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Monthly Archives: August 2010
Check-ins for the masses: Three takeaways from Facebook’s Places launch
Last night Facebook announced their play in the location-based network space (called Facebook Places) which opens the door for 500 million+ potential users to start “checking in” to real-world locations, something that only 1% of U.S. adults are currently doing with networks like Foursquare and Gowalla.
This move brings “check-in” behavior to the masses.
After watching the live video announcement, a couple of things stuck out to me. Let’s digest the business and personal implications.
Location Sorting
Foursquare and Gowalla serve up listings of nearby locations based on where you’re standing, but Facebook adds another ingredient to the proximity algorithm: Nearby places it thinks are most interesting to you. Facebook can do this because it sits on mountains of data about our lives and interests. For example, if you’re male and way into comic books, Facebook knows this, and it will potentially add more importance to the comic book shop two blocks away instead of the bridal store one block away. If a mainstream audience takes to Places, this is another step towards Facebook becoming one of the most powerful marketing platforms of all time – right up there with Google.
Targeted demographic data of users + their real-world hang-out overlay = marketer’s holy grail.
Privacy
Facebook gets beat up about privacy issues all the time and I feel like they’ve learned some lessons with this launch. To paraphrase one of the presenters, Places is “not about broadcasting your location to the world, it’s about sharing your location with friends.” You can switch your setting to share your location updates with everyone, but by default Facebook allows you to share with friends only. However, friends can tag you in their location updates – you’ll have to manually turn this feature off if you don’t like it.
Side rant: To me, privacy is a personal life management issue. It’s about having control over the flow of your information. Most people don’t realize that social networks have matured over the years to give you multiple layers of privacy controls and settings. My response to anyone hand-wringing about the privacy implications of Facebook Places or Foursquare would be to get educated on the privacy settings and the network’s terms of use, or simply don’t use these features.
If you need a walk-through, Wayne Sutton has already posted a great step-by-step guide to adjusting your Facebook Places privacy settings.
Partnerships
During the launch, Facebook announced key partnerships with Gowalla, Foursquare, Yelp and Booyah’s MyTown. Many of us were wondering if the Places product would be a competitor to these services, but for now it looks as if they’re going to be friends – or at least acquaintances. This “blessing” by Facebook doesn’t put the other guys (Loopt, Brightkite and Whrrl) in a very good spot. Even if check-ins become a commodity across multiple platforms, this won’t negatively impact Facebook as long as they already have the massive user base and the most data.
What do you think about Facebook Places? Be sure to leave your comments below. Here are a few thoughts from tweeps in my network:
@nathantwright The default on OTHERS tagging you is my concern. And, like Facebook's other privacy options, it's not intuitive to customize.
@tombrazelton
Tom Brazelton
@nathantwright That now that ALL of my friends on Facebook can do it, there will be even more clutter of lame check ins in my feed.
@macykoch
Macy Koch
SXSW panel ideas from Iowa
It’s SXSW Panel Picker time of year again, and I wanted to take a moment to create a list of panel ideas submitted by Iowans. Silicon Prairie News also has a nice wrap-up of panels from the Midwest that you can check out here.
The voting process is now open, so click through the titles below, give them a read, and vote if you think they’re worthy.
Social Marketing Lessons Learned on the Farm – Nathan T. Wright (That’s me!)
Landing A Music Career in Flyover Country – Hillary Brown and Jill Haverkamp, On Pitch
How Farmers Get Serious Business Done With Mobile – Jeff Caldwell, Meredith Corporation
Real-Time Streams Need Real-Time Feedback – Daniel Shipton, BitMethod
How Can Artists Turn Web Hits Into Dollars? – Cat Rocketship & Scott (Kubie) Rocketship, make\break
The Legalities Behind APIs and Mashups – Brett Trout, Brett J. Trout, P.C.
Screenwriting from Iowa (and Other Unlikely Places) – Scott Smith, River Run Productions
In the Future, Everyone Will Be a Filmmaker – Scott Smith, River Run Productions
Rich Browser-Based Templating Through Open Source Collaboration – Neil Roberts, BitMethod
Content for Multi-Channel Consumers: Earn Affinity, Reap Rewards – Heather Rast, Insights and Ingenuity
Resistance is Futile! Assimilating Local Marketing – Deb Brown, Debworks
Big thanks to Becky McCray and Kelly Rivard who helped me refine my ideas throughout this process.
So, did I miss any brilliant Iowans? Let me know. And if you’ve got a panel that you’re behind, or just want to share one that sounds interesting, please leave a comment below – regardless of where you live.
Good luck to everyone who submitted an idea, and we’ll see you in Austin in March 2011!
E-coupon-local-deals make their way to Des Moines
Everyone loves local deals! A growing wave of e-coupon-local-deal services are giving merchants a new way to promote their businesses and teaching consumers how to harness their “collective buying power.” Local deal services such as Groupon and LivingSocial leverage the power of their subscriber bases to offer deeply discounted local deals to consumers in a wide range of cities. In most cases, all you have to do to take advantage of the deals is sign up to get their daily email, but the deals themselves are fueled by social media.
While the initial success of these online coupon deal services relies on a large subscriber base, the ultimate driving force behind the deals is social commerce. The concept of group coupon services like Groupon is that the local deal for a product or service in your city can only be claimed if a minimum number of people purchase the discount, so the services provide social media sharing tools to encourage users to tell their friends about the deals – a win-win for everyone. Consumers get the discount and the local businesses get enough customers to make it worth their while.
Groupon and LivingSocial have yet to publish any local deals in Des Moines, but Travelzoo Local Deals recently joined the social media bargain hunting scene, launching Des Moines as a test market. If you’re a Travelzoo subscriber, you’ve already seen the first Local Deals in Des Moines, including $10 — Stam Chocolate & Fine Wine: Tastings for 2 (50% OFF) and $20 — Half Off at Dos Rios w/FREE Cocktails. Travelzoo Local Deals are currently only available in Des Moines and Minneapolis but will quickly expand into 120 markets.
You’re probably wondering why Travelzoo Local Deals launched in Des Moines and Minneapolis despite the success of Groupon and LivingSocial in larger cities like Chicago, New York and L.A. It could have something to do with their existing, large user base of 24k+ subscribers in Des Moines – a user base that Groupon and LivingSocial are currently working to build up, in addition to recruiting businesses to feature special offers. In the meantime, be sure to follow TravelzooDSM and TravelzooMSP on Twitter to keep up with all of the local deals, and sign up to receive local deals here. If you’re a business owner who would like to feature a Travelzoo Local Deal, you can start here.
What kind of local deals do you want to see in Des Moines? Leave a comment below!
A few thoughts on the iPhone 4
After three years of desperately clinging to the 4GB first generation iPhone like some old curmudgeon, I finally upgraded to the 32GB iPhone 4 this weekend. I used it to records some of my initial thoughts on video (above). The things that impressed me about the device were practical stuff: much better battery life and processing power.
Have you snagged an iPhone 4 yet? What do you think? Here’s what a few people said about antennagate in Norah’s last post.
