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Tag: social-networking

  • A New Vision of Mobile Social Networking: Interview with Olivier Chouraki, Mobiluck

    Mobiluck is another company that has rapidly realized the need for mobile information and mobile geo-locating people and places.

    Many companies are moving to the mobile space for a variety of reasons, but businesses that make the jump sooner tend to see the benefits much earlier and the relationships between users and companies tends to be stronger.

    Companies providing mobile web content, mobile media, mobile conversation tools, and mobile entertainment are finding themselves ahead of the curve and supplying their audiences with exactly what they need.

    Specifically, Mobiluck is a mobile service that allows users to find friends, places, and even people nearby with their smartphone. If you’ve got an account on Skype, AIM, or MSN for example, those friends can be included on the Mobiluck system, and their locations relative to yours will be shared and if they are nearby, what a great way to notify them.

    When asked if importing of contacts is remainst strictly to chat clients, Oliver Chouraki, CEO of Mobiluck says, “Yes at the moment you can import your MSN and other chat client contacts and we are working on Facebook and Twitter.”

    The service offered by Mobiluck is a location based service that is a more real life social network, allowing users to connect no matter where they are. Many will relate it to the online site, FriendFinder, but Mobiluck specializes in using the contacts you have on your programs and sharing just how far they are away from you.

    Oliver Chouraki

    Currently the service has 1.2 million people worldwide. “Our first place country is India, followed by the United States with rising numbers in Europe and the Middle East,” states Olivier on the rising popularity of the service.

    The Importance of Location Technology

    The concept of location technology is nothing new, we’ve been using these types of services on our GPS systems and on our cell phones with apps like FourSquare. Mobiluck is a social system that goes beyond connecting people with businesses, they look to connect people with people.

    If you look at the homepage on Mobiluck you will see simple text boxes where you can enter a keyword and you have ready buttons to search for places, friends, or people.

    “It’s not just tied to people you know, you can also search for people you don’t know so that you can meet new people who are at the same conference or in the same restaurant or at the same show and so on,” details Olivier.

    “We think that mobile social networks are extremely popular but today it is difficult to monetize and to create a profitable social network. On the other hand, the business model for yellow pages services, business directories, restaurant directories is very clear and can be very profitable. So what we are trying to do is combine the volumes of power of social networking with the profitability of yellow pages,” he continues sharing the business model for the company.

    It’s an interesting model considering that many social networks out there are still struggling with ways to monetize their efforts. Twitter for example has struggled with how to turn the millions and millions of users into a profitable community. Mobiluck offers up a business model that future social networks may emulate.

    Relationships with Businesses

    The vision of many mobile companies is that the mobile will be used for finding and being found. Many companies have an online presence, whether they own their website or just listed in directories, but due to the lack of understanding, very few of these sites are accessible on personal mobile devices. It’s not an uncommon thing since development for the mobile web is significantly different then general web site design.

    More often than not a company may not even be aware of their online presence, and if they do now they don’t know the difference between a standard website and a mobile site.

    As more and more people turn to mobile devices for information and interaction, companies that fail to realize the difference will be on the losing end of this turn in culture trends.

    “With Mobiluck companies can create their webpage in one minute for free. If you have a shop or a restaurant for example, you add a new place by filling out a form, and in a minute you have your own mobile page with a static web address that will be indexed by mobile search engines that not only Mobiluck users will be able to find your page, but anyone searching Google mobile or yellowpages mobile can still find your page and it will show what a lot of mobile users want to know: a shop description, name, the address of your place with a map, your phone number with a click to call, a price range and operation hours,” Olivier states.

    This type of return on information is what users are looking for when they are looking for informaiton on their mobile. Data consistently shows that users become frustrated and move on if there are barriers to getting this information. But aside from just receiving the information, users want to engage with that information and interact with others.

    Next Generation Search

    The next generation of search is more than just finding information, but what do people do with it? Mobiluck has seen the light, and many others in the mobile market are seeing the light too.

    Users feel more comfortable when they can interact with the information they are given by being able to rate something, comment on something, and share other people’s ratin gand coments. Favoriting and bookmarking are hot items right now and this type of information sharing is what has made the Web 2.0 era so dynamic.

    Businesses will not have a direct way to communicate with users, and users will have a new way to connect with their friends. With Mobiluck specifically, companies will be able to manage an internal mobile newsletter that keeps visitors and searchers informed on specials, events, and other important information related to the business. This information can be shared and responded to creating a two way street for information.

    Mobiluck will be speaking at Mobile Monday in Zurich, Switzerland on December 7, 2009. Be sure to pay special attention to the companies in the mobile space as they will collectively define the future of how we interact with data, businesses, and with one another.

  • Running Web 2.0 Campaign: Interview with Ben Self, Founding Partner of Blue State Digital

    Today’s connected society has relied on technology to help provide successful campagins in marketing, outreach, converting, establishing, ultimately looking for one thing…results.

    Most recently the United States was embroiled in a political race that was heated and highly contested. Many through their name in the hat, but in the end it was down to two major candidates from two of the major parties. What these candidates needed was a campaign that could provide results and that is where Ben Self and his company, Blue State Digital came into play.

    Blue State Digital is a full service creative and strategic firm dedicated to providing results for their clients. They also offer a tiered system that requires no downloads, installs, or plugins, but rather stays online for the client to log into as needed to check on their campaign, analyze results, and with accessibility on mobile devices, makes it easy for the client to stay connected.

    With their focus on design, strategy and implementation of their plan, they were able to become a part of the winning team that would eventually win the presidential campaign and make a major footprint for their company in the White House.

    What Their Software Does Best

    Ben Self

    Realizing how important it was to reach out to as many people as possible, Blue State Digital did what many thought was impossible. Blue State’s overall plan was to help put their client in front of as many people as possible, crossing boundaries of wealth, race, religion and age.

    Using new media tools and digital outlets they were able to tap into a market that has otherwise been apathetic to the voting process, and in doing so truly used their tools to change the way elections will be held in the future.

    Blue State Digital claims itself to be “the leader in online fundraising, advocacy, social networking, constituency development for nonprofit organizations, political candidates and causes, and corporations.” Though just starting in 2004 they’ve been able to acquire an impressive clientele list to include President Obama, Walmart, Alliance for Climate Protection and Communication Workers of America.

    When asked what separates their products and services from the rest, found partner Ben Self had this to say, “the thing that I think makes it really interesting and important is that it has been rigorously tested through our analytics department.”

    Ben went on to discuss how thorough the process of testing is using a contribution page as an example. He discusses how an extra form field can increase or decrease the donation amount, how something on a website might impact how long a person is on the page, and other such, what he calls “minor tweaks,” can impact the end user’s experience.

    On Social Media Tools

    Ben Self comments that social media has been given a place on a pedastool by too many people that do not understand the essentials of a true marketing campaign. He sees these networks as only tools for his company to use, while useful, should not be considered a sure thing.

    “And so we view some of the external social media sites, the Facebooks, the Twitterers, those things, as not necessarily the secret to the success, as they are a way of reaching out to people,” Ben responds to an inquiry on social media tools.

    His takeaway point from this conversation was definitly to never forget that putting something online for the sake of being online is not helpful to anyone. Interactive campaigns and outreach are not billboards, but rather a focused, and strategic measureable way of exchanging information and data.

    Blue State Digital recognizes that social networks are extremely useful in directing people to new websites, but Ben stresses that great content and a compelling message will hopefully keep them on your site and encourage them to follow through with the call to action of the campaign you set out to do.

    Metrics & Reporting

    Stated at the beginning of this article, results are what the clients are looking for. To get these, it’s vital that any campaign have a solid method of acquire metrics and an easy to comprehend reporting process so that the metics can be analyzed effectively. Ben recognizes the importance of sending a mass email, for example, but more importantly it’s how that person will interact with that email.

    “It’s things like open rates, click through rates where it emails, it action conversion rates where you go through that. It’s like everyone who signs a particular petition and how many follow through and send out and invite your friends to sign the petition as well. How many of those friends then come along and sign it. Its the qualitative side of measurement as well so what issue brought these individuals in originally, what should we be talking about with them ongoing,” says Ben Self in an example of how metrics can be measured from something as simple as an email campaign.

    In a bold statement Ben says that no action online goes without a way to measure it in some way. That is what Blue State Digital looks to capture and report. The key ingredient to their system is focusing in on what YOU are doing.

    Andicom 2009

    Blue State Digital was featured at Andicom 2009 in Colombia where Ben has been asked to discuss the case study of the Obama campaign.

    “It doesn’t matter if you are a politician, or a corporation or a nonprofit or a university or a film, we’ve worked with clients in all sorts of organizations, but that people are expecting the internet to not just be a broadcast medium anymore. They are expecting interactivity and giving a few examples of how you can build that interactivity honestly and transparently and then giving some best practices for engaging with people after you’ve built that website and once you’ve brought them there,” Ben says of his speaking topic.

    He adds that Blue State Digital wants to ensure that they share “the basics of online organizing along with a few best practices that hopefully people can take away from no matter what industry they come from.”

  • Motorola Introduces MOTOBLUR – the New Vision of Android Phones

    We have saved the date for long-expected Motorola’s big event, but instead of rumored two phones – Sholes and Morrison – the company introduced just one handset – CLIQ and the new custom Android UI – the MOTOBLUR.

    “Your entire social life now in a single streem!” – announced Motorola at GigaOM’s Mobilize ‘09 conference, unveiling the company’s first Android phone, “the first phone with social skills”. But all that buzz was not much about the new device, it was more about the new innovative interface solution.

    Developed by Motorola, MOTOBLUR is a solution that manages and integrates communications: it syncs contacts, posts, messages, photos, etc. – from sources such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Gmail, e-mail – and automatically delivers it to live widgets on the home screen. There is no need to open and close different applications or menus.

    According to the company, MOTOBLUR is also easy to set up and secure – all contacts, log-in information, home screen customizations, e-mail and social network messages are backed up on the MOTOBLUR secure server. Lost or stolen phones can be found with integrated A-GPS from the online owner’s portal, and data can even be wiped clean.

    “With MOTOBLUR we are differentiating the Android experience for consumers by delivering a unique mobile device experience designed around the way people interact today,” said Sanjay Jha, co-CEO of Motorola.

    “MOTOBLUR helps us to create phones that are instinctive, social and smart,” he added.

    This new solution will be available first on Motorola’s new device, called Motorola CLIQ in the U.S. and Motorola DEXT elsewhere around the globe.

    In the U.S., CLIQ will be available exclusively to T-Mobile customers later this fall in two colors — Titanium and Winter White.

    DEXT will be available with Orange in the United Kingdom and France, Telefonica in Spain and America Movil in Latin America.

    The first Motorolas’s 3G Android-powered device features include a 3.1-inch HVGA touch-screen display, a 5 megapixel auto focus camera with video capture and playback at 24 frames per second, a 3.5mm headset jack, a music player with pre-loaded Amazon MP3 store application, Shazam, iMeem Mobile, and a pre-installed 2GB microSD memory card.

    This QWERTY slider comes with thousands of applications and widgets from MOTOBLUR, Android Market or pre-loaded Google mobile services, Google Search by voice, Google Maps with Street View, YouTube and Picasa.

  • VoxOx Improves VoIP Freeware


    VoxOx is offering new freeware that comes with a Personal Assistant feature that includes call recording, call forwarding, call routing, and call screening.

    The multi-protocol messaging and VoIP communication client also has expanded social-networking features and stronger back-end support.

    The Personal Assistant feature introduced in the new version can also be set to answer all calls, route calls based on caller, as well as more standard uniform call routing.

    It also offers the ability to listen in on voicemails as they’re being recorded and users can set personalized ringback tones.

    With the new version VoxOx is setting out its stall as a one-stop communication hub.

    Instant messaging support has been expanded in the improvements to Facebook IM, MySpace IM, Gadu Gadu, and Skype.

    E-mail address book contacts can now be imported from Google, Hotmail, AOL, Mac, and Outlook address books.

    Both inbound and outbound faxes are included as part of VoxOx’s free feature set.

    The program automatically converts text documents to fax-appropriate signals when you’re sending out. Incoming faxes are received as PDFs.

    The freeware is available for Windows and Mac.

  • Social Networking and IM Broaden Appeal of Mobile VoIP Beyond Cheap Calls


    INTERVIEW: Alan Paton, research director for independent VoIP comparison website LowCostMob.com, tells voip.biz-news about the increasingly crowded – and sometimes confusing – mobile VoIP market.

    He also explains how social networking and Instant Messaging services such as Twitter have the potential to extend the appeal of mobile VoIP beyond simply offering cheap calls.

    Q: Why did you think it was necessary to set up LowCostMob.com and how does the service address this need?

    A: Though mobile phones have been popular for over 20 years – the penetration reached 100 per cent years ago and there are more mobile phones than people in the UK, many having two or more – the industry is far from mature.

    In fact it is now entering a period of even greater changes than in the past.

    With LowCostMob.com we are currently addressing one of these great changes and that is the availability of alternative mobile calling services, especially for international calls.

    Alternative phone services are not new in themselves. They have been a big part of the fixed line business since telecoms liberalisation in the 1980s and have become even more important since local loop unbundling was introduced.

    Ofcom (the UK regulator) statistics show for the UK there are at least 350 alternative fixed line calling services.

    But alternative calling services for mobile are new and have sprung up only in the last two years.

    The great enablers for this are:

    • the increasing computing power of mobile phones allowing them to run a wide range of add-on applications
    • their improving ability to access the web and services that the web makes possible

    We see an opportunity here to explain the growing range of offerings without the confusing marketing hype and to help users to select what suits them best.

    Solutions range from the very simple (you can use your existing mobile phone as it is) to those that require you to download and install an application (usually done in a few minutes).
    Many services make use of dual-mode smartphones (they can use WiFi). Each solution has its pros and cons.

    Q: What are the most confusing/misleading aspects facing consumers when contemplating mobile VoIP or mobile calling applications?

    A: The new services use one or more of several basic technologies, call-back, call-through, local number substitution, VoIP and WiFi, and it is amazing how often you have to dig deep into a provider’s web site to know exactly what they are offering.

    It is like a garage selling a car but making it difficult for the customer to know if its automatic or manual, diesel or petrol, or four door or five door.

    One of the biggest confusions is over what constitutes true mobile VoIP.

    We think it should be only those systems that implement the transformation to VoIP on the phone itself.

    Many providers call it "mobile" VoIP if any part of the overall connection to the called person uses VoIP.

    There is very little information on the current practicalities of using mobile VoIP; does your data service allow it, what quality will you get, what are the costs of using the data channel for VoIP, and the role of WiFi.

    Q: Do consumers base their choice of which service to use solely on price or are other factors involved?

    A: A desire for cheaper calls especially international calls is a big driving force but by no means the only one.

    There is also at this early stage of market growth a lot of interest from the gadget minded who just love to get the latest electronic gizmo.

    Another very big factor is the popularity of Instant Messaging, services like Twitter, and Social Networking.

    Managing your contacts is a real headache and people want access to all their communications services, and this includes social networking, when they are on the move.

    Many alternative calling providers offer aggregation services, that is access to all the IM communities or social networks that a user might belong to through one application interface on their mobile phone, and other services such as address book management.

    Cheap calls may be just one, and not necessarily the most important, of a rich range of features and new mobile services.

    Q: Do you see a move towards a particular type of service (Mobile VoIP, Call through, Call Back etc)? If so, what is driving this?

    A: VoIP is the long term future for the whole mobile industry but there is plenty of scope for other technologies for many years, perhaps indefinitely.

    Smartphones are having a big impact and from being a few per cent a couple of years ago are expected to be at least 30 per cent of the market by 2012.

    The iPhone has given a big push to the market giving users for the first time a really good web experience on a mass market mobile phone.

    The Skype WiFi mobile application for the iPhone achieved over 2 million downloads in 9 days of being launched. Incredible.

    The user demand is there. And, by the way, Skype is certainly cheap but it is by no means the cheapest for mobile VoIP calls. (See here for a comparison)

    Over the coming months we will see what Google with its Android operating system for smartphones and Nokia with its new product response to the iPhone, can deliver.

    Q: Is the current economic situation likely to lead to a clear-out in the mobile VoIP industry?

    A: No, of itself it won’t lead to a clear out, though I’m sure it will make conditions tougher for everyone.

    Changes will happen, companies will fail, new ones will appear, services will evolve or be dropped and new ones appear, but who flourishes and who doesn’t, depends most on management skills and sound product concepts.

    Q: What are the likely implications of potential legislation by regulators in the EU and US which could force mobile operators to allow mobile VoIP calls to be made on their networks?

    A: Huge. Think of those Skype iPhone application downloads and that was just for mobile VoIP over WiFI.

  • Mobile Internet Becoming Part of Daily Lives


    The number of people in the US using their mobile device to access news and information on the Internet more than doubled in the last year.

    An estimated 63.2 million people accessed news and information on their mobile devices in January 2009, up from 36.9 million doing so in January 2008, according to figures released today from comScore.

    Of these, 22.4 million (35 percent) did so daily – also more than double the size of the audience last year.

    The highest growth, however, was in accessing social networking sites or blogs, with 9.3 million using the mobile internet daily to access a social network site or blog in January 2009 compared with 1.8 million in January 2008.

    Mark Donovan, comScore’s senior vice president, mobile, said that that over the course of the past year, mobile Internet use has evolve from an occasional activity to being a daily part of people’s lives.

    "This underscores the growing importance of the mobile medium as consumers become more reliant on their mobile devices to access time-sensitive and utilitarian information."

    Donovan said that social networking and blogging have emerged as very popular daily uses of the mobile Web and these activities are growing at a torrid pace.

    "We also note that much of the growth in news and information usage is driven by the increased popularity of downloaded applications, such as those offered for the iPhone, and by text-based searches."

    In January, 22.3 million people accessed news and information via a downloaded applications, with 8.2 million people using downloaded maps applications.

    SMS is still a strong channel, with 32.4 million people using SMS to access news and information—including 14.1 million people using SMS for search.

    Donovan said that hile smartphones and high-end feature phones, like the Samsung Instinct and LG Dare comprise the Top 10 devices used for news and information access, 70 per cent of those accessing mobile Internet content are using feature phones.

    Other significant segments included:

    • Traded stocks or accessed financial account, which grew by 188 per cent to 3.3 million
    • Accessed movie information, which grew by 185 per cent to 3.1 million
    • Accessed business directories, which grew by 161 per cent to 2.4 million
    • Accessed entertainment news, which grew by 160 per cent to 5.5 million.