabas ang Google+ ng higit kumulang na ilang linggong nakaraan, ang paglago nito sa 24 milyong gumagamit sa buong mundo ay isang di pangkaraniwang pangyayari, lalo na't kung ikukumpara sa paglago ng Facebook at Twitter na kinailangan ng tatlong taon para maabot ang ganitong estado.

Alam ng marami na nasa listahang Top 10 tayo sa mga bansa na pinakamaraming gumagamit ng Facebook sa buong mundo. Ngunit sa Google+, ang India ang kitang-kitang nangunguna sa mga Third-World na bansa, at sila ang may pangalawang pinakamaraming gumagamit ng Google+ sa ngayon.

Ang aking pangunahing katanungan ay ito: hindi ba nararapat lang na layunin nating mga Pilipino na masali din sa Top 10 na bansang gumagamit ng Google+?

Ano kaya ang pumipigil sa atin para maabot ito? Dahil ba may-kapit sa atin ang Yahoo at mas malakas ang Yahoo Search, Yahoo Mail at YM, kung ikukumpara sa katapat na produkto ng Google sa bansang ito? Dahil ba nahihirapan tayo sa konsepto ng Circles kung ikukumpara sa Friends sa Facebook? Dahil ba mas mahilig tayo mag-Like, tulad ni Lola Techie, at nalilito tayo sa +1?

Bakit? Bakit?

Lola Techie, paki-explain nga po:

The Video Chat Revolution is On!

2011-07-07T14:53:00.000+08:00

Gone are the days where you had to be in instant messenger clients -- YM, MSN, Skype -- to be able to do P2P (peer-to-peer) video calls. Then there was Userplane which allowed video chat rooms making everything more social.. and leaning towards kinky.

Over the past few days, we've seen the launches of Google+ with Hangout, and just today Facebook's video chat feature developed together with Skype. This brings video chat to a tipping point where it's accessible by virtually anybody on the social network graph right from your web browser.

How will this change social? Here are some of my predictions:

Video calls for work meetings & collaboration can become the norm very soon. Does this mean more virtual offices? Less "call-in-sick" excuses?
The return of talking: typing words to communicate now becomes secondary; non-verbal communication should be able to enhance conversations
Video cam vanity: This is obvious for long-time video chat users, but for the general public, looking good on cam will now be of more importance
More fake social network profiles for the indecent uses of video chat. 'Nuff said.

What other kind of social changes do you see happening with the introduction of this technology on this scale? I'd love to hear from you.

Why, hello there, Google+

2011-06-30T12:15:00.002+08:00

Thanks, Nico for the invite. Now exploring: the new Google+. Hmm, looks familiar... LOL.

The Social Media Revolution video, update June 2011.

2011-06-27T23:05:00.003+08:00

Created by Erik Qualman from Socialnomics, watch the video “Social Media Revolution” version 3 completely updated with statistics current as of June 2011. Nice soundtrack. Cool infographics. Astounding data. Enjoy.

PotterMore: Follow the Owl to an online Potter experience!

2011-06-23T21:23:00.003+08:00

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What has J.K. Rowling up her sleeves with Pottermore? Watch the video. Share the clues you find...

Pepsi Pinas TVC goes viral!

2011-06-04T02:27:00.004+08:00

Pepsi Pinas launches prematurely online before its TV break with it's action-movie-inspired flick entitled "Sa Aking Ang Pinas" posted on their new YouTube channel.

BBDO Guerrero does it again with a great idea that connects with the general Filipino audience -- cliche Filipino action movie lines. Meant to be a TV commercial, the material begged to find its full 2-minute version online, where the typical 30-second TV spot made it prohibitive to air on very tight budgets.

If you haven't seen it ging viral on Facebook or Twitter, here it is for your enjoyment:

Lessons learned:
1. A true big idea travels beyond TV, thru the whole marketing mix including digital.
2. A great story does go viral, gaining more than 4,000 likes on Facebook in half a day, without the benefit of online display ads.
3. It pays to have clients who trust on gut feel and the guts to execute it.

It's so mushy, it's great. Enjoy.

From Effective Measure: Growth spurt in mobile Internet in the Philippines

2011-06-01T16:35:00.003+08:00

Over 35% of Filipino Internet users adopt mobile Internet

A growth spurt in mobile Internet use in South East Asia (SEA) resulted in an over 35% of Filipino Internet users to adopt mobile Internet- placing Philippines third in SEA for mobile use. Compared to March 2011, mobile Internet use among Filipinos increased by over 48% in April 2011.

Effective Measure Regional Director (SEA) Russell Conrad credits this growth to the increasing popularity of Smartphones, “Along with the boom of Smartphones throughout the region, a growing number of consumers, including over half a million Filipino Internet users, are adopting mobile Internet to access infotainment, conduct business and engage in e-commerce while on the go.

Comparison of the increase in mobile Internet use in SEA from March to April 2011:

The following details the browsing patterns of Filipino mobile Internet users in April 2011:

Mobile Internet users stayed on a webpage at an average of 51 seconds, 22 seconds more than PC users
Each session on mobile Internet lasted for at an average of 5.42 minutes, 34 seconds more than a PC session
Mobile internet users viewed an average of 7 pages per session, 4 pages less than PC users

“The progress of the Philippines market is deeply encouraging. The increased activity seen on mobile Internet provides an opportunity for businesses to target the Philippines market and establish mobile-friendly interfaces to strengthen an online presence,” said Conrad.

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Most likely this study included mobile internet usage over WiFi, not just mobile data usage. Not sure what had caused the sudden surge between March & April 2011. Feature phones? The iPad? Android phones?

What's your take on this?

From SomeE-cards: The 30 best obnoxious responses to misspellings on Facebook.

2011-05-02T18:16:00.000+08:00

I couldn't stop laughing out loud while reading these. And, yes, I was at my office desk while going through them.

Original post here.

Are you someone whose day can be ruined by witnessing clumsy spelling all over the world's largest social network? Then this delightful list will let you live vicariously through the venom of others who aren't afraid to publicly challenge and humiliate sloppy wordsmiths. NOTE: If you see any improper spelling in this paragraph, please respond obnoxiously. (Via Lamebook)

The benefits of proper spelling >>

(NOTE: This self-edit wasn't so much "obnoxious" as "utterly brilliant.")

UPDATE (4/11/11): Two new additions feature a confusing movie recommendation and death-defying spelling. (Via Lamebook, Failbook)

UPDATE (4/11/11): Woman inadvertently confesses to bestiality.

UPDATE (4/15/11): Four new gems including a failed teacher, a liar, and a "no"-nothing. (ViaFailbook)

UPDATE (4/15/11): Rock and roll all night with the wrong person.

UPDATE (4/23/11): Seven special new ways to constructively humiliate someone on Facebook. (Via Lamebook, Failbook)

UPDATED (4/28/11): 5 new additions include sex with mothers, grandfathers, and churchgoers. (ViaLamebook, Failbook)

A New Way Bloggers Can Earn Money From Their Blogs: Real Estate Plugs

2011-04-28T12:16:00.000+08:00

ProBloggers usually earn from their blogs by allotting display ad space on their posts via Google AdSense or other networks like NuffNang. Some bloggers with sufficient regular traffic sometimes get writing jobs where they get paid to write or put up a special post about a product, service or a topic.

Here's another way for bloggers to earn: commissions from real estate leads. Similar to paid blogging, the blogger can post a write-up about a specific real estate property and include the contact info of a specific agent selling that property. The deal is that the agent will give a certain commission to the blogger should the lead end up as a closed sale.

For example, here's my friend, Ryan Florendo's offer for bloggers who can provide leads for him for the Megaworld development he's selling, ViceRoy@Fort Bonifacio:

How to earn more by just blogging?
Hi I’m Ryan L. Florendo, Junior Property Consultant from Megaworld Corporation. I am now starting my campaign of extending my network of clients by asking for the services of bloggers to write about our properties here in Forbestown Center & McKinley Hill and at the same time promote me as the direct contact for the projects. This will enable me to tap more clients through the followers of the blogs.

In return, I am willing to give 10% of my commission for every closed sales generated from the networks of bloggers. This will be a favorable deal for each blogger since the more exposure that I receive, the more chances of closing deals and the bigger the rewards. Are you in? If interested, please contact me at 09064206365.

Care to give it a try and possibly earn extra income? Give Ryan a call or text. :)

What Can Make You Happy? Click to Find Out.

2011-02-25T11:01:00.002+08:00

Watch this video clip recently posted on YouTube:

In a local adaptation of Coca-Cola's global Happiness campaign, the Coca-Cola Happiness Truck has struck in the Philippines.

Coke writes in their YouTube post:

A Coca-Cola delivery truck is converted into a happiness machine on wheels delivering "doses" of happiness in the streets of Marikina, Philippines. Where will happiness strike next?

It's great to see simple joys being celebrated, and it's apt for Filipinos like how it was apt for a bunch of campus students in the US version. I like the localization to a roving truck bringing happiness to far-reaching corners of the country.

Where will the Coca-Cola Happiness Truck strike next? Only Coke knows. Will this go viral as hoped? Only if you pass it on. ;)

From BitRebels: Battle of the Tablets

2011-02-10T08:30:00.005+08:00

I've been waiting for the tablet market to mature a bit before I decide to get one for myself. More specifically, I'm one of those peeps who are looking for the "iPad killer." The infographic below I found from BitRebels give a great side-by-side comparison of what's currently available.

I'm really hoping that the Motorola Xoom lives up to its promise because that's what I currently have set my eyes on. I got the first-gen Nexus (Nexus One) and I'm looking forward to the first device to carry Honeycomb (Android 3.0) which was developed specifically for tablets.

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Tablet Wars: A Complete Brand Comparison [Infographic]

When Business Objectives Collide with User Experience (and Client Timelines) (inspired by Smashing Magazine)

2011-02-09T08:30:00.024+08:00

Yesterday, I had a sort of heated email thread with a client and an accounts person about a campaign that was being rushed but needed a registration page and a database to be built. The database structure had not yet been defined well, and one was arguing for user experience, the other was arguing for more profiling data, and I was arguing for the segmentation strategy.

In eCRM, especially during data gathering, you'd want to strike a good balance between ease of the user and the quality of data you're gathering. And an initial registration page is not the best place to start gathering research data. For me, the main goal is to get just enough information as possible to (1) re-contact the prospect, and (2)be able to segment your database. Profiling questions need to be actionable. If there's no contact strategy behind asking a question, then it's secondary to the user experience.
Add to that the considerations of development time needed vs. the desired user experience, and you know what mess you could be in.

Thanks, G.A. for sharing this article from Smashing Magazine, which talks to web designers about the balance between user experience and business objectives. Realistically, I think there's still a lot of discussion needed between design aesthetic vs. user experience in this part of the world, but this article grounds the discussion from the other extreme -- when user experience is all that seems to matter. Read on.
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Smashing Magazine

Business Objectives vs. User Experience

Here’s a question for you: would you agree that creating a great user experience should be the primary aim of any Web designer? I know what your answer is… and youʼre wrong!

Okay, I admit that not all of you would have answered yes, but most probably did. Somehow, the majority of Web designers have come to believe that creating a great user experience is an end in itself. I think we are deceiving ourselves and doing a disservice to our clients at the same time.

The truth is that business objectives should trump users’ needs every time. Generating a return on investment is more important for a website than keeping users happy. Sounds horrendous, doesn’t it? Before you flame me in the comments, hear me out.

The Harsh Reality

Letʼs begin with the harsh truth. If an organization does not believe that it will generate some form of a return on an investment (financial or otherwise), then it should not have a website. In other words, if the website doesn’t pay its way, then we have not done our jobs properly.

Despite what we might think, our primary aim is to fulfill the business objectives set out by our clients. Remember that creating a great user experience is a means to this end. We do not create great user experiences just to make users happy. We do so because we want them to look favorably on the website and take certain actions that will generate the returns that our clients want.

Is the business world at odds with creativity? Image by opensourceway

User Experience Is Important

Let me be clear. Iʼm not suggesting that user experience is unimportant. In fact, I believe that creating an amazing experience is the primary means of helping a website fulfill its business objectives. A well-designed website makes it easy for users to complete the calls to action we have created.

Happy users also provide many other benefits. They can become advocates for your website. A happy user is considerably more likely to recommend your services and is more patient when things occasionally go wrong. Enthusiastic users can also become valuable volunteers; they have innumerable ideas about how your website and products can be improved. They are far more valuable than any focus group!

The point, though, is that happy users generate a return on investment, so spending the time and effort to give them a great experience is worth it.

When Business Objectives and User Experience Clash

You may argue that this is all semantics and that business objectives and user experience actually go hand in hand. Generally, I agree, but there are occasions when the two clash, and at these times we need to be clear that generating a return on investment should trump user experience.

Let me give you an example. We Web designers often complain when clients ask us to add fields to their online forms because they want to collect certain demographic information about their users. We argue, rightly, that this annoys users and damages the user experience. But we need to ask ourselves whether those additional fields would make users not complete the forms at all—as we fear—or would just slightly irritate them. If users ultimately complete the form and the company is able to gather valuable demographic information, then the slight irritation may be worthwhile.

Do You Have The Right Balance?

Iʼm a little nervous about this post because I realize that many people could misinterpret what Iʼm saying. But I passionately believe that the Web design community is in danger of becoming blind to all else but user experience. Iʼm convinced we need to spend as much time and effort on understanding and achieving business objectives as we do on creating a great experience.

I’ll end with this: during your last project, how much time did you spend creating personas, testing usability and generally improving the user experience? How does that compare with the amount of time you spent learning about the client’s business objectives and creating great calls to action?

Ask yourself whether you got the balance right.

It's Coming! The Motorola Zoom [VIDEO]

2011-02-07T09:03:00.003+08:00

Something I've been waiting for and I predict will be a game changer for the tablet market: Motorola Zoom.

Watch the video they launched at the Super Bowl:

From Google Blog: Bing is copying Google Search results

2011-02-02T16:00:00.001+08:00

In doing basic search optimization, I've always focused on Google results, yet mindful of the fact that Yahoo uses Bing to power their search results, and Yahoo still being a major part of search in the Philippines.

It's difficult enough to figure out the intricacies of the Google Search algorithm, but reading that Bing copies Google's search engine results just validates what I thought was the right thing to do. You optimize for Google, more or less you're optimized for Yahoo & Bing. It's not best practice, but it's what you resort to with clients who are not willing to pay the extra buck for more fine-tuned search optimization.

Read the story below, then read Bing's response: http://searchengineland.com/bing-admits-using-customer-search-data-says-google-pulled-spy-novelesque-stunt-63162

Tell me what you think.

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Microsoft’s Bing uses Google search results—and denies it

2/01/2011 02:56:00 PM

By now, you may have read Danny Sullivan’s recent post: “Google: Bing is Cheating, Copying Our Search Results” and heard Microsoft’s response, “We do not copy Google's results.” However you define copying, the bottom line is, these Bing results came directly from Google.

I’d like to give you some background and details of our experiments that lead us to understand just how Bing is using Google web search results.

It all started with tarsorrhaphy. Really. As it happens, tarsorrhaphy is a rare surgical procedure on eyelids. And in the summer of 2010, we were looking at the search results for an unusual misspelled query [torsorophy]. Google returned the correct spelling—tarsorrhaphy—along with results for the corrected query. At that time, Bing had no results for the misspelling. Later in the summer, Bing started returning our first result to their users without offering the spell correction (see screenshots below). This was very strange. How could they return our first result to their users without the correct spelling? Had they known the correct spelling, they could have returned several more relevant results for the corrected query.

This example opened our eyes, and over the next few months we noticed that URLs from Google search results would later appear in Bing with increasing frequency for all kinds of queries: popular queries, rare or unusual queries and misspelled queries. Even search results that we would consider mistakes of our algorithms started showing up on Bing.

We couldn’t shake the feeling that something was going on, and our suspicions became much stronger in late October 2010 when we noticed a significant increase in how often Google’s top search result appeared at the top of Bing’s ranking for a variety of queries. This statistical pattern was too striking to ignore. To test our hypothesis, we needed an experiment to determine whether Microsoft was really using Google’s search results in Bing’s ranking.

We created about 100 “synthetic queries”—queries that you would never expect a user to type, such as [hiybbprqag]. As a one-time experiment, for each synthetic query we inserted as Google’s top result a unique (real) webpage which had nothing to do with the query. Below is an example:

To be clear, the synthetic query had no relationship with the inserted result we chose—the query didn’t appear on the webpage, and there were no links to the webpage with that query phrase. In other words, there was absolutely no reason for any search engine to return that webpage for that synthetic query. You can think of the synthetic queries with inserted results as the search engine equivalent of marked bills in a bank.

We gave 20 of our engineers laptops with a fresh install of Microsoft Windows running Internet Explorer 8 with Bing Toolbar installed. As part of the install process, we opted in to the “Suggested Sites” feature of IE8, and we accepted the default options for the Bing Toolbar.

We asked these engineers to enter the synthetic queries into the search box on the Google home page, and click on the results, i.e., the results we inserted. We were surprised that within a couple weeks of starting this experiment, our inserted results started appearing in Bing. Below is an example: a search for [hiybbprqag] on Bing returned a page about seating at a theater in Los Angeles. As far as we know, the only connection between the query and result is Google’s result page (shown above).

We saw this happen for multiple queries. For the query [delhipublicschool40 chdjob] we inserted a search result for a credit union:

The same credit union soon showed up on Bing for that query:

For the query [juegosdeben1ogrande] we inserted a page of hip hop bling jewelry:

And the same hip hop bling page showed up in Bing:

As we see it, this experiment confirms our suspicion that Bing is using some combination of:

Internet Explorer 8, which can send data to Microsoft via its Suggested Sites feature
the Bing Toolbar, which can send data via Microsoft’s Customer Experience Improvement Program

or possibly some other means to send data to Bing on what people search for on Google and the Google search results they click. Those results from Google are then more likely to show up on Bing. Put another way, some Bing results increasingly look like an incomplete, stale version of Google results—a cheap imitation.

At Google we strongly believe in innovation and are proud of our search quality. We’ve invested thousands of person-years into developing our search algorithms because we want our users to get the right answer every time they search, and that’s not easy. We look forward to competing with genuinely new search algorithms out there—algorithms built on core innovation, and not on recycled search results from a competitor. So to all the users out there looking for the most authentic, relevant search results, we encourage you to come directly to Google. And to those who have asked what we want out of all this, the answer is simple: we'd like for this practice to stop.

Posted by Amit Singhal, Google Fellow

From Campaign Singapore: Petronas' Chinese New Year ad by LB Malaysia

2011-02-02T08:30:00.004+08:00

One of the most important things I've learned working in the Leo Burnett network is that creativity has the power to change behavior. Finding a brand's HumanKind purpose leads to great acts, including advertising stories that move people.

I see this again in this new Petronas ad for Chinese New Year from Leo Burnett Malaysia. Great work, guys!

Gong Xi Fa Cai!

See the ad below and the feature article about it from Campaigns Singapore.

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Leo Burnett Malaysia launches Petronas Chinese New Year ad

By Angelia Seetoh on Feb 1, 2011 (7 hours ago)
filed under Creativity, Malaysia

KUALA LUMPUR - Leo Burnett has launched Petronas’ annual Chinese New Year campaign with a commercial highlighting the importance of family bonds and filial piety.

Leo Burnett launches the Petronas Chinese New Year ad today.
Petronas' Chinese New Year campaign rolls out today across Malaysian TV channels. A touching twist to Chinese New Year ads, 'Their hope' explores the silent wishes of a group of elderly citizens in a changing society where parents are often taken for granted as their children relentlessly pursue success and independence.

The 90-second TV commercial will be supported by print and digital, and this campaign also marks the first time a Facebook application has been developed for the annual CNY festive campaign. Created by Leo Burnett Malaysia, the campaign brings a collection of insights and thoughts from parents who express their hopes and wishes for this Lunar New Year.

By highlighting their wishes, the Petronas festive commercial drives home how easy it is to bring joy and a smile to the elderly – by spending more time with them and giving them the love, respect, attention and understanding that they deserve.

Since its debut in 1996, festive advertisements by Petronas have been capturing the hearts and minds of Malaysians through storytelling - sharing simple but heart-warming stories that are reflective of moral values, cultural diversity, harmony and tradition that play an important role in Malaysians’ daily lives.

Credits:

Project 'Their hope'

Client Petroliam National Berhad (PETRONAS)

Creative agency Leo Burnett Kuala Lumpur

Creative director Tan Yew Leong

Writer Ken Wong/Jovian Lee

Art director Ken Wong Woon Kian

Production company Chilly Pepper

Director Tan Yew Leong

Editor Affendi of Mirage

Post production APV

Exposure TV, press and online (Facebook and FB applications)

From Vitrue: Facebook Insights Improvements

2011-01-31T08:30:00.000+08:00

One thing I liked about Facebook was it's simplicity when it started. But after the Facebook boom in 2010, our clients started looking for better metrics to track activity on Facebook pages. Facebook's Insights definitely paled in comparison vs something like Google Analytics and the rest of the paid analytics tools out there.

So, it's a welcome surprise Facebook is stepping up on giving us marketers more data to analyze. Facebook is still pretty much a closed-wall garden, and while Google has been working on getting Facebook content into its search results, it looks like Facebook is doing the same by going out of Facebook to provide analytics outside Facebook, which usually is Google territory.

I just can't wait to see how these developments pan out.

Read below an article describing the new features of Facebook Insights from vitrue.com.

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Santa Came Early This Year - New Facebook Insights Features!

It appears that Facebook was in the holiday spirit this morning and delivered an unexpected gift to the little boys and girls at Vitrue…new Facebook Insights! As an analyst, this Christmas present was almost as good as my pink Hot Wheels Corvette circa 1991…almost.

The new updates make Facebook Insights much easier to interpret. New features, such as “Like Sources” and auto-calculating Weekly Active Users, provide valuable information about where new fans come from. Brands and marketers will now be able to make more educated inferences and utilize Facebook Insights exports in a more manageable fashion.

Filtering by Date Range

Previous functionalities would only allow you to export data by date range, instead of having the ability to view date-constrained metrics within native Facebook Insights. This enhancement packs loads of holiday cheer because the native graphs, charts, and metrics within Insights can be constrained and customized. This new feature affects metrics like Tab Views, geo-centric data, and Stream Posts performance data…in a very merry way. In a red and green nutshell, this feature allows you to use Insights-generated graphs and charts to the fullest extent.

Like Sources

Having a sleigh-full of fans is great and all but where do they even come from? This added feature is invaluable to brands and marketers. Why? Because gaining insight to where new fans are coming from allows admins to execute educated future promotions and understand their new fan base. For instance, if Santa’s fan page received 18,362 new fans in the past week from Search, this would give Old Saint Nick a good idea of the interest in his page.

Media Consumption

This new feature allows admins to see how media is performing on the page. So, if Santa decided he wanted to post more videos in December than he did in November, he could compare the performance of the greater number of videos to the lesser number of videos in the previous month.

Get Insights for your Domain

Facebook appears to be expanding their reach to the North Pole of the internet by allowing Facebook users to use Insights analytics for their own non-Facebook domains. How do you think this will affect use of Google Analytics?

Analytics-inspired Yuletide cheer is spreading all around Vitrue today. Thank you Facebook, your gift is in the mail.

For more information on Insights, visit Facebook’s developer entry here.

From BGR: A Facebook mobile phone?

2011-01-28T08:30:00.001+08:00

Ooh! A Facebook-branded phone! How cool is that? Will Facebook now enter into the device race? Will they have a separate track on the Android build? Anything seems possible at this point.

I love how HTC knows who to partner with. I'm so happy with my Google Nexus One phone, it was quite disappointing how Google dropped HTC to partner with Samsung for the next gen Nexus S. Having a pure native device is cool because you get all the firmware updates early. I know it's the Apple model also, but I still don't like Apple for its snobbish stance to the open-source community. Yay to Facebook & HTC, boo to Apple.

[UPDATE] Facebook has denied that the phones will be Facebook-branded. See Mashable's report on this: http://mashable.com/2011/01/27/facebook-denies-facebook-phone/

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Facebook to launch two branded smartphones at MWC, report claims

By: Zach Epstein | Jan 26th, 2011 at 01:21PM

View Comments

Filed Under: Mobile, Rumors

Facebook will announce two Facebook-branded smartphones at next month’s Mobile World Congress according to a new report from City A.M. The report contradicts Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s earlier claim that the company was not working on branded cell phones, but was instead working to create a better, more comprehensive Facebook experience across existing mobile platforms. HTC will build the new Facebook phones according to the report, and they will feature branding and coloring in line with Facebook’s website. City A.M.goes on to state that the devices will run a modified build of Google’s Android operating system that will display information from a user’s Facebook account on the home screen. Details pertaining to pricing and availability are not yet available.

Read

From Mashable: Faebook Stories -- A New Social Ad Format Uses User-Generated Content

2011-01-27T08:30:00.001+08:00

As a digital marketer, I've seen how user-generated content has become a more compelling way to tell a brand story, vis-a-vis just the plain old marketing message from advertising. This new ad format created from Facebook could very well be able to operationalize that to an advertiser's advantage.

I do think there will be an initial backlash to this due to privacy issues, but I really think Facebook's principles with the Open Graph has revolutionizes social computing and privacy options will more and more be the responsibility of the user rather than the platform. Agree that Facebook needs to inform its users of the privacy issues and that it should give easy options for users to keep their information private. But the openness of the Facebook architecture has driven this social change that has created the socially-enabled experience of the Web that we see today.

Here's Ben Parr's story on Mashable on Facebook Stories

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Facebook Turns Friend Activity Into New Ad Format

1 day ago by Ben ParrView Comments

Facebook is rolling out Sponsored Stories, a new ad format that turns your friends’ actions into promoted content.

Sponsored Stories is “a way for marketers to sponsor activities that happen throughout the News Feed,” Facebook Product Marketing Lead Jim Squires told Mashable. Companies can choose to take certain user actions — such as checkins or actions within Facebook apps — and feature them in the column on the right side of the News Feed.

For example, if you’re Whole Foods and you’re looking to increase your exposure on Facebook, you can pay to have a percentage of all checkins to Whole Foods featured in a Sponsored Stories slot in the right-side column. Your content wouldn’t be shown directly, but the actions of a user’s friends would appear. Users seeing their friends “liking” or checking in to Whole Foods will drive increased trust and increased traffic.

“The advertiser is not controlling the message; it’s about actions,” Squires said.

Here’s an example of an action that could potentially be sponsored:

And here’s what it might look like as a Sponsored Story:

Starting today, four specific types of user actions can be turned into featured stories: likes, checkins, actions within custom applications and Page posts. If a company has a custom app (e.g. Starbucks Card or evenFarmVille), it can promote the actions users take within them. The same is true of users posting on the walls of their favorite brands.

Facebook’s roster of launch partners includes Coke, Levi’s, Anheuser Busch and Playfish. Also, the social network is partnering with a slew of nonprofits for Sponsored Stories, including Donors Choose, Girl Up!, Malaria No More, Amnesty International, Women for Women, Autism Speaks, (RED), Alzheimer’s Association and UNICEF. However, anybody will be able to bid on Sponsored Story slots (by a per-impression and/or a per-click basis) starting January 25.

We haven’t seen Facebook play with new ad formats for a while — most of its revenue comes from the targeted advertising that appears on most Facebook pages. It has been timid about new ad formats after the spectacular failure of Beacon. Sponsored Stories seems like a simple and logical way to introduce new forms of advertising into Facebook’s system, though.

Sponsored Stories has a lot of similarities to Twitter Promoted Tweets. Both are trying to use content from within their networks and turn them into advertising dollars. There is one key difference between Sponsored Stories and Promoted Tweets, though: The user defines the advertised content in Facebook’s format, not the advertiser.

It’s that one little difference Facebook hopes will turn into big bucks.

Tapping Blogs for Online Campaigns [VIDEO]: An interview by Janette Toral

2011-01-22T11:22:00.003+08:00

It's been a while since I posted on this blog. But I'm happy to say, I'm back!

Let me begin with this video of Janette Toral interviewing me for DigitalFilipino.com.

I don't like seeing myself on video, but I'd like to think I'm comfortable enough being in front of the camera... well maybe not yet as comfortable as I should look on cam.

Thanks, Janette, for the opportunity.

http://digitalfilipinocom.ning.com/video/tapping-blogs-for-online

Tapping Blogs for Online Campaigns from Janette Toral on Vimeo.

From Mashable: The Semantic Web The Semantic Web -- What It Is and Why It Matters [VIDEO]

2010-05-11T07:29:00.001+08:00

Web 3.0 from Kate Ray on Vimeo.

If you’ve ever struggled to make sense of terms like “semantic web,” we’ve got a fascinating, entertaining and informative video for you.

The Internet currently holds about as much information as 1,700 Libraries of Congress. Some of the leading minds on the web are exploring new ways to sort this data and how to understand not just what data is about, but also how data is linked.

For example, a picture on Flickr is more than just a number of pixels and a file size. It was uploaded by a person and might contain images of other people. It might have been taken in a specific place or be about a specific moment in time. Those bits of information link that photograph to other entities: people, places, things and events. When we know how data is linked and we use that information to determine relevancy across media and sources, we’re using the semantic web.

Simply put, the semantic web gives us more than just raw data; it shows us the context and relationships behind and between those data.

Student Kate Ray interviewed a flock of researchers, entrepreneurs and other innovators for her 14-minute documentary, Web 3.0. Ray is a journalism/psych major at NYU who has done extensive research on the semantic web. Her subjects include World Wide Web creator Tim Berners-Lee, Hunch.com CEO and inventor Chris Dixon, and a host of other semantic web experts.

Ray’s film is a brief but high-level discussion of semantic technologies, the tech that’s going to affect how we use the Internet and all its information for years to come. If you’ve ever wanted to know more about the semantic web, what it is and why it matters to all kinds of Internet users, we highly recommend checking out this documentary above.

Amuro Namie | "Wild" -- Japanese Singing Sensation Reveals her Wild Heart

2010-05-10T18:13:00.009+08:00

Asian music is taking the world by storm and Manila, for one, couldn’t be any more welcoming. What many of us once thought were unusual mixes and beats, not to mention incomprehensible lyrics, are now fast becoming the staple background music of our daily routines. No doubt, the Sandaras and Super Juniors along with all the J-pop and K-pop superstars of this side of the globe are invading the airwaves and we can’t help but sing along.

Recently, more and more heads are turning into the north eastern part of the map with eyes staring amazedly at the Land of the Rising Sun, Japan where a distinct energy is spurring and a vibe-licious sound is echoing wildly. An undisputedly great talent is surfacing within the consciousness of Pinoy music lovers and it goes by the name Amuro Namie.

Amuro is a celebrated icon in the Japanese entertainment biz. In the country at present, she is becoming more and more known as the Japanese singing sensation who’s gone “wild”; wild at the charts and wild at heart.

Through the renowned Japanese record label Avex Entertainment Inc., Amuro’s hit single “Wild” was released in the country last year. The track features the music of michico and T. Kura of Giant Swing Productions. A catchy danceable song that has a futuristic groove into it, Wild superbly showcases a good harmony between Amuro’s matchless vocals and upbeat music.

Since her musical debut, Amuro has remained one of the longest surviving popular female acts in

Japan

. Not only is she an accomplished singer, Namie Amuro has perfected the art of stage performance. In her live performances and videos, it’s unmistakable that her years of training in dance always pop out. As what a critic once write about her, “she captures the hearts of her audience by the graceful animation of her stage personality. Amuro Namie has been the most notable Japanese singer to emerge from the Japanese music culture”.

From Mashable / Advertising Age: Facebook adding Foursquare-like features soon

2010-05-07T09:00:00.001+08:00

17 minutes ago Jolie O'Dell 10

Facebook Adding Location Features This Month [REPORT]

Information has leaked that Facebook is set to roll out location-based features for users and brands as soon as this month. According to Advertising Age, users could see location options any day now.

These features will include the ability to check in at various locations, including retail spots and restaurants. We’re unclear as to whether users will be able to add or customize their own locations, but we are fairly positive that this move will put Foursquare, Brightkite, Gowalla and other location-based services in an uncomfortable position.

Meaning for Users

The ability to check in to different locations is, as we’ve reported previously, a game-changing feature for Facebook. Foursquare, Gowalla, Brightkite and other startups that specialize in location-based features and services — and that often take checks from corporations for branded integrations — might have trouble competing with a Goliath like Facebook if the push toward checkins continues. Facebook has the userbase and mainstream adoption to bring location-sharing tools to a huge audience, excluding these newer competitors from the market. And if the company is rolling out features now, that likely means an acquisition is not likely, either.

If this feature does indeed roll out soon to end users, it also brings with it another round of privacy concerns. It’s clear that not all users understand the risks of public sharing or how to protect their likes, groups and updates. When they risk exposing their locations to the general populace, another layer of security precautions (along with the usual media FUD) is sure to follow.

Meaning for Brands

McDonald’s will be the first brand to test the new features. The McDonald’s integration will involve users checking in at McDonald’s restaurants and showing featured food items in their posts. Digital advertising and marketing shops around the country are preparing to construct campaigns around this new functionality.

It’s interesting to note that this move further puts Facebook into competition with Google for local advertising dollars. Being able to target users geographically as well as demographically gives hyperlocal advertisers an edge and might cut into Google’s most profitable revenue stream.

Would you use Facebook rather than Foursquare to check in to restaurants, night spots or other locations? Do you think Facebook can beat Foursquare and other services to making location checkins mainstream?

We welcome your comments and will continue to follow this story closely as we wait for an official response from Facebook.

San Miguel Pale Pilsen Plagiarises Pitch Presentation?

2010-05-04T00:48:00.015+08:00

A few months ago, an agency (which prefers to remain anonymous for now) was invited to pitch for the San Miguel Pale Pilen website. They presented a concept that was well received by the client. Unfortunately, the client never came back to them for any follow ups.

Voila, now SMB-PP has a new website which appears to have the same concept as what the agency presented. Did they get paid for it? No. Did they even tell the agency? No.

Sad reality of advertising. We sell ideas, pitch for accounts, and big companies steal it for nothing. Nothing.

See for yourself and tell me if it's not a rip-off of the pitch concept. I'm not making any solid accusations here (don't get me wrong). Plagiarism is hard to prove in court. But credibility & integrity is also not easy to earn.

Here's their pitch concept:

Here's the actual website, recently launched:
Judge for yourselves.

--------------------------------------

UPDATE (06 May 2010): San Miguel has taken notice of this blogpost and has already contacted the agency involved. They're currently investigating into the matter on what had actually transpired. Apparently, the final web design was executed by their internal creative team, and whether or not it was copied or inspired by the pitch materials is still being looked into. San Miguel as a corporation has expressed their respect for creative ownership and has denied that this is a reflection of how they do business with their agencies and vendors. I'll keep you posted on further updates.

From Mashable: WordPress Goes Real-Time With PubSubHubbub

2010-03-08T09:00:00.001+08:00

by Barb Dybwad | originally from Mashable

WordPress.com‘ 10.5 million blogs are about to get a whole lot more real-time, thanks to a new behind-the-scenes development.

The WordPress team has announced in a blog post that the company has turned on support for PubSubHubbub (try saying that fast five times), a move that will get blog content to RSS services (such as Google Reader and Bloglines) much more quickly.

Essentially it’s a way for hosted WordPress blogs to “push” content out as it’s published to the services, rather than waiting for the services to check in for new posts. It’s live now for WordPress.com blogs, while self-hosted blogs can go real-time with this plugin.

PubHubSubbub, or PuSH, is demoed nicely in the “cheesy” video (that’s WordPress’ choice of word, not ours) below. However those of you who want to find out more about the new protocol can do so over at the PuSH project site.

From Mashable: Has Digg Found the Winning Formula for Ads?

2010-03-01T09:00:00.001+08:00

by Jennifer Van Grove | from Mashable

Digg took a big risk when they added in-line advertisements that users could digg or bury. Four months later, however, early signs indicate that DiggAds are a win for all parties involved: users, advertisers, and especially Digg.

This latest bit of information was shared in a blog post earlier today that details how the DiggAds system actually works and the results thus far.

Here are the key details from Digg’s comments:

- DiggAds is powered by a complex auction-based system that attempts to serve users with the highest quality ads — Digg assigns their own quality score to ads — while factoring in the advertiser’s bidding price. It’s like Google Adsense but with quality scoring. The idea is to reward high quality ads with lower CPCs; the more diggs an ad gets the less the advertiser pays.
- Feedback from users is mostly positive, but one of the biggest user requests is to be able to comment on ads. Users are also confused by buried ads that reappear, but Digg suggests that in this case it’s just advertisers experimenting with ad format and resubmitting.
- DiggAds will evolve to include comments and address the “long-live” ad issue where ads get misleadingly high digg counts.
- The system is working with Digg saying that, “From a revenue perspective, things have been great”.

What’s especially interesting is that DiggAds displays advertisements to site users in the same format as other Digg content — so ads are a part of the Digg stream like other stories — but for the most part users appear to be embracing the model instead of rejecting it (and Digg’s community has historically not been shy over voicing displeasure with things they don’t like).

As Twitter prepares to unveil its own alternative ad platform, we have to wonder if they’ll emulate some of Digg’s tactics and whether or not Twitter’s very vocal user base will be as accepting as Digg’s has been.

Mashable's Face-off Series

2010-02-26T09:00:00.001+08:00

Mashable has been running polls for a couple of months now, pitting two (or three) apps/companies/technologies against each other and getting their readers to vote.

Here are some of the past weeks' results:

Week 1:
- Mozilla Firefox vs. Google Chrome
- WINNER: Firefox, 4600 votes (Chrome: 3310 votes, Tie: 911 votes)

Week 2:
- Tumblr vs. Posterous
- WINNER: Tumblr, 1809 votes (Posterous: 1496 votes, Tie: 256 votes)

Week 3:
- Pandora vs. Last.fm
- WINNER: Last.fm, 1187 votes (Pandora: 1156 votes, Tie: 122 votes)

Week 4:
- Twitter vs. Facebook
- WINNER: Facebook, 2484 votes (Twitter: 2061 votes, Tie: 588 votes)

Week 5:
- WordPress vs. Typepad
- WINNER: WordPress, 2714 votes (Typepad: 267 votes, Tie: 357 votes)

Week 6:
- Windows 7 vs. Snow Leopard
- WINNER: Windows 7, 3632 votes (Snow Leopard: 3278 votes, Tie: 121 votes)

Week 7:
- TweetDeck vs. Seesmic Desktop
- WINNER: TweetDeck, 3294 votes (Seesmic Desktop: 1055 votes, Tie: 260 votes)

Week 8:
- Microsoft Office vs. Google Docs
- WINNER: Microsoft Office, 1365 votes (Google Docs: 994 votes, Tie: 315 votes)

Week 9:
- Apple iPhone vs. Google Android
- WINNER: Google Android, 3323 votes (Apple iPhone: 1494 votes, Tie: 228 votes)

Week 10:
- AT&T vs. Verizon
- WINNER: Verizon, 1161 votes (AT&T: 538 votes, Tie: 118 votes)

Week 11:
- Google vs. Bing
- WINNER: Google, 2180 votes (Bing: 519 votes, Tie: 97 votes)

Week 12:
- iPod Touch/iPhone vs. Nintendo DS vs. Sony PSP
- WINNER: iPod Touch/iPhone, 704 votes (Sony PSP: 639 votes, Nintendo DS: 482 votes, Tie: 108 votes)

Week 13:
- Digg vs. Reddit vs. StumbleUpon
- WINNER: Digg, 14,762 votes (Reddit: 11,466 votes, StumbleUpon: 2507 votes, Tie: 1032 votes)

Week 14:
- Old versus new Twitter retweets
- WINNER: Old style retweets, 1625 votes (New style retweets: 699 votes, Tie: 227 votes)

Week 15:
- Gmail vs. Outlook
- WINNER: Gmail, 3684 votes (Outlook: 980 votes, Tie: 590 votes)

Week 16:
- Boxee vs. Hulu
- WINNER: Hulu, 626 votes (Boxee: 591 votes, Tie: 106 votes)

Week 17:
- Nexus One vs. iPhone 3GS
- WINNER: Nexus One, 6743 votes (iPhone 3GS: 2818 votes, Tie: 592 votes)

Week 18:
- Foursquare vs. Yelp vs. Gowalla
- WINNER: Foursquare, 1182 votes, (Yelp: 661 votes, Gowalla: 509 votes, Tie: 143 votes)

Week 19:
- AIM vs. GTalk vs. FbChat
- WINNER: GTalk, 2189 votes, (AIM: 1257 votes, FbChat: 511 votes, Tie: 203 votes)

Week 20:
- Music Ownership vs. Music Subscription
- WINNER: Ownership, 533 votes (Subscription: 299 votes, Tie: 237)

Week 21:
- Match.com vs. PlentyofFish
- WINNER: Plenty of Fish, 430 votes (Match.com: 334 votes, Tie: 187 votes)

Week 21:
- Google Buzz vs. Facebook Vs. Twitter

- WINNER: Facebook, 3353 votes (Twitter: 1828 votes, Google Buzz: 1298 votes, Tie: 651 votes)

This week's poll: Adobe Flash vs. HTML 5

Which will you vote for?

From Lyris: 8 Building Blocks of Email Relevance

2010-02-24T09:28:00.003+08:00

Marketers, it's time to put down the fire hose. Your email subscribers are more sophisticated today and more particular about what they want to receive - and it's not a steady stream of undifferentiated messages blasted relentlessly to a mass audience.

What do email subscribers want instead? Customized messages that:

resemble conversations rather than lectures or sales pitches
are personalized to reflect their interests, needs and wants
arrive at logical intervals
reflect their buying history, click stream data or their position in the customer lifecycle.

Need a number to back up this statement? According to a 2008 report from Forrester Research, "The top reason for unsubscribing from marketing messages was irrelevance: An overwhelming 74% of consumers unsubscribe for this reason."

Are your email messages relevant, or are they just more noise in the inbox?

How Relevance Builds a Stronger Email Marketing Program

Highly relevant email messages strengthen your marketing program in three key ways:

Increase customer/subscriber retention
Create higher return on investment through more customer engagement and lower email list churn
Improve email deliverability by reducing unsubscribes and spam complaints

Besides the benefit that higher relevance brings to your email marketing program, consider what your competitors are doing. Your customers who unsubscribe or simply ignore your broadcast email messages might well be taking their business to a competitor whose messages are more relevant.

Maybe you think: "My subscribers opted in to receive email from me, so anything I send is relevant." True relevance is more complex. It actually has four dimensions: "The right message to the right person at the right time in the right channel."

8 Building Blocks of Relevance

Upgrading your email marketing program from a simple broadcast model - sending a single message to every address on your mailing list - to a differentiated program can seem like a daunting task, but every step you take will lead you closer to the goal of a relevant conversation. Keep in mind, you don’t have to tackle everything at once - take it one step at a time!

1. Content relevance: The look and feel of your online presence is consistent across all your marketing channels, from email messages to landing pages, your Web site and your mobile initiatives.

2. Welcome program: Engage email subscribers at the start of the relationship. Restate subscription details, manage expectations for content and frequency, provide links to FAQs, privacy policy, and other subscriptions, and invite subscribers back to your site. This also sets up to opportunity to gather information to start populating your preference center.

3. Preference Center: Subscribers have one-click access to a page where they can customize for content, format, frequency and channel, manage their subscriptions and account information, and opt in and out of message streams. This also provides the richer data that you will use for advanced personalization and segmentation.

4. Personalization: Using the information collected via your preference center, your messages employ dynamic content, reflecting subscriber interests, preferences, buying history and demographics.

5. Segmentation: Using preference, click stream and buying data you create a variety of message streams that reflect subscriber interest in different brands, products, purchase frequency, average order value and other factors.

6. Customized trigger and drip campaigns: Customer actions launch these messages automatically (see the previous Matches example), whether by a purchase, a data point such as a birthday or purchase anniversary, or an inaction including an abandoned shopping cart, or email reactivation program sent to subscribers who haven't acted on messages for a set time. Drip campaigns reflect the customer's place in the purchase cycle with content designed to answer questions and move the customer closer to a purchase.

7. Transactional emails: These are some of the most relevant and thus most acted-on emails and should be customized to reflect the action taken, such as a purchase or customer-support inquiry, account payment, subscription or cancellation, shipping or out-of-stock notice. Take the opportunity to up sell or cross sell customers on related items, offer them added value, update their preferences, make referrals, or take a survey on how you can improve their customer experience.

8. Unsubscribe program: Subscribers can easily opt out of message streams but are also given other options: change email address, change frequency or move to another communication channel (RSS feed, mobile, social network, direct mail).

Wrapping Up: Relevance and Your Marketing Budget

These days, many people are thinking they need to make their marketing budgets work harder for them. They're spending this money anyway, so they are seeking a better return.

Relevance is the key to those better returns: you have already identified people who are your customers or prospects through acquisition. You now have a much stronger opportunity to persuade them to do business with you again. You can do without having to pay the financial penalty of acquiring them again.

Relevance is the compelling path to growing your business.

###

About the Author

Mike Weston is VP UK & EMEA Sales for Lyris. He's a leading figure and a regular speaker on the London digital marketing scene, with a particular focus on customer communication tools including email marketing and social media marketing.

Facebook Philippines makes the 10 MILLION mark!

2010-02-19T19:00:00.000+08:00

Facebook has just announced that the Philippine community has reached the 10 million users.

Over the past 30 days, Facebook has registed over 1 million new users from the Philippines, keeping the country's ranking at No. 2 across Asia Pacific, in terms of number of users.

Indonesia 18,550,000
Philippines 10,300,000
Australia 8,180,000
India 6,900,000
Taiwan 5,900,000
Malaysia 4,870,000
Hong Kong 2,830,000
Thailand 1,960,000
New Zealand 1,450,000
Japan 930,000
Vietnam 788,000
South Korea 511,000

Google Shopper: Mobile Shopping for Android Phones

2010-02-19T17:00:00.005+08:00

As I await for the arrival of my Nexus One Google phone, news about what it can do with it definitely excites me. Today, I heard about a new Android app called Google Shopper that brings shopper marketing to a whole new level using your mobile phone.

Mashable writes about it:

Google has just rolled out “Google Shopper,” a new mobile application for Android devices that offers a variety of different ways to search for products.In addition to basic search functionality, users can search by voice, take a picture of cover art, or scan a bar code to get detailed product information and price comparison. Google introduces the application on its website and in the video below.

As AndroidAndMe notes, the app clearly competes with the likes of ShopSavvy, who tells the publication that Google [and Amazon] “are and always have been our biggest competitors.”Google could deal a much stronger blow to the upstart by including Shopper – currently a Labs product – with new Android handsets. We also don’t see why Google wouldn’t extend the app to other mobile platforms as well.

Here's the video demo from Google on YouTube:

How do you think this will change how people shop at the store?