What a cool idea! Flipboard, which just came out as a free iPad app, takes a user’s social content (from Facebook, Twitter, etc) and essentially creates a dynamic magazine-like experience – on the iPad. Although I haven’t used it myself, the screenshots and videos sure make the experience look beautiful. It almost looks like I can touch and feel a digital magazine that has been created just for me – using content from my own social networks. Flipboard also aggregates content from other sources, and creates it’s own curated hubs of data.

I’ve noticed a lot of mixed reviews about Flipboard. Some are saying it’s amazing, beautiful, easy-to-use, where others are complaining about not being able to sync up their Facebook content or getting errors (i.e. “over capacity”)  when trying to access data. Some of these complaints sound like some technical issues that may need some ironing out – so, I’m hoping that things will smooth out over time. (Remember: software nowadays is created in an agile process: we are always in a Beta!!!)

What I do question, however, is the need for yet another content aggregator. Maybe it’s just me, but there seems to be so many of these out there that I can’t even keep track. Oh good: yet another tool to consolidate my YouTube videos and my Tweets? Do I really need this as an iPad app when I can get it easily through a website? It’s questions like these that make me see Flipboard is more about marketing hype and buzzwords (iPad, Social, big VC funding, etc) than it is about providing any useful tool for me. But, that is just my initial thoughts – I’d love to try it out as it looks pretty dang cool!

I attended F8, the Facebook Developer’s Conference, last week and so I wanted to jot down some of the highlights before I forget. First, I must say that the Conference was one of the better ones I have attended recently. From the solid organization, to the awesome speakers, to the great food – I really enjoyed myself and got a lot out of the event. Sometimes I’ll attend a conference and walk away telling myself “wow, that was a big waste of time;” but F8 was a valuable experience. So here are the headlines as I can recall:

• No more 24-hour limit on caching user data. Originally, Facebook told developers not to store user data within their applications for more than 24 hours; this was primarily intended to “force” all data to be the most up-to-date (if a user’s profile info changed overnight, it may not be reflected in application that simply cached the data forever.) The only way around this was to continuously poll the Facebook servers requesting updates ( = bad for Facebook). The primary reason for lifting this ban, is that now data can be pushed from Facebook to applications. So, as if/when a user’s info is updated, Facebook can broadcast this info out to the apps in a timely manner.
• New (simple) Data Permissions Dialog. Basically, a much better user experience for accessing Facebook data (and easier to develop)
• The Social Graph. This is the idea that the social graph (the way people are all connected together) should extend beyond Facebook (or any single site) and now will make the social connections anywhere we travel on the Web. For example: I use Pandora to map out how music is mapped together, and Yelp to view the world of local businesses; yet, until now, all these connections(relations) were kept separate and out of my social (Facebook) world.
• Graph API. To support Facebook’s inclusion into the Social Graph, Facebook has announced the Graph API. This API enables developers to read and write objects and connections in the Facebook social graph.
• Transitioning away from Facebook Connect. That’s right, moving away from Facebook connect in favor of the new “Login with Facebook.”
• Social Plug-ins. To support the social graph, developers can now include social plugins within their applications and websites. These plugins essentially pull a user’s Facebook friend data into an experience without actually sharing this data with the sites/apps on which they appear. For example:

1. The new Activity Feed plugin can be placed on CNN.com homepage. When I visit CNN.com, the Activity Feed can access my Facebook account and let me know which of my friends have read/commented on which sections of the CNN website.
2. The Like Button. Perhaps the most significant new feature, particularly for digital marketers, is the new Like Button.
3. Recommendations. Similar to Activity Feed, except suggestions recommendations based on input from your friends.
4. Login with Faces
5. Facepile
6. Comments
7. Live Stream

• Open Graph Protocol. This is one I’m personally interested in. This is how we actually integrate our own pages into the social graph – literally turning a web page into a recognizable object within the social graph. This is done by tagging pages so that they can be identified and catalog within the social graph. This has potential for some amazing new things. Imagine how this could impact SEARCH! At the same time, this could lead to abuse and the dilution of valuable data, perhaps to the point where it becomes meaningless; remember the KEYWORD meta tag for Search engines? Still, I’m excited and will keep an eye on this.
• Analytics. Facebook also announced a new, fairly modest Analytics tool that will allow anyone to see a breakdown of the people interacting with them (or their brand). Although the tool itself is hardly on par with Omniture, it certainly offers information that up-until-now has been totally unavailable. For example, the age/sex of your users. Powerful info for marketers. We used this tool to check the stats on a recent project we did at R/GA. Turns out, we absolutely nailed the target demographic of our client. The stats overwhelming supported this. However, had we discovered that we were off, we could have addressed this immediately. Quite powerful.

In summary, this is all pretty darn cool! The idea of opening up the social graph, creating connections, and making the Internet “more social”, is going to continue to shape our digital world. The Like Button, in particular, will be huge for marketing. As a brand, I can quickly connect with my users, create a 1-to-1 relationship with them for communication, have my user’s act as my advertisers (by sharing my brand with their friends throughout their Internet world) and I will even be able to analyze all of this detailed user information in order to make better decisions about my marketing strategies.

More resources:

Graph api - http://developers.facebook.com/docs/api

Reference - http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/api/

FB Docs - http://developers.facebook.com/docs/guides/web

Plugins - http://developers.facebook.com/plugins

OAuth 2.0 protocol - http://github.com/theRazorBlade/draft-ietf-oauth/raw/master/draft-ietf-oauth.txt

PHP SDK: http://github.com/facebook/php-sdk/

Come see me and my old pal Tina speaking about Mobile, and it’s influence in the social space.

Going My Way? The Implications of Advertising Within the Mobile, Social Web 

As smart phones get smarter and find themselves in more consumers’ pockets, social platforms are becoming more mobile, transforming what was once a PC-bound experience into one that has major implications for advertisers, who now have the opportunity to reach people – and their social network friends – with the right message at the right time in the right place as never before. But how will this, no pun intended, map out? How are advertisers successfully infiltrating this very intimate space in ways that please users and advertisers? What are some of the best and worst examples of marketing in the mobile, social Web? In this panel, executives deeply involved in this space will answer these questions and more.

Now for part 2 of my SEO/Findable (rich media) content discussion. After we answer the business questions addressed in part 1: what are we building and who is it for, then we can begin to choose the correct approaches and strategies for getting people to “find” our work; and it is not all about search engine optimization (SEO). There are many platforms for creating attention for your work. Again, think about who the audience is and what you are providing; will anyone actually even use a search engine to find you? Perhaps a better idea is to go to them, where they hang out online. Some of the findable approaches to consider:

• Search Engine Optimization
  More on this in part 3, but essentially this involves techniques for building your site so that it is easier for search engines to find and index properly. If search engines can find you, and know what you’re about, then users will be able to find you on the web just by using a search engine.
• Search Engine Marketing
  Paid placement search (pay per click, PPC)
  Paid inclusion: pay the search engine to include you
  Combination of paid placement + organic search
• Communities, Social Networks and Media
  MySpace, Facebook, YouTube
  Communities, Blogs, forums
  The idea is to go to where the target audience is, instead of trying to get them to “find” you
  Inbound linking – getting your site known inside of a community can have additional benefit for your SEO, as now you’ll have a bunch of inbound links (from relevant sites) pointing back to your site
• Mobile
  Create a mobile application or WAP site that points people to your website
  
• Online Advertising
  Specifically using contextually relevant ads on targeted sites.
• Offline
  Does your target audience spend more time offline? Use print/TV to point to your URL on the web.

OK, I’m becoming a little bit of an SEO freak now. I seem to think about search with everything I do; is that a bad thing? And it’s not all about SEO either, there are many strategies for creating “findable” content as I tried to express during my panel discussion at SXSW. I want to summarize my presentation, as well as all the things I learned from researching this subject and from getting the chance to work with Google, Microsoft and Adobe. Before I get into the technical and creative strategies, I wanted to remind everyone, that the first step in creating “findable” content, is to answer some basic business questions:

1. Who is our audience?
   -what would make them search for content?
   -where do they spend time, what tools do they use? Google? Facebook? Blogs? Forums? YouTube?
2. Client-specific considerations/dependencies
   -does the business rely on search?
3. Technical considerations/dependencies
   -is it an application with a single entry point (i.e. RIA); for example, it would be bad to have an email application searchable!
   -does the experience exist in a pre-defined framework?
4. Distinctions:

• Short lived vs. longer term
  -it can take months to get indexed and build solid, reliable search results – will your creation come down before it is even indexed by the search engine?
• Big brand vs. smaller name
  -some larger brands don’t care about or need SEO, while a smaller company lives by it
• Rich experience vs. informational content
  -some companies are more interested in creating an amazing experience than offering information content
• Awareness vs. direct model
  -is the goal to create general awareness of the brand/company, or directly market to a specific group

Part 2: Creating a Findable Strategy, coming soon!

I think many have already seen or heard of Nextwall, as it has been in creation for about a year or so now I believe. I find it more than just a cool visual “art” thing, I think it points to how a future of digital social networking and commerce may look. It kind of sums up all the freaky stuff I’ve been blogging about recently into one amazing experience. Although Nextwall is focused for artists, it’s not difficult to imagine what could be done for any digital media audience. Because it allows any user to “contribute”, as well as receive, from the wall, it begins to look like a powerful and very expressive tool for social networking.

“Nextwall is an interactive “graffiti wall” in the Karo district of Hamburg.” The wall, 30-metre also contains QR Codes, Bluetooth, object recognition and RFID technologies to enable people who pass by the wall to download content to their mobile phones. In this case, the content can be further information including notes on the artist’s approach and the idea behind his/her art. But now the commerce part kicks in as people take photos of the nextwall, QR codes send along coupons for neighborhood cafés and shops back to the user. Other technologies enable passersby to add their own comments or jokes. There’s also a technology that enables people to spray virtual spray paint – creating 3D, free-floating graffiti that can only be seen through special glasses. Additional ideas in the pipeline for 2008 include: “a mobile phone guide that explains details of the graffiti to the user; or the “I was here” camera, with which nextwall visitors can immortalize themselves on the Internet. In addition, some of the very latest technologies will be tried out: from object recognition and RFID to laser projection.”

http://www.nextwall.net