July 26, 2010 - by Magnus Hultberg
Off the Pass: week of July 19, 2010
Last week I was reminded just how important technology is to keep up with technology… My iPhone died and due to some slightly misleading instructions from my carrier the guy who delivered the new handset took of with my old one, SIM still in it. Customer service #fail.
Cue three days of no smartphone, meaning no 3G, meaning no reading news while on the tube! After a very frustrated day in information limbo I must say I kind of liked it. Relaxing. Anyways, SIM is back, shiny new handset has a restored backup and all apps are go.
Speaking of keeping up with technology and news, it seems the most talked about piece of kit right now is an iPad with the newly released software Flipboard. Anyone who is a member of a few social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr, Blippy, Amplify or the very fresh Miio knows how difficult it is to make sense of all the information flowing past on our screens. Yet it is the best way today to get the latest news, the craziest links, staying in touch with far away friends, and connect with brands.
Enter Flipboard. Flipboard turns your Facebook and Twitter friend updates into a magazine like reading experience using all the fantastic features of the iPad. You may have heard of RSS readers and news aggregators, helping you to stay on top of the latest news. Flipboard is similar to those tools, but takes it one step further by turning all the information your friends post (or the Twitter lists you follow, or specific brand accounts you want to track) into attractive pages with rich interaction. Want to play a video? Touch it. Focus on an article? Touch it. Read more on the web? Touch it. Like it on Facebook? Touch…
Why is this so special? Too keep it short, one of the important roles of traditional media has been to find the most important and engaging news items and present them to you in an easily digestible way. In recent times, social media has grown to become a fantastic way of finding the most fascinating or recent news items, based on how many people engage with them. Presentation has however been abysmal. With the release of apps like Flipboard and websites like paper.li (check out my magically transformed Twitter feed full of tech, food and wine, updated daily), suddenly checking your social news feeds becomes immersive and enjoyable, as if curated and designed by a staff of diligent magazine editors. Just for you.
Scoble has written up the pros and shortcomings of Flipboard, and published a video interview with CEO Mike McCue.
Tnooz has a great blog post on why they think Flipboard may have impact on the travel industry. Initial performance problems and discussions on legal implications aside, I think the same goes for the hospitality industry.
Also, can’t help to think that iPad was heralded as “the saviour of the newspaper industry” and then this app comes along…
In other technology related news:
Facebook is now beyond 500 million users. This is not “registered accounts”, this is the number of people accessing the site the past month. To celebrate, Facebook launched an app telling the stories of people connecting. For the tech geeks, Facebook has blogged about how they cope with it. For the data freaks, Mashable has a nice infographic. For those with short attention span, here is a timeline of how fast Facebook has grown…
Will social media and geolocation darling Foursquare add a new dimension to search? Co-founder Dennis Crowley thinks so, and is courting Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! about including data from the location-sharing service into their results.
From social media to website usability. Read on, it isn’t boring, it’s important. What would you do if a diner slipped on your front door mat every time it rained? You’d change the friggin’ mat, right. Well, do you even known if your diners are slipping all over your website? Some great insights to the importance of getting feedback from the usage of your website. Hint, it may impact your business.
Tim Hayward (@timhayward) asks if you would be prepared to pay for the opinions of a well known restaurant critic. Fay Maschler seems to hope so, launching a new and member exclusive review site called Page One, listing the only 100 restaurants you need to know about. Great piece by Mr Hayward. With tools like the Flipboard and the very vocal and skilled food blogger community in London reviewing the latest restaurants before the “professional critics” (those that aren’t hidden behind a paywall…), the future of restaurant reviewing is indeed unclear.
Integrating email marketing with social media is an exciting concept, not least because you can learn so much more about your loyal customers. Practical e-commerce breaks down how you can increase distribution, mine data and segment recipients.
Here in the UK we haven’t seen much of Twitter’s latest attempt to monetize their user base, but last week the deals and special offers feed @earlybird was launched. Publishing discount offers from advertisers, it is another way to get paid for putting brands in front of willingly receiving people. GigaOM has a good post on the topic, with links to more.
Steve Rubel from Edelman Digital identifies six digital trends to watch. Marketing in the age of streams challenges a lot of the traditional outlooks on media, customers, identity and privacy.
Another great presentation was published last week, in the series “WHAT THE F**K IS SOCIAL MEDIA”. This is the third WTF installment, focusing on the evolving medium. Short summary? “All media is social media these days…” If you missed the first two, here: WTF 1, and WTF 2.
For fun:
This is a long one. Real long. But it’s Bill Murray, so every word is to be savoured. Do you know how few interviews Bill Murray has done through the years? Well, do you? That’s right, really few. For the love of ghosts, GQ talks to Bill Murray.
What do seaweed butter, chamomile, and meat as bread have in common? They are all major food trends identified by CHOW. Get all 7 biggest food trends right now at the CHOW blog.
That’s it for this week. Come back Monday next week for a new set of news in restaurant online marketing you shouldn’t miss out on. If you want to get updates of links and comments throughout the week, follow @manne on Twitter (news and blog links mixed with random chit chat ranging from matcha soufflé to current events) or on Google Buzz (news links only).
Loading ...
