LSQHA Blog Reviews

For a long time, technology has been touted as a force that can help us connect globally. But the urge to stay connected locally remains. And the same technological innovations that have facilitated global commerce and communication now seem to be turned towards helping us (re)connect to our neighborhoods, communities and local businesses. As buzz around location-based networks and services grows, "the local" is poised to be a place that's increasingly the emphasis for innovation and entrepreneurship. Sponsor People want to know what's going on locally. People want to shop locally. People want to network locally. And hyperlocal services make it easier to engage in and market to a local community. Technology need no longer be feared by local businesses as something that would drive their customers elsewhere - namely online. Although location-based social networks such as Foursquare and Gowalla have received significant attention as part of this trend, they are far from the only services. Hyperlocal search and news sites are two other services that have seen recent growth. Last week, Milo.com , a website that enables shoppers to research products online but then make their purchases locally, added products and real-time inventories for over 100 independent, mom-and-pop stores across the country. While Milo.com has served the "big box" stores for some time, this move to incorporate smaller retail outlets marks another way in which the local is starting to take advantage of online opportunities. "Smaller stores that once viewed technology as a threat, now see the benefit it has for reaching potential shoppers and attracting new customers into their actual brick and mortar locations," says Jack Abraham, Milo.com founder and CEO. Abraham says that Milo.com helps local businesses address the classic problem of how to get new customers in the door, but offers the best of both worlds - that is both an online component for reading reviews and the assurance that if they drive to their local store, they'll find the item in-stock, ready to "touch, feel, and buy." The hyperlocal can offer both geographic and content granularity - the ability to focus on a very specific location and subject matter that might otherwise be too small to be served. By merging the local and the online, businesses can respond quickly to meet the needs of their customers. Startups have long used local communities as a testing ground for both marketing and business models before opting to expand. The increasing interest in the hyperlocal might make it more than just a launching point. What do you think of the potential for expansion of more hyperlocal startups? Discuss

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Startups and the Lure of the (Hyper)Local

When film critic Roger Ebert posted on his blog that "Video Games Can Never Be Art," he seemed to incur the wrath of the gaming community, and the entry now has over 3,000 comments, many protesting Ebert's claims. Ebert wonders why the designation of art or not-art matters to those who play video games: "Do they require validation? In defending their gaming against parents, spouses, children, partners, co-workers or other critics, do they want to be able to look up from the screen and explain, "I'm studying a great form of art?" Then let them say it, if it makes them happy." Sponsor Here's an argument to make gamers happy. According to John Seely Brown, former director of Xerox PARC , massive multiplayer online games demonstrate ways in which groups can manage information and maximize learning. At a recent lecture as part of Stanford University's Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders series, Brown said that World of Warcraft guilds can serve as models for entrepreneurs in understanding how to succeed in a knowledge-based economy. Brown urges entrepreneurs to look at WoW for ideas on how to boost information management and performance feedback. Brown points to the guild, the game's primary organizational structure, as the way you "get things done in World of Warcraft." Noting that over 12,000 ideas are posted to the official World of Warcraft forums daily, Brown points to the necessity of having a guild in order to process this information. "If your guild is going to be successful," says Brown, "you have to figure out how to get the members of your guild to process tens of thousands of new ideas." The guild structure, Brown argues, allows for groups to crowdsource information and to test, filter and disseminate strategies. The most successful guilds also meticulously record and review their performances. "In terms of extreme performance," says Brown, "I've never seen anything quite like it. World of Warcraft high-end guilds do after-action reviews on every high-end raid." Brown praises the way in which WoW players have developed their own dashboards so they can constantly measure and adjust their own performance. Brown argues this vigilance around feedback helps WoW players learn exponentially. With over 12 million World of Warcraft subscribers, chances are WoW is an incubator for future entrepreneurs, whether or not the game is "art." Discuss

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Lessons for Entrepreneurs from World of Warcraft

It took Sarah Perez's post How to Delete Facebook Applications (and Why You Should) a little more than 24 hours to become to the top-viewed post of this week. In a week filled with Facebook news, it certainly hit a nerve. We also continued our exploration of the significant Internet trends of 2010. We wrote about how the Internet of Things can be an Internet of Cows, new tools to visualize the real-time Web, and how augmented reality developers can win $5,000. Read on for more. Sponsor Story of the Week: Delete Those Facebook Apps How to Delete Facebook Applications (and Why You Should) This is What a Tweet Looks Like XAuth: The Open Web Fires a Shot Against Facebook Connect Adobe Gives up on Apple, Welcomes Android Is the New Facebook a Deal With the Devil? Top 10 Mobile Trends of 2010, Part 1: Design & Development More coverage and analysis from ReadWriteWeb ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit Join us for the ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit on May 7 in Mountain View, California as we explore the latest mobile development trends, both the technology and the emerging business applications. Be a part of the discussion on geo-location services , augmented reality , native app vs. browser-based , commerce and marketing , mobile social networking and the Internet of Things. Sponsorship enquiries: sales@readwriteweb.com . Mobile Web Top 10 Mobile Trends of 2010, Part 3: Emerging Markets Two-Thirds of iPhone Users Now Use Location-Based Services at Least Once a Week Top 10 YouTube Videos About Flash Mobs More Mobile Web coverage Augmented Reality Budding AR Developer? Put Your Creativity to Use and Win $5,000 Top 10 Mobile Trends of 2010, Part 2: Apps, Apps, Apps More Augmented Reality coverage Augmented Reality for Marketers and Developers: Our Newest Research Report We're pleased to announce ReadWriteWeb's latest premium report, Augmented Reality for Marketers and Developers: Analysis of the Leaders, the Challenges and the Future . This report will help you develop a sophisticated understanding of Augmented Reality (AR), the mobile and Web technology that places data on top of a user's view of the physical world. The research included will help you decrease your AR development time to market by learning from the first wave of early adopters. AR offers a new marketing and product paradigm for a high impact, high value customer experience. More than 1,000 AR campaigns were kicked-off last year and we expect to see many more in 2010. In this report, we profile key AR development companies, their campaigns as well as development lessons learned. For more information or to buy the report, visit here . Internet of Things Internet of Things Can Make Us Human Again As Cattle Rustling Increases, So Does the Need for RFID More Internet of Things coverage Real-Time Web PostRank Launches New Tools to Visualize the Real-Time Web YouTube Streams IPL Cricket Live In U.S. More Real-Time Web coverage . Don't miss the next wave of opportunity on the Web supported by real-time technology! Get ReadWriteWeb's report, The Real-Time Web and its Future . Check Out The ReadWriteWeb iPhone App We recently launched the official ReadWriteWeb iPhone app . As well as enabling you to read ReadWriteWeb while on the go or lying on the couch, we've made it easy to share ReadWriteWeb posts directly from your iPhone, on Twitter and Facebook. You can also follow the RWW team on Twitter, directly from the app. We invite you to download it now from iTunes . ReadWriteStart Our channel ReadWriteStart , sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark , is dedicated to profiling startups and entrepreneurs. The Art of the Email Pitch Tips for Networking (Beyond Just "Social Networking") Got an Exit Strategy? Lessons From Foursquare and Yahoo ReadWriteCloud Our channel ReadWriteCloud , sponsored by VMware and Intel, is dedicated to Virtualization and Cloud Computing. The Largest Cloud in the World is Owned By A Criminal Network Google's Eric Schmidt Gushes About HTML 5 Google's Vint Cerf on Private Clouds v. Public Clouds Enjoy your weekend everyone. Discuss

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Weekly Wrap-up: Deleting FB Apps, Open Web vs. FB Connect, Adobe Gives up on Apple, And More...

A Collaborative Effort Between Two Firms:  Web Analytics Demystified and Altimeter Group It’s just been over a month since we published the Social CRM Research paper (over 36k views on slideshare) and we’re continuing our cadence here at Altimeter Group of publishing widely available reports under the spirit of Open Research.  This time, it’s different, we’ve aligned with who I feel are the smartest team of web analytics minds in the space, John Lovett (ex-Forrester analyst) and Eric Peterson (ex-Jupiter analyst) both of the Web Analytics Demystified firm.  Stemming from Altimeter founder Charlene Li’s (ex-Forrester Analyst) framework, we co-developed this framework, and put our collective minds to work on measuring the rapidly changing social media marketing space.   This self-funded research effort resulted in a thorough methodology as we interviewed over 40 ecosystem influencers. Interested in learning more?   Attend the no-cost webinar by registering. Industry Challenge:  ”I can’t measure social media ROI” Marketers around the globe are ranging from toe dipping to jumping all the way into the social marketing space –yet most lack a measurement yardstick.  While experiments can fly under the radar for a short term, without having a measurement strategy, you run the risk of not improving what you’re doing, justifying investments, and the appearance of being aloof to upper management.  To be successful, all programs (even new media) must have a measurement strategy, and we’ve done just that. Finally, A Measurement Framework Based on Business Objectives If you’re familiar with the Altimeter frameworks of developing a social strategy based on business objectives, then you’re in good shape, as this research report is the natural extension of the business objectives we put forth: Dialog : involves starting a conversation and offering your audience something to talk about while allowing that conversation to take on a life of its own Advocacy : activation of evangelism, word of mouth, and the spread of information through social technologies Supporting : customers may self support each other, or companies may directly assist them using social technologies. Innovation : The business objective of innovation is an extraordinary byproduct of engaging in social marketing activity. Our framework is a common denominator, yet if you’re already measuring converted leads, or actual sales from social media, great!     Yet   In this meaty report, which we hope you share with your marketing and analytics team, has actual KPI formulas which you should start to use as the start of your own cookbook. Altimeter Report: Social Marketing Analytics View more documents from Jeremiah Owyang . A Nod To the Community Spirit We’re putting a big stake out there, in order to further the industry to come together around a common set of KPIs and metrics, but we realize we don’t know all the answers.  In the spirit of Open Research , we want this to be an open framework (we’ve even licensed this under Creative Commons) to customize it and make your own for non-commercial reasons with attribution.  If you’ve ideas on how to improve it such as new KPIs, vendors, or approaches, we’re listening, and will incorporate and improve this community body of knowledge for all to benefit. Related Links I’ll link to others that extend the conversation, feel free to embed the slideshare on your own site. John Lovett, my co-author, on the Web Analytics Demystified Blog . Note, they used their branded report template, but the content is the same. The Altimeter Blog (cross posting) Christine Tran is the lead researcher on this report, she writes a smart blog Lithium’s Phil Soffer, VP of Product Marketing, has shared it from the Lithium Blog

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Altimeter Report: Social Marketing Analytics (Altimeter Group & Web Analytics Demystified)

Facebook today announced that application developers will be allowed to store user data for more than 24 hours, removing a major restriction that the company had imposed on its ecosystem for years. Competitors like Twitter and MySpace had no such restrictions and now Facebook is in the same boat. Founder Mark Zukerberg used to say that the rule against storing data was essential to protect users and their privacy. Where are those now? Privacy, Zuckerberg told me in a March 2008 interview, "is the vector around which Facebook operates." Two years later, not so much. In a December 2009 interview , Zuckerberg said that Facebook's new public-by-default privacy settings reflected how he would build the site if he were to do it again from scratch today. Compare below what Zuckerberg said in 2008 and what today's new Developer Terms of Service say about holding on to user data now. Sponsor I believe that the Facebook policy change on storing user data is a net win for the web: it will enable all kinds of new innovation. It was that kind of innovation that I was asking about two years ago when I got the following answer about privacy that just doesn't sound right anymore today. Zuckerberg on Data Portability, March 10th 2008 interview with ReadWriteWeb : "If you export your friends list, does their contact information come with that? What if they change their privacy settings later? Right now if you take an action that gets published to your friends' news feeds, but then if you change your privacy settings later to be more restrictive - then those events disappear from the news feeds. If that data is published off-site, then there's no longer any control over the data for users. " (emphasis added) And today, on the new Developers' Terms of Service : You must give users control over their data by posting a privacy policy that explains what data you collect, and how you will use, store, and/or transfer their data....You may cache data you receive from the Facebook API in order to improve your application's user experience, but you should try to keep the data up to date ...You will delete all data you receive from us concerning a user if the user asks you to do so, and will provide a mechanism for users to make such a request. (emphasis added) One thing that remains the same? "You cannot use a user's friend list outside of your application, even if a user consents to such use." Facebook doesn't want you taking your data out of the Facebook ecosystem, to other competing services, but it doesn't insist that 3rd parties under its shadow check in with you daily anymore, either. It's hard not to feel a little cynical about that. Discuss

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Facebook Data & Privacy: So Much Has Changed in Two Years