The Future Is So Bright…
If you spend any time watching the news about Greece, our deficit, the unemployment rate or the economy in general, it can be pretty depressing. But last week, I took a break from all that and attended both the Seattle Interactive Conference (#SIC2011) and TechStars Demo Day (@TechStars). If you want to lift your spirits about innovation in America, then you need to look no further than Seattle to find many people (entrepreneurs really) taking advantage of the most dramatic changes in technology happening in a generation.
Some key takeaways from the event:
@jeffbarr of Amazon Web Services said that EC2 cloud storage costs $0.14/GB/Mo. That is cheap, but not that much cheaper than 10 GB of storage on iCloud, which costs $20/year…still cheap.
@scottlipsky of Photorocket gave an excellent talk on UX Innovation being Business Innovation – we must focus on the total customer service and interactive experience. Customer service is user experience. Some examples he gave of outstanding user experience: CraigsList, Amazon, iOS, DropBox, Twitter, UrbanEars and Virgin America.
@shayang, co-founder of Zoosk described some of the lessons learned at Zoosk about building the next generation dating platform on social. One of the most interesting ideas he talked about was building your own social graph. The thing is, I didn’t get it. I’ve gotta look more closely at my notes…
Will hunsinger, CEO of EVRI (@billykid) moderated an interesting panel entitled “The Transformation of News Media”. Panelists included @johncook of GeekWire.com, @mikeindustries (Mike Davidson) of Newsvine, @markbriggs of @King5, and @curtwoodward of @Xconomy. Key takeaways:
- Most news is 90% AP (Associated Press) content.
- Appetite for long-form news is dead or dying. (Agree but for some news articles, long-form is necessary…try understanding the Greek/EuroZone situation).
- Mobile TV is about a year away. (WHAT? I can watch King5 in HD on my iPhone? That’s what was said by @markbriggs.)
- Community engagement in news helps shape the facts and the story, with short stories on blogs being driven, perhaps, from CPM advertising. Traditional media never got this.
- People consume news 15 times a day for 3 minutes at a time on their phones. However on tablets, people spend 20 minutes at a time.
- Crowd-sourcing or crowd journalism is growing FAST.
- A more informed public will be the result of these trends.
I tried the new EVRI iPad app and I think it is quite good. A few improvements are needed but it appears to be a more comprehensive platform than Flipboard. The improvements needed include:
- From the homepage, sometimes a news article will say something but when you click inside, there is no news article that touts such headlines. This is frustrating.
- Like in Flipboard, I want the ability to reply to a comment directly in the app, or share with LinkedIN, not just Twitter and Facebook.
@ShaunaCausey, beach vball player, VP of SMC Seattle, digital strategist who manages social media for @nordstrom gave an interesting talk on how conversation sparks innovation. Key points:
- 95% of companies don’t answer questions on Facebook. (WHAT?)
- Don’t delete comments on Facebook (look at Chapstick case study – TOO FUNNY!)
- MyStarbucksIdea.com is a great example of using the crowd to innovate.
- @sethsays “How can you squander even one more day not taking advantage of the greatest shifts in our generation.
Ben @Elowitz, co-founder and CEO of WetPaint was perhaps the most inspiring and intriguing presentation. @Elowitz writes a very interesting blog on http://digitalquarters.net/. Key takeaways (not including Ben’s 5 steps to know and serve your audience):
- In the last year, Facebook usage by individuals has increased on average 69%. Everything else has declined by 9% (WOW!).
- 75% of interaction about TV shows happens on the day the show did not air.
- Customer segmentation in social is critical. For WetPaint, that is interest-based segmentation.
- Google+ does not add anything new. Only about 40 million users (us techies to understand it) are using it.
- WetPaint is about being an expert at Social Distribution. (How can you use them? Is there a services play around WetPaint???)
- Zumobi apps get 200MM page views, all outside the google ecosystem. WOW!
- Design patterns for tablets must be different because usage patterns are very different – longer.
- The five principles include: Make it personal; make it focused; make it fresh; make it lucrative; make it flexible.
- Nobody cares about you or your product, they care about what you can do for them. (DOH)
- The allure of NOW is irresistible. Add NOW to all your messages like “you can save 1 hour today if you try this product”.
- FOCUS on doing one thing well. The HALO effect will help you to sell other stuff to satisfied clients.
- Give people fewer options and they’ll make a decision. Do “chunking” – 3 choices, then 5, then a few.
- Make a claim, show the proof.
- Switch your message from benefits to fear of loss messages. Focus on what people will lose by not using you, perhaps painting the worst case scenario.
