1) Why are there ads in the subway with QR codes displayed when there is no internet service on the subway itself?

2) Would you turn your house into a billboard? http://www.aol.it/rpy8Na

3) How long will it be before urinals in public restrooms carry advertising?

4) Do you watch the screen when riding in the back of taxi?

5) Would you be willing to receive a steady stream of ads on your smart phone if the monthly fees were paid for by the carrier?

6) Which company do you think will last longer – Groupon or Foursquare?

7) If you’ve used a Groupon or Living Social coupon to dine in a restaurant you’ve never before visited – have you ever gone back a second time?

I don’t watch ads when I DVR a television program preferring to fast forward through them as I believe is the case with most people. What percentage of DVR watchers do you think should be counted as having actually watched an ad during the program?

9) Will people continue to patronize online companies that don’t offer a free shipping option?

10) In 2012 will you use Ebay’s Redlaser.com bar scanner or Amazon.com’s bar code scanner to check pricing on in-store items?

I wish you and your family a Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah and Joyous Kwanzaa. Oh and a healthy and Happy 2012 too!

The survey studied the buying habits of fewer than 1,500 people. A fairly good-sized sample and the results were that 50% of people who follow a brand are more likely to buy that brand’s products. The article also notes however that it is not all that easy to get a Twitter user to follow a brand. I would agree with that as I am not one to follow a brand on Twitter although I have done so on Facebook to some degree. In fact only 21% of Twitter users follow brands.

Also significant was the statistic that 75% of people surveyed said the never ‘un-follow’ brands after making a ‘commitment’ to them. Although I don’t really understand how following a brand shows my commitment exactly.

Mashable lists the study’s five main reasons for following a brand on Twitter:

• 64%: I am a customer of the company
• 61%: To be the first to know information about the brand
• 48%: To receive discounts and promotions
• 36%: To gain access to exclusive content
• 28%: To receive content/information to retweet and share with others

The article also noted that Twitter’s follower numbers closely mirror a Facebook study that also found that 56% of users on Facebook who like a brand’s fan page are more likely to recommend that brand to friends while 51% of consumers who like a brand Facebook fan page are more likely to purchase that product. I expect that this comes as no surprise to anyone.

Twitter continues to evolve (check out Simon Cowell’s comments on his personal turnaround on using Twitter as a listening device in today’s New York Times http://nyti.ms/vuE6dT), and personally I find myself following fewer overall people and culling out people I am following if they don’t put out tweets of interest to me. I am following over 900 people and there’s no way for me to sift through that many people’s tweets.

Brands are doing a better job of leveraging social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare. For me it starts and ends with what kind of engagement the brands offer, as well as what kinds of offers the brands offer!

But there’s still room for improvement don’t you think?

Despite the BB Storm’s limited apps, the ones I have downloaded, I use on a consistent basis. Even the Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter applications worked from my phone while I was in China although access via the hotel’s internet connection from my laptop was denied. I read newspapers, watched videos on YouTube, checked email, used Google Maps to find where I was going and even tried Foursquare (it worked fine but all the locations were written in Mandarin characters so that was a bit tricky).

In recent years mobile phones have been designated as the ‘third screen’. The idea is that television and computers are the other two screens. But in this increasingly fast paced and mobile world a smartphone is no longer a luxury but a necessity for many people – including me. My internet connection in the hotel in Shenzhen was glacially slow, such that at times I just did not even bother trying to do things that I would normally accomplish in a nanosecond here at home. Instead I used my mobile phone.

I also find myself using mobile sites with increasing frequency. In so doing I’ve found that many companies do a poor job of creating a good mobile experience for their customers and prospects. (Full disclosure – our team is building mobile sites for clients so we are attuned to this issue). With smartphone adoption continuing to grow the importance of having a really good mobile site has never been greater and will continue to grow.

I think mobile should be considered the first screen. A mobile phone is within arm’s reach at all times for most people and is likely the first screen people look at each morning.

How about you? Is your mobile phone ever out of sight or access? Is it the first thing you look at in the morning? Are you doing more and more on your smartphone?

Yelp also offers user reviews of the various establishments listed. While the accuracy and unbiased nature of those reviews might be in question, it’s somewhat amusing to read what people wrote about their experiences in the various locations. I thought about how Foursquare links with your friends to check in at locations (and even sends updates to Facebook if you so desire) and it dawned on me that Foursquare and Yelp might be made for each other. I want to find a location for coffee on Yelp, I go there, then check in on Foursquare and tell my ‘friends’. I also can rate the place (something that Foursquare offers in terms of a comment but it is a vastly underused feature), and share that too.

Then the rating has much more meaning since it is going to my selected friends and is not a random posting on how some stranger liked or disliked an establishment. I know nothing about this person save for their name (and photo if they so choose to post that) on Yelp and thus their recommendation holds little value for me or anyone else.

As I have noted in previous posts, Facebook Places has picked up some of the elements of Foursquare but to this point Foursquare has not pulled their link to FB nor has FB dropped Foursquare as a partner.

The combination of Yelp and Facebook would make an attractive property don’t you think?

Well after 9 months of ‘checking-in’, having received 9 different ‘badges’, being the ‘Mayor’ of no less than 6 different places – including the Acela Club at Citi Field where I have been only 5 times, I am here to tell you that I personally don’t have any real use for Foursquare.

I have received comments from my Facebook friends (you can link your Foursquare status to FB); on different places I’ve been that they went to at one time or another – that’s a little bit cool. But I have yet to ‘check-in’ at a place and have someone nearby let me know that they are in the area and maybe we could get together.

Granted non-20’s people like myself (ok mea culpa I am more than double that), don’t normally go hopping around in the suburbs from place to place and when I am in New York City and check-in most of my Foursquare friends are either not in the city or not going to the same places that I am.

Occasionally Foursquare has offered me a coupon for an establishment nearby to the one in which I just checked-in and I even used a coupon one time just to test it (coffee). But as I wrote in a previous post http://bit.ly/9AWboS Foursquare’s GPS location is not very good and I can often check into no less than 15 establishments at the same time within as many as 1,000 meters (why it’s in meters I have no idea). In fact frequently it says that I am closer to a place down the street than the place that I am actually in.

An interesting article by Todd Woody in the NY Times from October 20 http://nyti.ms/dwjcRh did a nice job in linking Earthjustice – a non-profit law firm, to a campaign in which $ 10 would be donated to protect endangered species by ‘checking-in’ at Foursquare at ‘Earthjustice ad’. Clever campaign but I don’t know if that’s enough of a business model to sustain Foursquare. And now Facebook has been running its own location based platform – Facebook Places.

As far as I am concerned the road for Foursquare leads directly to be acquired by Facebook. And they better do that fast. Time is running out. You can check-in on that.

What do you think?

China is known as the Middle Kingdom. There are 56 recognized ethnic groups in China and 31 provinces. And people are often defined by where they are from – physically and behaviorally. To me this is in stark contrast to the United States since Americans have access to much of the same information and resources simultaneously which makes things more homogenous. Could you really tell where in the U.S. someone is from merely by looking at them?

The Chinese from the North (cities like Harbin) are tall and just big. The influences of Russia and north Asia being primary reasons. As you move further and further south the people get smaller and at times darker as the Polynesian and island influence is much stronger (Cantonese are smaller than Shanghainese for instance).

Language also is greatly impacted geographical location. Cantonese is very different from Mandarin which is the ‘national’ language of China (thank Chairman Mao for that). I can now hear the difference between Cantonese and Mandarin even if I cannot understand what is being said. Not the same for Shanghainese though. Amazingly (to me) there are many people living in Shanghai that do not easily speak or understand Mandarin – they can communicate in Mandarin but are not comfortable. This is true in other provinces in China as local dialects prevail and remain.

The Shanghainese seem to look down on the Beijingers as old world and a bit slow to adapt. The Beijingers look at the Shanghainese as faddish and arrogant. That sounds more like what happens in the U.S. with L.A. people, Chicagolanders, and New Yorkers all drawing conclusions on the other based on geography.
China is also a very social place to do business. We flew into Beijing last evening just as the sun was beginning to set – a bright orange disk as while it was a clear evening in terms of rain clouds, the pollution from Chinese coal-fired factories mixed with dust from the nearby Gobi desert combines to produce a seemingly constant state of haze. This reminds me of when I lived in Los Angeles in the late 1970’s and early 80’s. We had a dinner with some people Elizabeth (who has done a marvelous job of facilitating my business trip here in China) thought I should meet. I truly enjoyed meeting Phil (an Aussie) and his lovely wife Debbie (a Kiwi). Elizabeth noted that she had to meet some other people at 9 and we only sat down to dinner at 8 (a great Thai restaurant called Purple Haze – why the name?). She asked us if she could invite them and of course we said yes and shortly thereafter two younger Chinese (a couple maybe?) showed up and we moved to a table for six. (And we did not even use Foursquare!)

This happens all the time (apparently) in China. People come and join in – stay a while and then leave or not. 5 of the six of us spoke Mandarin. You can guess who the oddball was there. The young Chinese man did not speak English. So when people spoke Mandarin I had no clue what they were saying and then when 5 people spoke English the young Chinese man looked equally at sea.

Elizabeth then noted she had to leave with her two (the woman was named Jeannette and she too was lovely) Chinese associates. So there I ended up with two people I had never met from three different countries talking about business in China. I could not have had a better or more interesting time. And it is not possible for me to pay for any meals when out with people here in China. I cannot even get my hand in my pocket – they simply will not stand for it.

We talked about the fascinations of what one sees in China and Debbie said – well you know what they say – ‘Only in China’. I wonder what Don King would say about that?

This can be dangerous if you are having a spat with a friend and he or she ‘broadcasts’ that you are playing hooky or golf bar during the work day (when you were not there) and your boss finds out. The default settings allow this intrusion and you have to go into the application to change this in order to stop it from happening.

Meanwhile the folks at Foursquare whose location based service allows you to check in and send that update to Facebook are trying to figure out if FB is out to have their lunch. Since Foursquare has no revenue model, it would be a light lunch at best. I’ve been checking in and using Foursquare for almost six months thinking that they would figure something out but it’s taking far too long. The message I am getting from most of my friends on my check-ins is – why?

So in my view neither Facebook nor Foursquare accomplished much last week. But couponing site Groupon (www.groupon.com) had a GREAT week (see the article in Forbes) http://tcrn.ch/bLhcxt . Groupon launched its first nationwide deal – at $ 25.00 off discount on a $ 50.00 purchase at Gap. It became so popular so fast that it actually crashed Groupon’s servers for a time. In total it looks like more than 400,000 coupons will be sold (Figure more than $ 11,000,000 in total). Groupon won’t disclose the specifics of the deal regarding profit margins. Since Gap offered such a steep discount I’m not completely certain what they accomplished besides some pretty expensive brand buzz.

Groupon’s ‘deal of the day’ is gaining momentum and the company is actually making money (yes they have a revenue model – how about that?!). From Wikipedia – The company offers one “Groupon” per day in each of the markets it serves. The Groupon works as an assurance contract using ThePoint’s platform: if a certain number of people sign up for the offer, then the deal becomes available to all, if the predetermined minimum is not met, no one gets the deal that day. This reduces risk for retailers, who can treat the coupons as quantity discounts as well as sales promotion tools. Groupon makes money by getting a cut of the deal from the retailers. There are certain businesses that Groupon will not offer its services to, including shooting ranges, abortion clinics, plastic surgeons and strip clubs.

There are other couponing sites – Thrillist, Woot, Living Social, MyCityDeal, but Groupon is the current first round leader.

So while Facebook frets about the new movie (Social Network,)coming out that has less than flattering portrayals of Marc Zuckerberg and the team that got it started, Foursquare continues to try to figure out how it could actually make some money, Groupon is coming on strong and I think they may have one of the strongest new revenue models out there.

Are you going to give Groupon a try?

And I have been to the Acela club exactly three times this season which leads me to think that people who visit the Acela club do not subscribe or care about Foursquare. In fact the few people I asked who work there had never even heard of location based services like Foursquare. As Acela club ‘mayor’ I have not been offered the key to CitiField or even a free drink – alcoholic or not.

In an article in today’s NY Times http://nyti.ms/aDGgmn, it was noted that Loopt is offering people a mobile game that rewards people for checking in frequently to particular places. And as such one can become ‘boss’ of certain locations – sort of like being the mayor. The key thing is that companies like Gap, Burger King Etc., plan to use Loopt Star to reward loyal customers. Foursquare is also working with its partners to offer real-time rewards for check-ins and frequencies of visits.

One thing the article fails to mention is the vagaries of GPS check in on these platforms. I know for example on Foursquare when I attempt to ‘check-in’ I am given a list of nearby locations even if I am smack in the middle of one on the list. (Somehow I find it really odd that if I am sitting in a Starbucks it tells me that the one I am sitting in is somehow 137 meters away). But I can also check-in to any of these GPS-enabled locations whether I am actually physically there or not.

GPS technology is set to make a major leap forward with the advent of High Accuracy-NDGPS which will enable accuracy to the centimeter level. This will be a critical enhancement since it appears that I can check in at any number of places simultaneously/concurrently (or at least in quick sequence), so that I could gain reward points at places I actually never visited.

Think about it, you are sitting at coffee shop in the middle of the city, but you check in at Burger King (for the third time that week) even though you have been to the Burger King. Now Burger King sends you a coupon for a soda with a sandwich purchase. Retailer margins will be squeezed. People will game the system – that can be guaranteed.

I understand that companies can counter that talk about the fact the patron actually purchased something, but at the same time product is being given away for nothing. And how is that a good idea?

So join up now and get free stuff – while you can.

It’s pretty simple.  You put the app on your Smartphone and it links with GPS (and even Facebook if you want it to) and wherever you are you can ‘Check-in’ to let fellow Foursquarer’s (my term not theirs) know where you are and even invite them to ‘Swing-by’ (their term).   These ‘updates’ can also be posted on Facebook automatically. 

So say you are in Manhattan at your favorite watering hole.  You check in to let your friends and followers know where you are so they can stop by if they are nearby.  You can also make comments on whatever establishment you are in – good or bad.  If you are the person to visit a particular establishment more than anyone in the network you are then deemed ‘Mayor’ of that establishment. 

You gain ‘badges’ for checking in the first time and when you check in more than 3 times per week at a location you then get a ‘local’ badge.   I cannot resist the temptation to think ‘we don’t need no stinkin’ badges’..but that’s not apparently how the folks at Foursquare feel. 

The marketing implications?  I’m not sure just yet.  A few of my marketing associate friends are using it probably out of the same curiosity that I have – to learn more and see how people use it.  But the whole check in thing while ok can be a bit much.  There’s no way to not invite someone to ‘swing-by’ so wherever you check-in you invite people to swing by.  This may not always be the way you’d want to go.  If you check in when going home do you really want people to swing by?  

One way Foursquare could be used is by companies that have sales and other employees on the road visiting clients and prospects.  If integrated with a platform like Salesforce.com Foursquare would be able to show that the agent was at the location on the sales report.  GPS is a wonderful thing – and big brother like at times as well. 

At present it seems to me that Foursquare is primarily an urban-oriented tool.  So that people could actually ‘swing by’ if they are in the neighborhood.  Suburbanites and those in even more remote locations won’t immediately have as much use for it.  But for some reason I think Foursquare is going to take hold and be a big-time force in the future.  I’ll let you know if I figure that out and if you have any ideas on that I’d love to hear them.

Two articles today one in the NY Times and the other in the Wall Street Journal cover location based mobile advertising. 

Using a tactic called Geo-Fencing a company called Placecast (http://www.placecast.net) has a platform of ‘location-triggered’ mobile marketing solutions.   They ‘fence’ areas in cities and if you walk inside the fenced area and have signed up to receive messages from a marketer (in the case of the NY Times article the retailer The North Face is used as an example) the marketer by the use of the platform can text message offers, events and promotions.  Visit http://nyti.ms/a5xLoR  for the NY Times article. 

The Wall Street Journal article also covers the combining of social media and marketing.  Using a variety of platforms retailers can offer one-day promotions and offers.   Visit http://bit.ly/9a1MKx for the Wall Street Journal article. 

A 2008 start-up called FourSquare (www.foursquare.com) is a free application that allows participants to ‘check-in’ via a mobile application to essentially let their friends know where they are and in addition to racking up ‘points’ with individual retailers they also can be rewarded for frequenting eating and drinking establishments – even becoming ‘mayor’ if they go there enough. 

I will readily admit that I don’t personally see the value in alerting my friends to where I am at any given moment.  But I don’t live in the city and have not for some time.  And when I was living in New York I was often surprised to run into people I knew at places and on the streets – not necessarily something one would think in a city of 8 million people.  

For me I also don’t see myself signing up with retailers/merchants to receive offers from them when I step inside their geo-fence.  But then again I’m a buyer not a shopper.  And I personally am not so brand-driven but understand that I am in minority there. 

Yet in terms of overall marketing strategy and engagement I think all these location based services are interesting, relevant and will shake out such that a few will emerge as regular every day parts of people’s lives – first primarily in cities but it will evolve beyond that as well to include people outside of cities. 

2010 may not end up being the year of mobile but that ‘year’ is getting closer and maybe it does not make sense to anoint a year at all.  After all why would we really care about which year is the year of mobile anyway?