Mobile e-commerce & augmented reality?

When you think e-commerce what comes to mind? For me, I think Amazon.com and eBay.com. I remember reading somewhere that Amazon wasn't the first online bookstore, but in fact it was books.com - which is gone now by the way, and instead redirects to Barnes & Noble. Today, Amazon doesn't just sell books anymore, heck I can even order 18-inch wheels from there. But, what comes next? The e-commerce market is already at a point of saturation and it comes down to a battle-of-the-brands. Do I order this book from Amazon? or Barnes & Noble? or even Walmart? Should I buy a Dell from Dell.com? or from Walmart.com?

I blogged about social e-commerce at the beginning of this year, and some things are getting rolling in Collier's predictions, but we still have more to go before all her 2010 predictions are realized; sadly it won't be 2010; we're close I think, but I think social e-commerce is still a few years ahead. Its hard for these data silos to get broken down to really enable me to receiving recommendations from Amazon based on my Facebook friends or even tweets. Maybe I'm wrong.

But while these silos are up, m-commerce and augmented reality can go hand in hand, and it solves one of the problems faced by online shoppers; the "I'm not sure how this will look" problem. Its not a problem that every online store has, ex. I won't question how a PS3 will look like in my living room, nor will I question how a Mac mini will look like on my desk, so its not a problem there. It is a problem when buying something bigger, like furniture, appliances, decorations, wall paint, etc. Things that either take a lot of room, or might lead you to the dog house if your significant other does not approve take a lot of time to undo if you don't like where you placed it.

For e-commerce a picture is not worth 1000 words for most products out there. In the crazy world between my ears, I would go to the new place I'm moving into this month, pull out my iPhone 3GS and go to Ikea.com and start up their augmented reality furniture browser. I can then load up all the furniture I'm moving from the old place and see how everything comes together. It will then recommend other products based on the data it's collecting via my phone's camera, maybe different colours? maybe furniture pads to prevent the table from scratching the hardwood? Perhaps it'll recognize the TV and recommend a different place to reduce the glare in the morning since the windows face East?

Can it be done? I think so. The technology is already available. Where do you see mobile commerce heading in the next two years?

Don't tell me your TV supports Twitter (Part 2)

In Part 1 I ranted about the Samsung commercial that I caught on TV raving about accessing Facebook and Twitter from their new TV. I questioned how TV manufacturers are repeating the marketing campaigns the telecoms did a few years ago when the iPhone came out on select telecoms. The ones that weren't chosen such as Bell and Telus raved about their Blackberry, Palm and HTC lineups. They coined the term "social phones" or "smarter smart phone" and being able to access Facebook on their phones. Anyway, the future of mobile is in the apps, not the device nor the platform. I believe the same is true for TV.

In Part 2 I question the role of TV service providers and broadcasters in this new "smart TV" era that seems to be around the corner. The good thing that is going for these guys, is that they usually are Internet providers as well, or are at least partnered with an Internet provider. Smart TVs obviously need an Internet connection, so these guys will still be there. Their role could change a bit. As more Internet ready devices hit the market, it doesn't make sense for them to split their business into three lines; Internet, TV, Phone. What happens when we start getting fridges with WiFi / data chips? or washing machines? or even cars? I predict they'll just all converge into one line, connectivity and you pay for the data you use. Before we get there, we'll probably go through a stage where a standard package will give you X devices, a "gold" package gets you Y devices, and a "VIP" package gets you Z devices. Soon after that, that too won't cut it as it becomes the norm that devices have these connectivity chips built in.

Don't tell me your TV supports Twitter

Last night I caught a Best Buy ad on AMC about Samsung's smart/social/internet TV.  It reminded me of the Telus/Rogers/Bell BlackBerry ads a couple of years ago marketing Twitter and Facebook as features of their smartphones. They're still doing it with terms like "social phone" or "smarter smart phone" which I don't really understand.  I was still really excited about this ad, especially because it got the gears in the crazy place between my ears turning again...

Samsung seems confused about what to do with Google entering a market in which Samsung is one of the largest players. Add to that, Apple's arrival later this year with iTV. The same two companies that pretty much destroyed Samsung's chances in the phone industry. Samsung has its own OS for its phones, which also powers their smart tv - Bada. This is a bad idea:

• Popularity. Recent market results show iOS and Android capturing about 80% of the mobile web consumption. (Not including iPad). Since these numbers were gathered in June, the iPad has probably gained some more ground for iOS. Let's keep it at 80%. Samsung Bada's share is a fraction of that 10% for "Other", with probably an equal if not greater chunk of that "Other" going to SymbianOS.

Daily Digest

Last night I came across this sweet web app called paper.ly that generates a newspaper of your Twitter feed daily. It comes with a pretty basic embed that displays a table of contents for your own personalized news paper that you can embed on your blog or website. The people I follow are mainly from the tech community in North America and the Toronto Twitter community. You'll find posts from the usual suspects like GigaOM, TechCrunch, Mashable, and Seth Godin. Also some local people like Alex Blom, Scott Stratten, Breanna Hughes and Joallore have appeared in my daily digest today. Anyway, if you are interested in seeing what the Twitter community I'm following is publishing on Twitter, feel free to bookmark this page.

On the rise of social eCommerce

Deborah Collier published her five predictions for social e-commerce in 2010:

1. Goodbye to the Middleman
2. The Year of the Deliver Company
3. Creative Sponsored Advertising
4. Mobile Commerce Revolution
5. Free Culture Frenzy

Her predictions can't be anymore bang on, if these become a reality of 2010, then we are well on our way to reaching that stage of "Social eCommerce" in the first half of this decade.

As it stands today, our eCommerce networks are all rather isolated and built up silos. We have the Amazons, the Ebays, the Facebooks and the iTunes and App Stores to name a few. Social eCommerce requires these imaginary walls surrounding these walled gardens to come down - and I do expect them to. The reason they will is because as much revenue these networks generate, there is still much more left on the table. We just need to reach out for it.

The elimination of the middle man is a big step. Online applications that have carved themselves a small niche of the market have risen. Not surprisingly these bleeding edge, creative and unique applications are not operated by large corporations, but by the John and Jane Does that have operated them out of their home office or even basements. In today's online world a business does not need to provide a whole lot of services and products to corner the market - in fact focusing on your niche and a small set of products and services guarantees that you will provide better results. Amazon allows me to sell my books to other people, I can sell my old computer on eBay, or my music on iTunes. There is no middle man involved. I would say the middle man is mostly eliminated at this stage.

Delivery is an interesting service, as it increases with the growth of C2C markets, because the middle man does not exist. We are yet to see a creative, bleeding edge and unique process for delivery. Its a harder problem to tackle, but definitely still possible. I don't expect this advancement to come from the national postal services. Its tragic, but these creative solutions come out of the basements and dorm rooms of the World. The big corporations are too sluggish and paralyzed to move with the speed required for this sort of advancement.

Creative, seamless and relevant advertisement is a personal interest of mine. The future of online ads in the social eCommerce phase would be heavily wired with the abundance of data on today's and tomorrow's social networks. We have some creative advertisement solutions today such as AdSense that would push ads based on the content on the page. That was last decade's technology, the 2010s need something new that is even more seamless, more integrated, and finally more relevant to me. The only way I can see these advertising engines outdoing themselves is by personalizing these ads. The data to drive such personalization is present, just locked away in these individual silos.

Mobile. Mobile. Mobile. The iPhone has revolutionized this arena. When I went to highschool, not all the kids had cell phone, a good chunk did, but not everybody. I didn't get my first cellphone until grade 10 I think. Similarly with university, at least the earlier years. Slowly the mobile population grew, but at that time it was fairly uncommon to see a smart phone within the hands of a twenty year old. Today that is different. Now we spend more time with our iPhones, Blackberrys, and other smart phones than we do on our laptops or computers. This is just another bundle of cash waiting for someone to reach out. Those who don't keep up with these trends will surely suffer. Generation Y is closing in to their 30s and 40s, these are the future customers and they will naturally surround those that provide such services.

The freemium model. Another prediction that is directly tied to Generation Y. Unlike the preceding generation, this generation expects to get basic features for free. This generation does not tolerate the service charges and system access fees. I don't expect these old fashioned models to remain much longer. Take the service charge I pay to CIBC, what do I get in return for it? Absolutely nothing. On the other hand, they get to invest my hard earned money, make money off it, and then have the nerve to charge me a service charge or fee to take it out? They ought to be paying me a service charge! That model will change. On the other hand, I would gladly pay a service charge to get premium features for my online banking, as well as mobile banking - and by premium I don't mean printing my paper statement on my screen. Rogers mobile has slowly started introducing such free features to their customers. This includes the "My Account" Rogers iPhone app to monitor my usage, free Rogers OnDemand Online and the ability to tag phone numbers with names on my online billing. Not rocket science, but its an excellent step forward. Stop thinking of the web as e-paper.

In a perfect world, the data I publish on Facebook, could generate sales on Amazon, that will provide recommendations from Ebay along with tunes to match the occasion from iTunes in an experience that is seamless wrapped with personalized ads from Google.

Unfortunately we don't live in a perfect world, but these visions and ideas can' t be that far fetched. However, such ideas are a dime a dozen, what is important is how these ideas are executed, and not who is the first to execute them.

I would pay for personalized news delivered to my [insert gadget name here]

After reading a post by Kevin Kelleher on Gigaom titled "Does Google Event Understand What News Is" and Schmidt's opinion on the WSJ this week titled "How Google Can Help Newspapers" I came up with some comments on this.

I agree that Google is forcing a new business model down old medias' throats (such as the newspaper), and I agree with Kevin's comment that Murdoch is merely testing how much he can get away with in this 'new world'. However, Google did cave in and closed a 'loophole' in this free access to paid content on News Corp.
But I do differ on the point about Schmidt's fantasy '..suggests ignorance of what news actually is...'.

Schmidt's 'fantasy' is 3 fold:

Know who I am

Personalization starts with this. For any recommendation based service one must know who you are delivering this recommendation to, by definition a recommendation is personalized or customized.
Knowing "who I am" is not limited to knowing my name, or date of birth for example. It can include many other things that span where I was born, my current and past fields of work, where I went on vacation, my blog, my twitter, etc. Odds are "privacy" comes to your mind right now, but if you are a member of any online network you are already sharing more about yourself today, than you ever did in any other form in the past. Think about your Twitter account, Facebook profile, Amazon, Flickr, eBay, MySpace, Hi5, blog, RSS feeds you subscribe to, etc. etc. Why not put "your lack of privacy" to a good use? such as receiving better news.

Know what I like

You buy a newspaper today and you get a dozen different sections, all of which you have technically paid for but in reality you might not read them all. You get the main paper, the financial pages, sports, entertainment, comics, health/living.
I never read anything past the main page of the financial times, I never read the health/living pages, I never read non-football (or soccer as it is called in this part of the world) news - why should I pay for them? I rarely buy a newspaper, I read it online, why should the online version be modeled exactly like the paper version.

Kevin claims this will lead to tunnel vision, but on the other end of the spectrum I don't have time to digest 60 pages of news. I do see his point though, just because news about the Middle East is more often bad news than good, doesn't mean this fantasy gadget would block it from me. By knowing who I am personalizing my news would mean that news about the Middle East would bubble to the top of my reading list - maybe not your reading list.

I would also argue that the current model results in tunnel vision. Looking at the Toronto Start page today I see news about PM Harper's stop in China, Lessons of the Montreal Massacre, Michael Bryant, Pakistan troop surge, Russian nightclub, GM shakeup, violence and racial slurs in kid's hockey, etc.
Seems like tunnel vision to me. What I see is completely controller by the paper's editors, not me.

The only thing I clicked on that front page was the Montreal Massacre link, why? because I learned of it at McMaster were I studied.

Its not a lack of creativity, its a lack of courage and the ability to know when a business model has passed its final stretch. It was a good run. Move on.

Know what I have read

This one is the most important step, not because it decides what not to show me again, but vice versa. Knowing what I have read, helps identify what follow up stories I need to see. By reading about the real estate fiasco in Dubai the past few weeks, I would like to see what happens next.

Google can help newspapers

Yes, Google wants to do that, not because it wants to help them, but because it wants to shape them into a business that it can benefit more from. Asking them to share their 'treasure trove' i.e. access to users' data - for free - is absurd. But by investing in AdSense, the newspapers can gain access to this treasure. Why should Google give 'unrestricted access to the data of its users'? , they worked hard to get that, and provided a lot of free services to gain access to that treasured currency.

Murdoch Fantasies

Murdoch is a business mastermind, but I think he got this all upside down. People don't pay for content, and whether its on Google or on Bing I will get a link from Twitter that will point me to a 3rd party site that aggregates this news or some other way that bypasses the wall he is erecting around his content.
Can you really believe you don't need Google?
Ten years ago people paid for online content, only because it was a new way to deliver newspapers i.e. you didn't have to wait for it to be delivered, or end up with a stack of papers to throw out next to the shoe rack. People will pay for how content is delivered, but unfortunately delivering it via a browser is a decade old model. Today there are many other forms that people would pay for such as on your phone or Kindle. Its the same content though, and some might not want to pay for it. However, personalized news is yet another form, and personalized form delivered to your favorite portable gadget is yet another. Now that is something I would subscribe for or watch ads to read.

Hyperlocal News - Personalized News For You

With online services like Animotto, Flickr, Blogger and Twitter almost anybody can be a video producer, photographer, journalist or news reporter- no degrees or formal training required. With these new mediums the average person can create and distribute their content with virtually no barriers to entry. This major shift gave rise to terms like hyperlocal and citizen journalism. 

Hyperlocal is relevant

Hyperlocal news is news relevant to small communities. Think a modern neighborhood flyer or newsprint where anybody can submit content such as videos, pictures, articles or even just their opinions and comments. In the 90s as the internet spread widely, forums and blogs started popping out all over the web to cater to different communities be it virtual or physical ones. 

The big news companies took notice of this shift and started providing their own mediums for hyperlocal. These include services like CNN's iReport or The Weather Channel's photo submission. What about the newspapers? how are they coping with these changes and in an uncertain economy?  

Once upon a time printed newspapers were extremely popular and they utilized techniques today's websites still use to promote themselves, increase traffic, and keep users on page longer. Sounds familiar? yes these are the same goals every person involved in SEO wants to achieve. Why else do you think that comic strip or crossword puzzle was printed in your favorite newspaper?

Hyperlocal feeds our thirst for news

Newspapers are dying, but people still want news. Our thirst for information has not decreased, if anything it increased beyond belief. The change is, people want to choose what news they want. I never read the stock pages and charts in a printed paper; I rarely read the finance paper and if I do its limited to the front page - so why should it be delivered to me? 

The case for hyperlocal news is just getting stronger so perhaps these major newspapers will break off into smaller hyperlocal news outlets. Maybe a visit to NYTimes.com will render a page like NYTimes.com/Jersey? This is if they wake up and stop being in denial. 

Hyperlocal is context aware, and of course location aware

Location is a key component for personalization and its possibly the easiest piece of information one can extract from their visitors and deliver personalized content. With hyperlocal news it makes complete sense to me to present it on a map instead of a traditional newspaper-ish view. And with the popularity of mobile devices this strengthens the reasons for a hyperlocal news map. Consider this, you are stuck on a highway and pick up your iPhone to turn on this hyperlocal news map. You get to see where you are right now and what stories are going on around you. The exit is coming up and you are considering escape, but your hyperlocal news map is reporting that a group of chimps have escaped the local zoo and are sitting on the highway barrier 'entertaining' the traffic which is causing all the delay. Now that is something that you don't see on a regular day on the highway, maybe you won't get off that exit after all?

Navegg for behavior web analytics beyond Google Analytics

Navegg is a web based add-on just like Google Analytics but aims to report on visitor demographics and behaviors - which you cannot achieve with Google Analytics.

This information is extremely important for marketers, but it is also important if you aim to personalize your content for different users. The uses are not just limited to marke

ting as the data it gathers can and should influence your design and feature decisions as well.

I signed up for this account a few days ago and now I get access to very little demographics that I will share with you. What is confusing is that Google Analytics reports 20 unique visitors yesterday and 24 the day before yet I only see 3 on Navegg. I will probably have to revisit this in a few weeks when it has gathered more information for me.

The neat thing is that both Google Analytics and Navegg have public APIs and both so far are free services. One could potentially build their own analytics engine that combines data from both in the segments each excels at. For example I really like the Goal Funnel Visualization feature on Google Analytics, it can be made even more useful if I can see demographics on it; ex. how many single females between 22 and 28 dropped out of the sales funnel? 

Thanks to Jennifer Van Grove's post on Mashable about Navegg which got me to sign up and try it out - how else would I have known that I had 3 readers yesterday that are college graduates and males between 25 and 34 years old!

Thinking Out Loud: Content Personalization - Context Aware Ads and the Social Web

In continuation from the first Thinking Out Loud post titled "Content Personalization - Tell Me Who Your Friends Are" the second - yet more important - use of this type of personalized content is targeted advertisement. Google has owned this area with their AdSense and AdWords products to deliver 'personalized' advertisements to you. Delivering ads based on content and context are very precise methods to target advertisements, but can it be done better? and where can the Social Web have a role?

I'm logged in to my GMail right now reading a message from Rogers regarding my TV cable service and guess what? All the ads on the right are about TV, whether it is watching it online for free, switching to another cable company or getting satellite TV. Those are very precise advertisements, but they are just guesses based on the text around it. If I just signed up for Rogers last week, odds are I am not looking to switch my provider today - what a waste of precious ad space. Is there a better way to target ads?

Here is another example that will better illustrate the business case for this type of advertisement. I just bought a Mac Mini this week and I just Googled "Mac Mini". Based on my  search criteria, the content present on the page and some complex weighting algorithm the ads Google will serve up will be related to purchasing a Mac Mini or a computer in general, but I already bought one  - again very precise but what a waste of ad space.

One might say "but Nael, your search term was vague, Google did the best it can". Unfortunately the average user does not know how to build a proper search engine query to reach to the results they are looking for with as a little searching as possible. The first thing that will come to mind is to search the product name, and then if that did not give them what they want they'll add another term and so on until eventually they will find what they need or they give up and try later.

Now imagine you can create a profile on these search engines that deliver these targeted advertisements, not just a profile with the usual information on it; i.e. name, location, picture, interests, etc. but one you can point to the different windows into your online identity; blog, Twitter, Picasa Web, and LinkedIn. Now the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

In this manner, advertisements can become even more personalized - not just by the search terms you provide - but by using the aggregate of all the content you freely publicize on the social web.

So what is very interesting is that it seems Google picked up the ball in this field by allowing you to create your own Google Profile like the one I just created. What is this for I wonder? It is not so hard to imagine that it can be used for the next generation of personalized advertisements, or it can also be Google's Facebook killer, either way we can agree on at least one thing, there is no better place to have such a profile page than on Google.

Thinking Out Loud: Content Personalization - Tell Me Who Your Friends Are

"Tell me who your friends are and I will tell you who you are"

That saying cannot be more true today - especially with all the available social networks. How does Amazon make recommendations to its users? While they don't tell us everything they do, Amazon does reveal one part of it at least when you login:
"These recommendations are based on items you own and more"

I don't find recommendations based on items I own very interesting, I am more interested with the two words at the end - "and more". What other ways are there to provide recommendations?

User demographics have been the most popular way to do this for the longest time now, and with the rise of social networks I believe this is about to change. What is the problem with using demographics for recommendations?

The biggest problem I see is demographics and statistics go directly against personalization by definition. A decade ago that was probably as close as one can get to personalization, but today is this still true? Today, everybody - including the neighbour's cat - has a Facebook profile. All these social networks are sitting on a gold mine and they know it. Demographics are useful when the medium you are delivering the content through delivers content by the same demographics such as a TV. As a TV advertiser you need to know the demographics of the product you are advertising to know at what time of the day you can maximise your reach to that demographic. Unfortunately today's web does not work that way - imagine Facebook where on weekdays between 10am and noon you can only add and talk to stay at home moms? or between 4pm and 6pm its kids between the ages of 8 and 15, or between 8pm and 11pm its men between 30 and 40.

Today's social web is not divided by demographics, whether you are 15, 25, 35, 55, or 60 you can still get on Facebook and find content that interests you.

Consider the iTunes Genius feature that recommends songs? How does it do it? Obviously there is some complex algorithm that answers the question: "If user 1 purchased songs a,b and c, and many many many users purchased songs a , b and d, what is the probability that user 1 will like song d if song d is the same genre as songs a and c for user 1?" This is the bottom line of the majority of today's recommendation engines. Based on my experience as a customer it comes down to:

• What did I already buy? - or listen, or view, or read, or...
• What did others buy? - or listen, or view, or read, or...
• How big is the intersection between our product selections? and is it enough to conclude that I may like what they bought?
  

So is this personalization? Isn't this similar to how radio stations select songs?


For example, what I would like to see on Amazon is the recommendation engine would learn about me based on what I provide on the profile. By pointing Amazon to my Facebook, blog, twitter, linkedin, bit.ly bookmarks and more, Amazon would learn about what interests me based on my thoughts here, my rants on twitter and who I follow, my friends on Facebook, the events I attended and who from my friends went there, and so on.

Finally, if all this sounds like too much information to give away, although it is already publicly available, then you don't need to use it. Think about it how neat would it be if Amazon was able to learn through my twitter that I started learning CakePHP and sends me a special offer for 50% off a CakePHP book? or that I started using twitter 3 weeks ago which coincided with when I started posting more often on here and recommend a book about promoting my blog via social media?