Thursday, February 28, 2013

Coca-Cola activates CIAA sponsorship via mobile concierge app - Mobile Marketer - Content

February 27, 2013

Coca-Cola is making the most of its sponsorship of a college basketball tournament via a new browser-based mobile application designed to make sure attendees do not miss any of the activities surrounding the event.

Coca-Cola has been a corporate sponsor of the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association Tournament. This year, the company’s marketing efforts around the tournament in Charlotte, NC, includes offering the Enjoy More CIAA Coke Zero mobile app.

“This app furthers our commitment to CIAA’s fans by bringing everything CIAA to the palm of their hands,” said Lauventria Robinson, vice president of multicultural marketing ffor the Coca-Cola North America Group.

“The Coke Zero drinker is very mobile savvy, so we wanted to develop a way to gather information about the CIAA via a mobile platform – which we feel connects with our target audience better than a Web site or a brochure,” she said.

“Finally, with more than 200,000 people expected to visit Charlotte this week, we felt this was a great way for people unfamiliar with the area to get pertinent information - food, events and schedule - offered up in an easy and engaging way by Coke Zero.”

Push notifications The CIAA tournament typically brings more than 200,000 people to Charlotte for five days of games and related activities.

Coke Zero is the tournament’s official soft drink.

The new Enjoy More CIAA Coke Zero smartphone app was designed to make attendees aware of all of the events happening between games and around Charlotte.

Coca-Cola created the browser-based app, which works across multiple devices.

Features in the app include an event schedule and interactive map. There are also push notifications to alert fans where to head next for fun activities.

Additionally, app users will have access to exclusive nightlife events, with a chance to win VIP passes.

The marketing effort behind the sponsorship also includes a Twitter tie-in, with fans able to follow the action and share their experiences using the hashtag #enjoymoreCIAA.

Sports marketing Last year, a report from Motricity found that 79 percent of sports fan use mobile for activities such as checking scores to watching recaps as a way to help them keep up to date on their favorite teams.

The report also found that sports fans are most interested in mobile applications that let them view a game from the perspective of a player. SMS and mobile Web can also a play an important role in sports marketing.

Fan activationCoca-Cola has built similar apps around a specific event previously.

During last year’s March Madness tournament in New Orleans, the Coke Zero Mobile Concierge was made available on smartphones as a hub for all 2012 Final Four activations and events. It provided event information, aggregated some of the social chatter associated with New Orleans during Final Four Weekend and rewarded consumers through programs like specials or behind-the-scenes content.

The content was available via snap tags/vanity URLs provided to fans from street teams and posters.

Additionally, last summer at the Coca-Cola Essence Music Festival in New Orleans, a similar mobile app was built to keep attendees up-to-speed on all of the events happening at and around the festival.

“Users will see our landing page when they go to http://www.enjoymoreCIAA.com from their mobile device,” Ms. Robinson said. “The home screen features our live news feed, which will be updated with live posts, event photos and match scores.

“They will also be able to access the menu from the home screen, providing them with maps, ‘hook-ups’ to local food and entertainment options, schedules, nightlife and VIP opportunities,” she said. “Users will also be able to Tweet and Message directly to Twitter and Facebook from the app.”

Final TakeChantal Tode is associate editor on Mobile Marketer, New York

Retailers focus on flash sales as mobile changes how consumers shop - Mobile Commerce Daily

Retailers focus on flash sales as mobile changes how consumers shop - Mobile Commerce Daily

By Chantal Tode

February 27, 2013

With flash sales sites such as Gilt Groupe and Rue La La posting significant growth during the recent holiday season – driven in large part by mobile users – other retailers are looking to get in on the action with their own flash sales offerings.

Several ecommerce Web sites who focused on limited-time sales, also known as flash sales, saw revenue jump as much as 50 percent during the 2012 holiday shopping season and reported similar jumps in mobile traffic and sales. The success of flash sites suggests it is becoming a mainstream retailing concept.

“We see the trend continuing,” said Bob Egner, vice president of product management and global marketing at EPiServer US, Chicago.

“There is a segment of the market that is always going to do that,” he said. “The technique will continue to be used in more innovative ways in the upcoming shopping season.

“Mobile becomes a really critical part for unlocking the power of flash sales because it usually people who are always connected,” he said. “People who are in their normal life are getting interrupted by some message that is coming to them on a mobile device, usually a smartphone, and they are making a quick evaluation and purchasing based on impulse.”

Retailers take notice
While flash sales sites saw significant growth during the holiday shopping period, overall ecommerce sales grew just 14 percent during the same period.

Seeing a new opportunity to reach impulse buyers more retailers are looking to incorporate flash sales into their offerings.

For example, Wayfair, a home décor ecommerce retailer, recently launched a flash sales site, Daily Fair. The flash sales site includes up to seven new sales per day, each lasting for 72 hours, with shoppers receiving an email at noon announcing the daily sales.

Impulse purchasesOne reason why retailers are gravitating toward flash sales is the ability to attract the impulse buyer.

“Flash sales capitalize on the buyers’ perception of urgency for a great deal,” Mr. Egner said. “This could either be a price related, or a unique product in limited quantity – since the offer is time limited, it forces the transaction forward.

“Flash sales tend to be well suited for the connected consumer who can spot the deal and act on it immediately without having to get to their computer,” he said. “We heard numerous anecdotes from this past holiday shopping season about double digit percent increases in sales.

“In fact, retailers that we talk to tell us they are placing more attention on this type of impulse buyer because it’s a segment that Amazon doesn’t address.”

Additional benefits of flash sales include that they are effective at capturing consumers’ attention, driving them to a Web site and, hopefully, encouraging them to purchase full-price, as well as flash sale items.

Long-term questionsDespite the strong sales posted by flash sales sites, many have questioned the long-term potential of this retail concept. One potential issue for flash sales sites is the low margins inherent in this model.

Additionally, brands typically have a love-hate relationship with the idea of discounting. Some could eventually decide that flash sales sites dilute their brand image and stop making inventory available to these sites.

As the space gets more crowded, it is also unclear just how big an appetite consumers have for limited-time sales.

Many times, retailers jump into flash sales too quickly without the proper preparation, including having the right amount of inventory on hand.

Still, when done well, flash sales have the potential to generate significant revenue for retailers.

“Data from IBISWorld and comScore suggest flash sales are about 1 percent of 2012 retail e-commerce sales, but out of $186B total sales, that’s a lot of spending,” Mr. Egner said. “Forrester backed this up in a recent webinar we ran with them – Postmortem: 2012 Online Holiday Shopping Season – that their data shows mobile devices just do better for flash sales than traditional computers.”

Final Take
Chantal Tode is associate editor on Mobile Commerce Daily, New York

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Devs get Google login buttons — but will they use them? | VentureBeat

This morning, Google announced it’s giving web and mobile app developers access to Google+ login buttons — and a panoply of special features along with them — to use for app signups and identity authentication.

The question is, will developers in a saturated world of Twitter and Facebook login buttons be willing to hop onboard with yet another system?

Googlers David Glazer and Seth Sternberg spoke with us at length yesterday; both work on Google+’s developer-focused products. They told us the Google+ buttons put the focus on simplicity, eliminate social spam, and try to give users a seamless experience between desktop and mobile. So far, the buttons can be used by web, Android, and iOS developers.

For developers, the mobile/web seamlessness provides one of the biggest incentives for using the system. If you’ve got an Android app and a user is browsing around your desktop website after a Google+ login or signup, she will be prompted to download the Android app. Then, she can opt to get an over-the-air install of the app without ever touching her phone.

“A lot of times, [people] are using a web application that they love, and they don’t even realize it has an Android app,” Sternberg said. “It’s just not obvious. So we’ve made it easy to get an app onto your phone with one tap.”

As for iOS users, Glazer said they’ll be sent to Apple’s App Store from a download prompt; unfortunately, Apple doesn’t allow that particular kind of automatic over-the-air download.

Google+ and social benefits

Aside from that killer OTA Android feature, why else would devs want to adopt yet another login/signup button, we asked?

After all, a lot of social graphs are duplicative across various social websites, so connecting an app’s content with a user’s online friends isn’t a unique function to Google+. Like Facebook’s Open Graph, Google+ signups let users see and edit what permissions an app has to interact with their profiles and networks. And like Facebook’s Open Graph, Google+ signups can lead to some really interesting interactive content.

But at least devs don’t have to get all Sophie’s Choice about it. “That’s not the thing we’re asking developers to choose, said Sternberg. “They can put Google+ signup next to Twitter or Facebook or their own authentication. … There are lots of great advantages for the developer and the user, but it’s not a one-or-the-other choice. … You could connect with both, or make it single sign-on.”

One advantage that Google+ has over Facebook, however, is that it’s encouraged its users to categorize their relationships and friend groups from the start. Facebook has friend-grouping features, but these came along rather late in the game, and not all users have risen to the challenge of organizing a few hundred folks by how well and from where they know them.

So Google+ has an advantage with its Circles, which means developers can use Google+ to offer truly selective sharing options. Selective sharing means items can go to certain Circles of friends, eliminating much of what Glazer and Sternberg call “social spam.”

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And it’s not just Circles that get rid of unwanted social noise. Remember, Google has many opportunities to reach users, and not always when they’re in a social mood. The company could use Google+ app data to surface that app’s content when you’re doing web search or looking at YouTube videos (e.g., showing you songs your friends recommend when you’re browsing the web looking for new music).

Take Google+ launch partner Flixter. Glazer said, “One of the things that Flixster did; they realized this isn’t just about G+ sign-in, it’s about connecting their users to Google. .. So as part of their integration, they also connected to users’ calendars, so when people say they want to go to a movie, it shows up on their calendar and the people they’re going with. … They also took a look at the reviews people write of movies. And if I’m looking for a film and want to know what people I know say about it, that’s when it’s going to be relevant. Right place, right time.”

Those last four words seem to be something of a mantra with the Google+ team and reflect a big part of its attitude toward helping users share. After all, Google has a unique opportunity to reach more people at different times in their online lives than does Facebook. And when notifications can pop up in a variety of Google properties — email, web search, YouTube — there are more opportunities to serve content without having it be intrusive or spammy. “We’re not announcing any form of integration for any other properties,” said Glazer. “For now, these activities will go on a user’s profile. But you can imagine over time that these activities will appear in the right places.”

And finally, there’s security. Google says it’s banking on consumers’ much higher perception of web security and privacy with the new Google+ button. As Glazer put it, “[Security] is a big one. A user who’s not thinking about any of this stuff, they want to continue not thinking about this stuff. They just want to feel safe.”

And after years of FUD (as well as legitimate concerns) around how Facebook treats user data, Google has the upper hand in many consumers’ minds.

Next steps for current Google-linked devs

Google has long seen Google+ as a sort of passport that will eventually link all a user’s Google-powered activities to a single identity. So it comes as no surprise that the company is gently nudging developers toward the new login/signup button and away from older Google authentications.

“The underlying technology shares a lot of elements, but we’re not going to change the behavior of existing apps,” said Sternberg. “But we are suggesting to devs that they would benefit from a bunch of new features if they switch over.”

Glazer said getting up and running on Google+ buttons is a bit of an undertaking — that is, getting it right can require some effort. This isn’t a “plug in two lines of code and then have a launch party” kind of deal.

“What we’ve seen is that most people can get a prototype up in a couple of hours and get it shippable within a couple weeks,” he said. “Then they spend more time doing interesting connections, using other information. But the basics is on the order of a couple weeks.”

Check out the documentation for more details.

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Email marketers adopt responsive design to drive mobile results

February 26, 2013

With mobile opens for email continuing to grow, savvy marketers are getting more sophisticated in their approach, adopting a mobile-first approach and other best practices to ensure their emails hit the mark.

Mobile email is a big topic for digital marketers in 2013 as mobile open rates continue to grow. One of the key ways that marketers are building successful mobile email campaigns is through the use of responsive design.

“A lot of effort is now going in to make sure users can scan and click on the email when it's on the small screen. If it takes a user to pinch or zoom to see the email, forget it – they're gone,” said Matt Caldwell, vice president of creative and agency services at Yesmail Interactive, Portland, OR. “So one area of increased sophistication is in message design and coding.

“Responsive email design is probably the best example of increased sophistication,” he said. “Responsive coding and design of email can be complicated and time-consuming, but because of this surging open on a mobile, we see many if not all, of our clients want to do it.

“Why? It will alter the email layout to a true mobile design when opened on mobile.”

Formatting for mobile A recent report from Knotice forecasts that most brands will see at least half of their commercial emails opened via mobile devices by the end of 2013.

However, despite an increase in mobile opens, Yesmail found that many marketers are still not formatting their email properly for mobile.

“In our informal survey of more than 65 marketers over six months, we found that only 14 of 65 had properly formatted emails for mobile,” Mr. Caldwell said. “Our test was, 'when opened on the mobile device, can I read every word and click on every link without having to adjust the email layout to make it bigger?'

“So we're still seeing many, email marketers are ignoring this important aspect of email – how to design and code it,” he said.

In its 2013 Lookbook, Yesmail identifies a number of ways that marketers can improve their email design to drive open rates, click through rates and ROI.

For example, marketers can use a mobile scalable hybrid layouts, with one layout for big and small screens alike.

Another tip is to pull social content such as tweets, photos and comments right into the message.

Yesmail also recommends using a catch-all bottom navigation format to help get clicks to other category levels with a series of links at the bottom.

It is also important to include mobile calls-to-action in emails, such as enabling recipients to click to launch a smartphone app from within the message or to click to call.

Scalable vs. responsive design
Yesmail recommends marketers dive in and try either scalable or responsive email design or both.

“Scalable means ‘the pumped up layout’ – you keep your message with the same 600 pixels but you pump up your type – to a minimum 14 points – and you pump up your buttons,” Mr. Caldwell said. “Why make it bigger? Because when the layout is reduced to have its size on the phone it can still be read and clicked.

“Responsive is using media queries to make your HTML email device aware,” he said. “When it's opened on a small screen, it will load a different set of styles that can resize, reformat and delete to make a true mobile layout.”

One key learning from the Knotice data is that emails are not being viewed on multiple devices, meaning that if consumers do not act on an email when they open it on mobile it is highly unlikely they will reopen that email when they get home and can open it on a desktop device.

This underscores the need for marketers to have a mobile email strategy in place that ensures email does not render poorly on a mobile screen.

Matching PC performance levels While responsive design can help address the need to get it right the first time, it does not address all the issues on mobile, such as matching performance levels on PCs, per Knotice.

“One trend marketers are now using to address this is responsive design for email,” said Patti Renner, director of marketing at Knotice, Akron, OH. “This format strategy incorporates multiple content options built into the email, with the ability to adjust the email images and content served based on the size of the viewport when opened.

“While this is getting some buzz as a cure-all for dealing with device proliferation amongst consumers, responsive design is no silver bullet,” she said. “Even the best responsive design on mobile may not match performance levels on PC.

“And it may not render as well on Android as it does on iPhone. Mobile optimization requires marketers to be open to testing, adjusting, testing, and then testing again to get it right for the audience.”

Marketers also need to pay attention to click activity across channels, as this is an indicator of how people engage with an email once they have opened it.

Currently, click activity remains much stronger on PC and desktop compared to smartphones and tablets. However, this could start to change as marketers start sending more mobile-friendly emails.

“The simple fact that click activity remains so much stronger on PC and desktop as compared to phone or tablet will likely shift when predictive design methodology is used – anticipating the device used based on a past history of email activity for that device, for that individual and designing around that,” Ms. Renner said.

“This is the trend we see coming for marketers – using your data for mobile optimization, while understanding individuals and the devices they use for the best mobile experience possible,” she said.

Final TakeChantal Tode is associate editor on Mobile Marketer, New York

Monday, February 25, 2013

Zappos Takes a Close Look at Consumers' Mcommerce Patterns - eMarketer

Aki Iida
Head of Mobile
Zappos.com

As head of mobile at Zappos.com, Aki Iida wants to continue to find ways for the shoe and apparel retailer to be front of mind for shoppers. He spoke to eMarketer’s Christine Bittar about mobile shoppers, how to appeal to consumers on smartphones and where people really are when they place orders.

eMarketer: Do you think consumers are using their smartphones to actually fulfill a Zappos order or is it still more of a shopping tool and orders are finished on the desktop?

Aki Iida: It’s a combination of both. There’s definitely been progress; more people now complete the full purchase on mobile. In testing, however, we’ve seen there’s still a subset of customers who like the app experience, say it’s fantastic, but are hesitant to complete the purchase there [because] they need to see merchandise on a bigger screen. People also use [our app] as a browsing tool and for checking on the whereabouts of orders.

Initially, we were wondering if people were looking to purchase things on the website or the app because there’s a browsing mechanism on the app. Looking at conversion numbers, my view so far is that a person doesn’t come to the app and necessarily buy something right away, so there’s a fair amount of browsing as well, so it’s really comparable to the website.

“Tablets are very different from phones. Interestingly enough, I think the phone mirrors the PC to some extent.”

eMarketer: Of the people placing orders with smartphones, are they doing this while on the go or do they wait until they’re home?

Iida: From our surveys, we see that a significant number of people are using the mobile apps from home. If you look at the sales patterns, however, we see orders throughout the day, which to me says they’re ordering on the go as well. These might be people at work or who are out and about. We get customer feedback about that, too.

One time somebody was in the bathroom and they placed an order and then tweeted, “Hey, this is the most expensive bathroom trip ever. Thanks, Zappos app.” [People] will spend $400 buying shoes and clothes while they’re in the bathroom.

eMarketer: Where do tablets fit in?

Iida: Tablets are very different from phones. Interestingly enough, I think the phone mirrors the PC to some extent. From what I can tell, tablets are actually a little more active during off-work hours—after 5 or 6pm—and on weekends, which is really interesting. We also see this over long weekends and holidays.

I think with the phone or PC, a person is actively trying to make a purchase, whereas with that tablet, it’s like you’re holding a book. It’s more leisurely. It’s something you wouldn’t do sitting at a desk, but would do when you’re actually laying down, because obviously it’s a little harder to lay down with your phone and slowly look at things. You’re not going to carry your PC to your couch and sit with it.

eMarketer: So does that mean that you’re seeing different shopping and buying patterns with the tablets as opposed to desktops and phones?

Iida: Yes. One thing we’ve seen is that [mobile] definitely extends the day. So the long weekends and holidays, which can sometimes be slower days, are complemented now by mobile. Think of people at a barbeque on the Fourth of July weekend pulling out their phones after you’ve just had a few beers and had the barbeque or being at Thanksgiving with your family and pulling out your tablet leisurely while everybody’s watching football, and you’re shopping. In a lot of ways, the desktop or even laptop has a working connotation to it and takes more time to start up and actually open the web browser, whereas on a phone, it can be a lot more impulsive.

Time of usage is really fluctuating, but the high time is primarily evenings. That’s especially true if we include tablets. We don’t think tablet use is the same as a PC, and I'm not sure how much of a secret this is but most people do their shopping while they’re at work [with the office computer].

“I'm not sure how much of a secret this is, but most people do their shopping while they’re at work [with the office computer].”

eMarketer: Were your mobile app and app enhancements designed with the idea that they’re being used on the run, or both in and out of the home?

Mobile offers features that PCs don’t, so we would like to continue to innovate with those features. For example, last year we looked at how a lot of people are using their smartphones and tablets to interact with social media, so you’ll see all of our apps have native Facebook and Twitter integration so that you can quickly tweet while you’re shopping that you’ve seen a particular product, share it with friends or put it on Facebook.

A longer version of this interview is available to eMarketer corporate subscribers only. If you’d like to learn more about becoming a corporate subscriber, click here.

Friday, February 22, 2013

3 Ways to Turn Social Media Followers Into Promoters of Your Brand | Entrepreneur.com

Collecting Facebook likes and Twitter followers is important for building a social media fan base. But business owners who want tangible results from their social media efforts are looking deeper into how they can convert fans into advocates for their brands.

"The days of experimentation are over," Michael Wrigley, chief marketing officer for U.K.-based social marketing platform EngageSciences, said yesterday during "You've Built a Fan Base, Now What?", a panel discussion during the Social Media Week Conference in New York City. Your fan base is like any other database, he said, and if you don't activate it, "the data will be pretty much worthless."

Here are three strategies that you can use to turn your social media fans into advocates for your brand:

1. Listen to, then engage with fans.
On a day in early September last year, Aaron Hall drove for seven hours -- 400 miles total -- from Youngstown, Ohio to New York City to be first person in line for the unveiling of the Nokia Lumia 820 and 920 smartphones. That's how excited the 32-year-old systems administrator was to see them.

When Nokia learned of Hall's journey, the company blogged about it. The immediate result: a devoted customer felt appreciated, and Nokia showed that it treats its customers as individuals.

You might not come across passionate customers like Hall every day, but the trick is to listen to what your fans and followers are saying about you over social media, then engage with them and highlight their passion for your brand. These people are your biggest advocates, said Brad Spikes, Nokia's head of social media marketing for North America.

Related: 3 Social Media Lessons From Ford

2. Concentrate on your 'soul mates.'
The Humane Society of the United States has 1.6 million Facebook fans and more than 180,000 Twitter followers. Its challenge is to sift through all those people to find the few who will be ambassadors for the Human Society's mission, says Michael Hutney, director of emerging media and strategic accounts for The Stelter Co., a Des Moines, Iowa-based marketing firm for nonprofits.

Hutney suggests launching fun social campaigns as one way to separate out your most engaged fans. For example, the Humane Society created a Facebook campaign around "cruelty-free" products, including a quiz that encouraged users to "Test your cruelty-free IQ." From there, it was possible to see which users had shared the quiz, how many referrals they had made and how many of their friends had subsequently taken the quiz.

With this method, "I can identify invisible people in the crowd and find out who cares about [my brand]," says Hutney. Once these top advocates had been identified, Humane Society communications officers were able to follow up with them to get them further involved.

3. Make new fans with multi-platform campaigns.
Last November, Kellogg's cereal and a U.K.-based television network teamed up to promote the company's new Krave cereal to viewers aged 16 years and older. For a week, TV ads that ran during Channel 4 shows popular with this demographic posed trivia questions related to material in the show and directed viewers to Krave's Facebook page to enter their answers. Kellogg's created this cross-platform promotion based on the knowledge that 72 percent of people 25 years old and younger use Facebook or Twitter to comment on TV shows.

The result: 50,000 interactions with Krave's Facebook page, of which 13,000 were referrals -- meaning people shared the promotion with their friends, increasing Kellogg's marketing reach and potentially creating new customers.

After a campaign like this, it's important for brands to examine how well they're reengaging their existing fans, said Richard Jones, CEO of EngageSciences. Go beyond treating your fan base as just an undifferentiated set of numbers.

Thursday, February 21, 2013

IU prof patents his 'Twitter predictor' for stock market swings | Indianapolis Star

IU prof patents his 'Twitter predictor' for stock market swings | Indianapolis Star | indystar.com

Written by

Stephanie Wang

Johan Bollen's 'Twitter Predictor' is a formula for gauging society's mood based on Twitter or Facebook posts. / Indiana University photo

Millions of your 140-character tweets — that mindless drivel and those snippets of wisdom — have already predicted the bobbing of the stock market.

Soon, they could divine the onset of the flu or the movement of politics.

Since his 2010 research article set people atwitter, Indiana University researcher Johan Bollen has broadened his formula for gauging society’s mood based on Twitter or Facebook posts. This week, he won a patent for what many have dubbed “the Twitter predictor.”

What you ate for breakfast? Your favorite sports team’s big win? That funny thing your cubicle neighbor just said? Crank it all through a formula and the tweets can hint at society’s collective mood of the moment, based on certain words about how you feel.

“Public sentiment is a pretty ghostly concept,” said Bollen, an associate professor of informatics. “You’re trying to quantify something that maybe people feel isn’t inherently qualitative.”

Other researchers have examined tweets to determine how happy people are in different cities or states. Marketers have looked at tweets to understand whether people like their products.

What Bollen found is that these moody tweets can be used to peer into the near-future, as indicators of what could happen socioeconomically or financially.

The first test tied tweets to the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Bollen’s research with doctoral student

Huino Mao claimed close to 90-percent accuracy in predicting the stock’s short-term changes. When people seemed calm, the Dow went up. When they became anxious, it sank.

The recent patent brings his startup, Guidewave Consulting, closer to selling the invention for wider use. IU’s Research andTechnology

Corp., a Guidewave shareholder, can collect royalties from sales.

But not everyone buys into it.

“I’m still somewhat skeptical,” said Mark Foster, chief investment officer for Kirr Marbach & Co. in Columbus, Ind. “The short term is sort of a random event.”

“It could be a coincidence,” said Bill Wendling, chief investment officer for Indianapolis-based Bedel Financial Consulting. “In real live testing with actual money, it’ll take a couple of years to find out whether it’s a valid option or not.”

Both investment experts say the invention is better geared toward day trading or hedge funds, as opposed to longer-term investments.

Bollen said two hedge funds have tested the Twitter predictor. He acknowledges a risk

but uses this analogy: “If you’re a farmer, we’re not telling you how to grow corn. We’re telling you what the weather will be like.”

The next step is to steer the data analysis to examine what drives certain feelings. It’s easy to see when people aren’t happy, Bollen said, “but the big challenge is to explain why.”

Star researcher Cathy Knapp contributed to this report. Call Star reporter Stephanie Wang at (317) 444-6184

.

Is Google Glass a Smartphone Killer? | Adweek

Why Brands Are Already Looking at Google Glass, and Why Apple Should Be Worried

Experts say product could kill smartphones, alter marketing landscape for years to come
By Christopher Heine,Sam Thielman

Will Google Glass kill the smartphone? Reinvent gaming? Steal the second screen from tablets? Alter the marketing and shopping landscape entirely? Probably not completely, and not all at once (since the device won't be commercially available until next year). But experts predict that the new product could be a game-changer along the lines of the iPhone—one that could send shockwaves across the entertainment, advertising, commerce, media and gaming worlds.

Take smartphones, for example. After observing a video released by Google today, a clip which showcases the digitally-enhanced headwear's technological advancements, some industry players contend that if consumers take a shine to Glass the device would challenge iPhones, Androids, etc. Theoretically, in this tech-loving world, it could become numerous consumers’ go-to mechanism for many things they currently do on smartphones, such as playing games, shooting videos, "second-screening" and finding local businesses on the go.

"I love it for no other reason than that it actually feels like we are being pulled forward," said Ian Shafer, CEO of Deep Focus. "It's hard to say that something like that has happened since the iPhone. The innovation aspect just makes it seems like a big pull forward."

Implications abound for mobile commerce and entertainment. "It'll be an opportunity to get information that users currently would find with their phone," Shafer explained. "They could actually pull it out of thin air—whether it’s buying movie tickets or getting show times, etc. When you think of things we are accustomed to getting from our mobile device, this is even more immediate gratification from an information perspective."

From a marketing standpoint, the Deep Focus exec said, it could make augmented reality worth more advertising spend. "If it is as simple as just looking at something, that will remove a big barrier of entry for people," he said.

Greg Stuart, CEO of the Mobile Marketing Association, said Google Glass could evolve advertising in unforeseen ways. "I believe in the ingenuity of people," he said, "and our ability to fill white space."

If you're already champing at the bit to buy ads on Google Glass, you're in luck: Andrew Couch, executive officer at software developer Candy Lab, said that his company is ready to roll with Google Glass as soon as it starts shipping—after its smartphone and tablet alternate-reality overlay app Cachetown shipped, Candy Lab has been approached by parties from Chase to NASA about using the GPS encoding software to add in branded overlays.

With Google Glass, Couch predicts, "you can open up your Chase app, do a 360 turn with your phone and the ATM closest to you will appear closer; the ATM farthest to you will appear farther away."

It's important, by the way, to understand what Google Glass is and is not—it is not a phone; it is a really extravagant expansion for your current phone, like a BlueTooth headset for your eyes. The product is wirelessly connected to your phone's GPS and microprocessor and so on; it uses all that power in your hip pocket to run recognition software and display hardware mounted on your head.

It's also going to be the first product in Google's newly announced retail stores, Couch said— and "they're not going to get into the software side of advertising."

That, he said, is up to the developers. "So far we're the only ones, but I'll tell you what, if you don't start with the augmented reality you own yourself and jump right in, it really is a pain to figure all that out." Couch knows that for a fact—when Candy Lab was trying to create Cachetown, they couldn't get anyone to cooperate with them to help the GPS overlay software, and they had to draw up the whole thing from scratch.

You can get a sense of what advertising on Glass will look like from that app, which already does something similar using your iOS or Android tablet as a window into a Mario-like world of "coins" that grant real-world rewards (kicking turtles is not recommended by the app creator).The ability to overlay game or commercial applications on real-life surfaces would seem to be this ad come to life.

In addition to advertising and other media-consumption attributes, Google Glass could prove to be a valuable production tool for creatives. Filmmakers and videographers could utilize the device to create stylistic footage, in the tradition of auteur or cinéma vérité.

"That first-person point of view can be a really fun storytelling mechanism," Shafer from Deep Focus said. "People who start getting their hands on these things early on will be experimenting with content creation."

Take televised football games, as another example, he said. "You could certainly see coaches wearing these on the sidelines," Shafer said. "NFL Films' biggest innovation was mic-ing up the sidelines. This would be essentially 'camming’ up the sidelines."

The gaming applications for Google Glass are also tantalizing—imagine playing capture the flag with your friends in Grand Central Station, or fighting ghosts in Central Park. Google Glass isn't a screen in the traditional sense—it's an overlay, so the only real use it could conceivable have in terms of traditional, sitting-in-front-of-your-television gaming would be as an alternate HUD (heads-up display)—an alternative to the health meters that usually sit in the corner of the screen. There are obviously other, more elaborate things it could do, but it seems like it would likely be more of a peripheral when paired with your Xbox and your plasma screen.

There are hurdles here, of course. What's more, it's fair to wonder—in this struggling economy—whether the initial price-point of $1,500 might stymie consumer excitement and early adoption for when it becomes available in 2014.

And lastly, not everyone sees the future when watching the Google Glass video (check it out below). In fact, Lindsey Holmes, CEO of local marketing firm LCH Business SM & Tech, said the device looks "douchey."

"And I'm a big Google and a big innovation fan," Holmes said. "It looks like Star Trek, and we are not there yet. I have practical questions, too, as people would be bumping into each other. And what if I already wear glasses?"

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