Group items tagged

This agile model (which is now well known in Silicon Valley and in the software engineering world) has transformed software.  It has many benefits:  it reduces the long cycle times that create risk; it enables engineers to take advantage of the fact that requirements change quickly; and it honors the fact that people perform best when they work on small projects they can finish quickly.

Agile is also built on the understanding that people learn in small chunks - so while it may in fact take a year or two to build a highly complex website, no person needs to try to understand the entire engineering program in advance.  And as the image on the right shows, daily work becomes a part of a bigger project in a continuous, dynamic process.

Look at where Agile fits in Management and HR:

I would like to talk about an inflection point in social media that requires pause. I am not suggesting that there will be a social media 2.0 or 3.0 for that matter. Nor do I see the term social media departing our vocabulary any time soon. After all, it was recently added to the Merriam-Webster dictionary.  Instead, what I would like to discuss is the end of an era of social media that will force the industry to mature. It won’t happen on its own however. Evolution will occur because consumers demand it and also because you’re willing to stake your job on it.

The future of social media comes down to one word, “value.” Without it, businesses will find it much more difficult to earn and retain friends, fans and followers (3F’s). As adoption of social networks soared in previous years, growth is now plateauing.  eMarketer estimates that Facebook growth will hit only 13.4% this year after experiencing 38.6% acceleration in 2010 and a staggering 90.3% ascension the year before. Facebook isn’t alone in its sobriety either. The  rate of Twitter user adoption fell from 293.1% growth in 2009 to 26.3% this year.

Between June 2009 and June 2011, the following changes were noted in Facebook activity: - Uploading videos is experiencing a modest increase around the world up 5% in the U.S. and 7.6% worldwide. - Installing apps is on the decline, down 10.4% in the U.S. and 3.1% worldwide. - Sending virtual gifts may not be gifts worth giving after all, with numbers declining 12.9% in the U.S. and 7.5% around the world. Twitter on the other hand is a rich exchange for  information commerce, where links become a form of digital currency. For example, 45% share an opinion about a product or brand more than once per day. Another 34% of Twitter users also share a link about a product or brand more than once per day.

Ze Frank: Star.me is a cross between a social network and a social game that provides a playground for people to have more fun with their friends. We are in the midst of a major shift in media industry where social engagement is the new currency and real interactions are replacing impressions and clicks. That’s what I have been focused on for years, play and participation, and star.me is a distilled version of that thinking. Plus it’s super fun

Star.me boasts 20,000 users and is “growing fast!”, there have been 117,000 mini missions answered, 70,000 stars sent, and 84% of all users have contributed content. That’s engagement.

The Starbucks brand may be synonymous with pricey lattes, but the coffee conglomerate has pushed a number of mobile initiatives in 2011 to make its name also stand for digital innovation.

New numbers released Monday suggest that the strategy is working.

Starbucks has now processed more than 26 million mobile payments since January, Adam Brotman, vice president and general manager of digital ventures at Starbucks, told VentureBeat.

Exclusive: In a push to boost its payments platform for the gaming industry, American Express, has acquired virtual currency platform and in-game payments provider Sometrics. The total deal value is $30 million, but both parties declined to reveal further details about the split between cash and stock. Sometrics will become part of the Enterprise Growth Group, and will be used within American Express’ Serve digital payments platform to incorporate virtual currencies and loyalty programs.

Sometrics helps gaming publishers market free-to-play online games and monetize virtual currency with a consumer destination site and in-game payment solutions. Sometrics’ in-game payments platform basically powers virtual currency transactions and payments for game publishers. Sometrics also serves users with targeted offers based on their location, demographic, conversion history and social affiliation.

The company currently supports dozens of payment options (including mobile carrier infrastructure and credit card support) and hundreds of brand engagement ads, reaching a total global audience of more than 225 million consumers in more than 200 countries. And through Sometrics’ analytics capabilities, developers are able to view and analyze which audience demographics are responding to which payment options, respond by pushing traffic to the options that convert best, and optimize those conversions to help maximize revenue. Current gaming partners that use Sometrics include Nexon, NHN USA, IMVU, PopCap, BigPoint, Habbo, and many others.

Over the past year, American Express has been making several key payments partnerships with technology companies and launched its take on the digital wallet, Serve. Serve integrates a variety of payment options into a single account that can be funded from a bank account, debit, credit or charge card. The company has also landed a number of lucrative carrier partner deals for Serve. Separate from Serve, American Express’ recent partnerships in the payments space include Foursquare, Facebook and even Zynga for personalized deals. We sat down recently with Harshul Sanghi, American Express’ new VP of Enterprise Growth Group to chat about Serve, the digital wallet and how the company plans to dominate the payments space.

Sanghi, who was formerly the Managing Director of North American venture activities for Motorola, joined AmEx in September. His focus is on further developing the Serve brand and forming these partnerships that help expand the card member base into new segments.

Sanghi explains that while every payments company (including even Google) and credit card company is releasing their own version of the digital wallet, it’s whats in the wallet that’s truly important. “The wallet that has the most brand partnerships is what customers are going to gravitate too,” he says. And this wallet needs to tie in seamlessly with loyalty programs, and virtual currencies, which is why AmEx bought virtual currency monetization platform Sometrics a few weeks ago. And the wallet needs to store offers and deals as well so that consumers don’t have to carry around coupons or discounts to a store.

PayPal has taken the wraps off its single sign-on digital identity service for online shopping, PayPal Access. The move comes as the San Jose-based payments operator unveils a series of new partnerships with a host of banking technology suppliers at the BAI Retail delivery show in Chicago.

PayPal Access is designed to simplify the checkout process by enabling the company's 100 million account holders to sign in at participating retailers' sites with just their PayPal user name and password.

The initiative is a key element of X.Commerce, a new division of PayPal parent company eBay, that aims to provide a common set of APIs for building consumer-facing online merchant services.

For disruptive mobile payments startup Square, 2011 was a year of massive growth on many levels. The startup ended the year with over 1 million merchants using the mobile payments platform to accept credit cards (there are only 8 million merchants who accept credit cards in the US). In November, Square announced it was processing $11 million in payments per day (up from $4 million a day in July). Sir Richard Branson, Kleiner Perkins, Visa, and other investors poured over $100 million over the course of the year into Square, with the company’s latest valuation pegged at $1 billion. And Square announced a number of new product innovations, including Card Case, a new iPad app and more. Not to mention the unveiling of  retail deals with Apple, Wal-mart, Best Buy, Radio Shack, and Target. It’s hard to imagine how Square could top such an eventful year. But according to COO Keith Rabois, 2012 will prove to be even more monumental for the mobile payments company.

Square is kicking of 2012 with two new retail deals, OfficeMax and select UPS Store locations. With these new retailer partnerships, Square is now being sold at 10,000 retail locations, up from 9,000 at the end of last year. Square’s credit card readers sell for $9.99 in stores but each purchaser can redeem a $10 credit to their bank account. According to Rabois, retail sales of Square has been a large driver of adoption. In fact, currently 80 percent of U.S. population is within 15 minutes of a Square device sold at a retail location.

Beyond expanding retail deals (there are more to come, he says); Square will also be looking to upgrade the experience of running a business, end-to-end, on the iPad. Last May, the company debuted new iPad app Square Register, a high-powered point of sale replacement for cash registers and point of sale terminals. This year, the startup will add to the capabilities of this software, enabling small businesses to grow and manage their operations off of the device.

4. Offers, Offers and More Offers With the daily deals craze dying down post-Groupon IPO, mobile offers are springing up. Google Offers, Google's response to Groupon's daily deals, continues to expand and personalize its deals. It recently stepped into the mobile commerce space with an Android app. Amazon entered the daily deals space with Amazon Local. Mobile commerce isn't a part of the story, but with Amazon's hefty investment in Living Social and an infrastructure far more mature than Groupon's, Amazon may be waiting for just the right moment before really making its move. Meanwhile, daily deals superhero Groupon moved further into the location-based mobile commerce space through a partnership with Loopt. Soon after the Loopt announcement, Groupon launched Groupon Now, which inserts real-time, location-based offers into the daily deals game. Such offers are usually only available for a few hours, do not include the typical Groupon tipping point and are meant for impulsive mobile users.

5. Shop Till You Sit: Tablet Commerce Tablets are all the rage this year. A recent study by eMarketer.com predicts that one in three online consumers will use a tablet at least once a month by the year 2014. Appel iPads are positioned to dominate the tablet market until 2015. So what are people doing on their tablets? Shopping, naturally. And thus the boom of tablet commerce. Amazon.com, the top revenue-producing Internet retailer, naturally leads the pack with a strong tablet-optimized site. Couch commerce, the act of sitting on one's couch and shopping from a smartphone and tablet, saw a strong increase this year - especially after Thanksgiving dinner and on Black Friday. Amazon launched its Kindle Fire tablet on September 28. ReadWriteWeb Writer Jon Mitchell calls it a store with a screen, quite literally suggesting that its sole purpose is to be a media consumption device. As the Kindle Fire continues to gain consumer mindshare and more developers flock to the Amazon Appstore (don't call it the App Store, OK?), we expect more tablet commerce growth in this area. Shopping catalogs designed specifically for tablets will add to the tablet commerce experience. Google launched a shopping catalog app for tablets back in August. Google Catalogs, as they're called, are like "window shopping with your iPad and Android tablet." The only potential problem for retailers? Now they won't have catalog readers' home addresses on hand.

6. Location and Local Groundswell: Chicago to Des Moines to Boston and Back Again The partnership between daily deals service Groupon and location check-in Foursquare was a big one. The two got together and made it happen. Or, as the Groupon blog says, "when we think of mobile addiction beyond Now! we think foursquare, and many of you guys do, too." The idea of positioning daily deals on Foursquare as an "addiction" doesn't exactly insure longevity; rather, it signals imminent burnout. But hey, we'll forgive Groupon's marketing team - with Groupon's stock prices slumping, the company is needs to keep looking for new ways to hit up consumers. Dwolla, mobile payments system based in U.S. mobile payments capital Des Moines, Iowa, seeks to completely sidestep credit cards. Unlike its main competitor PayPal, Dwolla does not snag a percentage of the transaction; instead, it asks for a shiny silver quarter, regardless of the transaction amount. LevelUp from Boston-based SCVNGR brings location-based gaming to the daily deals space. The idea is simple: Users will receive better deals the more they use the system. Much like the "unlocking" of Foursquare badges, LevelUp users will unlock new "levels" of awesome deals with particular merchants as they continue buying. Like its competitor Dwolla, SCVNGR recently began building local mobile payments into LevelUp.

For as long as Facebook has been running its Facebook Credits program—the virtual currency that users can redeem on games and other content peddled through Facebook’s network—it has been letting users top up those Credits using their mobile phones. It does this in partnership with companies like (reportedly) Boku and (definitely) Zong, the payments company bought by eBay’s PayPal last year. Users can also top up their Credits via PayPal and credit cards.

It’s not known how much, exactly, is purchased via the mobile channel today, but it is an example of how mobile is actually already driving significant revenue for Facebook. “Facebook Credits make a lot of money through mobile phones,” enough that Zong was “growing very fast last year” because of Facebook purchases, according to Frederic Court, a partner with Advent Venture Parnters, one of the VCs that backed Zong before the eBay (NSDQ: EBAY) buy.

This is because while sometimes the mobile payments were actually more expensive than a PayPal or credit card transaction, they are often a lot quicker to do, especially if you are in the middle of a game. And, as with other mobile-based payment options, they appeal to those who don’t have or want to enter card details.

You hear things about Facebook. You see things. As its audience matures, a subtle shift might be under way. Of course, numbers remain staggering. Facebook is heading toward the 800 million users mark, mostly by conquering new markets. The growth is distributed as follows: Middle-East Africa, Asia-Pacific and Latin America grow by about 60% a year; Europe by 35% to 40%; and North America by 25%.

older people are joining in western markets, while a younger audience grows in emerging ones. More changes are under way as the internet spreads on both landlines and mobile devices: over the past three years, China added more internet users than exist in the US today. Furthermore, in the fastest growing markets, Facebook captures more than 90% of all social network traffic. So, for the near future, Facebook doesn't have a growth problem.

It now seems Facebook's usage is undergoing a split. Active Facebookers become increasingly engaged, spend more time doing more stuff, while "reasonable" users (over 25) become more reluctant and careful.

The trend in online games, already popular in the entertainment industry, is set to extend to the travel industry according to research released this week. 

The WTM Global Trends Report 2011 reveals the ‘gamification of travel’ is already taking hold with companies and tourism organisations including Lufthansa and Tourism Ireland using gaming techniques to create brand awareness and build loyalty.

Last year Tourism Ireland unveiled its Ireland Town game on Facebook giving it the potential to engage with more than 62 million people.

Here’s some good news for web video publishers and producers. Online video advertising budgets are expected to jump sharply in 2012. Brand advertisers who purchased online video ads this year are projected to spend 47 percent more next year. These numbers were released this morning in the second annual “Video State of the Industry Survey” by Adap.tv and Digiday.

For advertisers that didn’t purchase any video ads so far this year, 84% say they will include digital video in their campaigns in Q4 2011 or 2012.

Advertisers say they are most likely to shift spending away from display and print ads to fund the increased online video spending.

With almost a million users and six million songs shared daily, Schematic Labs’ social music sharing app SoundTracking is today announcing that it has raised $4.75 million in Series A funding led by Accel Partners, True Ventures and Softbank Capital.

SoundTracking co-founder Steve Jang tells me that he plans on using the new funds for hiring and for furthering integration efforts with services like Spotify and Rdio, “We think connecting SoundTracking to consumption services helps take the music moments into your lean back consumption experience,” he says.

“We felt that people have music moments every day, and we wanted to build an app they could take out of their pocket to capture and share the soundtrack of their lives,” says Jang, “We want to continue to simplify that experience and make it more meaningful with the popular music consumption services and social networks.”

Thanks to augmented reality technology, a tiny version of Rihanna actually seems to emerge from the cap of a jar of Nivea Creme to sing her song “California King Bed.”

The app, which went live this week, is an attempt to “create engaging digital advertising experiences,” says a statement from the company. Nivea tried to create such as experience this summer with a “Co-Star with Rihanna” Facebook campaign that let users star in a short, alternative version of the music video for the song by editing themselves into the action.

For the AR component, all you have to do is buy a tin of Nivea Creme or print one out from Nivea’s website and hold either up to your computer’s webcam. Then, voila, Rihanna appears.

China's leading location-based social service is distributing NFC window stickers to more than 3,000 merchants in Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Taipei and Hong Kong

Jiepang is to distribute NFC window stickers to more than 3,000 merchant partners in six cities in Greater China, including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Taipei and Hong Kong.

Jiepang is China's leading location-based social service. Its users currently check in and earn rewards via a GPS-enabled smartphone app which comes preloaded on all new HTC, Sony Ericsson, Nokia and other smartphone brands in China, including all three of the new Nokia NFC smartphones announced earlier this week.

In this survey-based report, we look at the business drivers and adoption levels for social business and Enterprise 2.0 technologies, the benefits and issues being highlighted by users, and what platforms and infrastructures are being used for delivery.

We take a short look at three specific applications – Enterprise Q&A, Open Innovation, and Sales & Marketing collaboration – and make recommendations for maximizing the benefits from these new systems of engagement.

An ad agency, several musicians, and an app developer have collaborated on Lucozade Energy’s latest campaign, creating drink bottles that launch videos through an augmented reality (AR) smartphone app.

Billington Cartmell, a UK ‘thinking brands’ agency, led the project to join artistic expression with an interactive brand experience. Using a the unique ability of the Aurasma app to map and track cylindrical objects, the agency asked seven of the UK’s biggest musicians to design a Lucozade bottle which when viewed through Aurasma leaps to life with video and animations.

A great deal of exclusive content was created for this campaign, and most of it is accessible only through the AR-enabled app. The animations that play from the bottles in the app are really only teasers, directing users to a website with documentaries and behind-the scenes video.

nterested? The backbone of Conversational Currency ™ is whatever social medium a person likes using. Where one takes it from there is the value this community provides

Amplify’d from www.conversationalcurrency.comThis community shares  tactical applications with community members on a one-to-one basis. We do not share the ‘secret sauce’ on a static website since there exists a myriad of customized solutions which can be developed using the fundamentals and vehicles being invented.Since we based all communications using the power of social media, we ask viewers to start with a very general engagement opportunity:Here we invite the world of bloggers who want to discuss, and propagate their knowledge about, and need for “Conversational Currency ™ “. A special invitation goes out to brands who can advertise their “conversations” on our site, and ultimately learn about our ‘solution’ one-on-one.Selected blogs (and particularly brand implementation plans) will be inserted into Business Week…drawing national attention and exposure to your demonstrated ability to turn ‘Conversation into Currency’…and perhaps be the 1st!!Read more at www.conversationalcurrency.com