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Today was day 2 of Graphing Social Patterns East. I attended a majority of the sessions, moderated a panel and also met more awesome CN readers. I think Dave McClure did a great job in leading the overall conference. He was approachable all day, greeted many of the conference attendees and kept things moving basically on-time. One of the techniques Dave used was to play funny and viral videos between each session. Since the sessions were all in the same room, it was a great break between the sessions and lightened the mood quite a bit, especially with the miserable heat outside!

The one thing the conference seems to be missing is buzz, excitement and chatter. The media/press room was basically empty except for Adam Ostrow of Mashable. Maybe it’s the fact that all the sessions are in the same room but the conversations and typical high energy just seem to be missing here (maybe it’s the heat). It seems more like a training session atmosphere. Nothing like the photos and videos from the GSP on the West coast.

Kent Schoen - Facebook

Kent was supposed to lead a discussion about "Facebook Business and Marketing Solutions" but to me it felt more like, "Facebook Stats Showoff." Kent noted that Facebook ads will always be unique and social in nature. Basically he explained that the benefit of buying ads on Facebook is that your ads will be seen by your friends and they can then interact with the ad and spread it to their friends, etc.

Here are some of the stats and updates he shared:

• Four times the invites sent on eVite are sent on Facebook monthly (16m vs 66m)
• Over 150,000 pages have been created and 85,000,000 fans have signed up to the available pages.

Hooman Radfar - Clearspring CEO

Hooman spoke about widgets in general during his discussion. I liked his definition of a "social application" = "widget plus a canvas plus the ability to push socially and virally." One thing he said that I agree with is that analytics and tracking is the key for a successful social campaign. I see way too many companies investing in social media without any measurement. It’s like throwing money down the drain.

Hooman closed by speaking about cross-promotion of widgets and social applications and how it’s one of the keys for success. He explained that Slide and RockYou can launch a new widget or social app and receive immediate users because they can cross promote it into the apps that are already in use.

Evening Party

Tonight’s party was put on by the SocialTimes and SocialCash. Josh at ReadWriteWeb has some info on Social Cash today. The party was held at a very upscale sushi club (wtf?) and the crowd was hopping. The place was jam-packed and the conversation was good. I finally got to meet Chris Saad of the DataPortability project and Sean Ammirati of ReadWriteTalk and mSpoke.

As I was leaving, the folks at SocialCash handed me a bag - which looks similar to a "loot" bag I remember getting as a kid. Inside the bag was a t-shirt (who wants it, email me!), a credit card which apparently is used to cash out the rewards you earn on SocialCash. Also in the bag was $1 dollar bills - 100 of them!!! Damn. I am waiting for confirmation from SocialCash but I may have been given the "winning" bag with all of the loot inside. Somehow I am thinking each of the 100 bags were supposed to contain a $1 bill. I will update this post once I receive confirmation. Check out the photo below for confirmation.

See everyone tomorrow - don’t be a stranger - say hi and grab a CN sticker!

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Just got some new niche magazines and was really cool seeing some friends on the covers.
Jason Calacanis appointed the new face off Affiliate Marketing on the cover of Affiliate Summits “Feed Front” Magazine. The cover of the first ever Affiliate Summit mag reads “Close Encounters Of The Calacanis Kind” no doubt referring […]

Multiplatform marketing is about saturating the consumer’s world with the brand’s message.

As noted by GM’s Jaime de Valle, the old advertising adage "Fish where the fish are" has been flipped 180 degrees. Consumers are now the fishers, casting hooks to find the products, services, and brands they need, when and where they need them.

It is the marketer’s prerogative to swim where consumers are fishing, to be present and relevant at every touch point and tipping point in the decision-making process.

This is where the multiplatform approach becomes necessary.

In a world replete with marketing messages, the most competitive brands must use traditional media to place themselves before consumers before the decision becomes a priority. They must be present and relevant when research begins online. They must provide channels for response, interaction, and dialogue through nascent but omnipresent platforms such as mobile and social media. And they must send a consistent, persuasive message all the way to the point of sale.

Ok, I really only chose to cover the multiplatform sessions because I knew there’d be some talk of mobile, my one true love.

And talk there was. Carnival’s Jordan Corredera (with Susan Kidwell of Avenue A | Razorfish) and GM opened up the conversation Wednesday afternoon, echoing the industry-wide sentiment that mobile testing (WAP sites, search, etc.) is important but that the U.S. is too far behind other territories and right now is not the time for venturing beyond SMS text marketing. The good thing is, they’re testing.

Carnival’s case study on their Avenue A | Razorfish-created Funship Island campaign highlighted the mobile downloads they offered, including wallpaper and ringtones. GM’s mobile concentration seemed to revolve more around search.

Mobile, because of its everywhere-all-the-time nature, is the best medium for achieving the goal of any multiplatform campaign, as stated by de Valle: Being everywhere, all the time, at every tipping point for consumers in the decision-making process. Increasingly, he said, that process is being conducted almost entirely online, particularly for the automotive vertical.

Mobile aside, Carnival’s highly (read: insanely, borderline overwhelmingly) interactive microsite allowed users to virtually romp around an SL-like cruise ship. Their goal was to dispel common myths held to be true by cruise skeptics. Highly lauded by the digital ad community and cruise enthusiast community alike, the site was a hit.

Not only did they achieve critical success; by tracking user behavior on the site, they were able to optimize their other marketing channels. For example, they found that the section at which users spent the greatest amount of time was the stateroom page. As a result, they beefed up their coverage of stateroom features/benefits on the main Carnival page.

Most impressively, Carnival displayed a deep understanding of their brand ambassadors and partners using existing online communities. They used their advocates on cruise-related social nets to promote the new microsite, and they created a special subsection for travel agents to make sharing the Carnival Fun Ship experience easier.

They clearly understood that these days, consumers begin and end their buying decision on the Internet.

GM’s Andreas Huettner made that statement very clearly when he said that consumers are buying cars online.

He clarified that by the time consumers walk into a dealership, they, inmost cases, already know the exact make and model of the car they want, the price they want to pay, the kind of financing they expect and probably even the kind of warranty and insurance coverage they want. All the decisions have been preordained through hours of intense online work; they truly come to dealers to sign the papers and pick up the keys.

And although Internet is topping every other purchase-influencing medium, including word-of-mouth, the growth of mobile usage outstrips the growth of Internet usage. Hence, multiplatform advertisers need to very quickly figure out how to increase their presence and relevance in that medium.

A couple hours after the Carnival/GM awesomeness, Latin American portal Terra took the stage to talk about their approach to online marketing of music. Their presentation left me tweeting, "Where is the English-language version of Terra Musica?!?"

With artist sites constructed with building blocks of videos, blog feeds, UCG, photos, and every imaginable kind of social-media-friendly content acting as portals to more content and interactivity than was previously imaginable, one pities the technologically impoverished musicians stuck with MySpace Music.

Realizing that the best distribution is wide distribution, the folks at Terra have made most of the widgets portable across most social networks. They’ve also allowed for a great deal of user interaction and even submission to artists’ content.

And they understand that the best part of a content-rich site is incredible SEO, which is very likely where the user experience and direct artist-consumer interaction begin.

All these factors are what forward-thinking U.S. musicians have been struggling to define and realize. All in all, if there’s one thing I wanted to take away from ad:tech Miami and the world of Hispanic and Latin American marketing, it was to find one standout use of technology that marketers were getting right and from which the rest of us could learn and benefit.

Terra Musica may or may not get it entirely right, but it gives us some amazing clues as to the direction we should take for using rich, social media to market music directly to consumers.

Jolie O’Dell blogs, vlogs, tweets, and runs RAMPAGE, a new media ad agency.  Jolie covered ad:tech Miami and you can read all of her conference posts on the ad:tech blog.

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NY-based KickApps is announcing a new distribution partnership with widget network Clearspring today. Clearspring will begin to promote the KickApps Widget Studio and KickApps will push its members to use the suite of widget tools that Clearspring provides.

KickApps reports over 24,000 publishers on their network using widgets and comScore reports 47.5 million unique widget viewers in April 2008 on the Clearspring network. This deal benefits KickApps by extending distribution to the large member base on the Clearspring network.

Widgets are finally starting to take shape as a real online marketing vehicle. Over half of the sessions at Graphing Social Patterns this week are focused around widgets. Check out KickApps CEO Alex Blum’s article on the value of widgets.

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Saw this weird post on Search Engine Guide from some old ass dude named Sage Lewis who I nor anyone else in the Search Engine Marketing Industry has ever heard of take a swipe at me with a post titled Shoemoney Spouts Off While Google Keeps Growing. Referring to my SEO has no future […]

Over the past few weeks, Regis’ sidekick Kelly Ripa has appeared in a variety of television commercials for products including Tide laundry detergent and Electrolux appliances. What does Kelly Ripa know about a dishwasher or an oven? Do you believe her when she says it’s a better appliance? Would she endorse Whirlpool or GE if they paid her more? I’d suggest the answer is yes. This is just one example of celebrities endorsing products for big dollars when their endorsement really means nothing as to the quality, features or durability of the product.

Last night, we wrote about Meebo and their new marketing program. Part of the marketing program is to push users to share and spread links from companies and their brands. The idea of people on a social network sharing advertising that appeals to them is an idea that I can see growing very quickly if implemented correctly.

We all know what happened with Facebook’s Beacon program last year. I think Beacon was on the right track but unfortunately they went about it incorrectly. Here’s what I’d like to see: a friend endorsement system and the creation of a new advertising category named, "social advertising". Here are the basics on how the program would work. You enter the products you’d be willing to endorse to your friends into the system. Your friends do the same. When you are ready to purchase an item, you check the friend endorsement system and review your friend’s product endorsements in the category you are interested in purchasing within. To combat any fraud with the reviews, I’d suggest using a model similar to Reevoo where only products actually purchased can be reviewed and endorsed. While this might sound very much like a typical reviews site, the idea is that a new social layer will be applied on top of the reviews and, in addition, the ability to endorse a product is new as well.

The system would be tied into Facebook, MySpace, etc. and could be expanded to allow friends to swap and/or buy/sell from each other in a private network. The system would absolutely be more robust in its feature set, I am just simplifying it for the sake of discussion.

The bottom line is that, outside of the teenage market, I can see friend endorsements taking the lead over celebrity endorsements. Wouldn’t you rather have your best friend tell you why the Electrolux appliances are right for you than Kelly Ripa?

For reference, here’s Kelly Ripa shilling the suite of Electrolux appliances:

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Tomorrow at the Conversational Marketing Summit in NYC, ad network Federated Media (FM) will make two announcements: the launch of the Conversational Measurement Toolbox and that they will now represent hardware reviews and forums network AnandTech. Federated Media describes the toolbox as, "a suite of campaign measurement, planning and reporting tools offering marketers greater control and insight into their conversational marketing efforts." The company claims that this is a first-of-its-kind offering.

The system will suck data out of the analytics tools used by FM publishers and then aggregate the data back to the advertisers with a focus on conversational metrics. There’s also an API for developers to use who want to leverage the analytics that FM is collecting. No specific analytical categories have been provided yet. Once I get access to the system, I will provide a more in depth review.

Federated Media CEO John Battelle is also a board member of the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and will now sit on the social media measurement taskforce to ensure that the Conversational Measurement Toolbox work follows whatever the IAB pushes in terms of standards and guidelines.

Perhaps the development of this new measurement toolbox is where some of the new $50 million in VC funding has gone.

In other news, ultra popular, been around forever, hardware news, reviews and community forum site AnandTech has joined the FM publisher network. AnandTech reports 8 million monthly users with over 55 million pageviews. I guess this is a good replacement for Ars Technica which has left FM after being acquired by Conde Nast.

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Everyone is streaming in trying to find the optimal seat. After four hours of waiting in line, I don’t care where I sit just as long as I am sitting. There are large plasmas all over the place which is good – from my vantage point, Jobs is going to be a dot. Huge applause – Al Gore is here in the audience. From my seat:

More cheesy pre-show music …

10:01 AM PST

Still waiting, people still streaming in. Whomever was in charge of the herd\logistics should be shot. Microsoft owns them in this regard – the all important conference logistics and organization!

10:05 AM PST

Still waiting – oh no, here we go – lights are down!! Applause. NDA on screen, all rights reserved, etc. Showtime!

Steve comes on stage to rabid and thunderous applause.

Record 5200 attendees. Sold out. Biggest venue we can find.

We have planned a lot of stuff to show you today.

Three parts to Apple: Mac, Music + iTunes, iPhone

Bringing up head of iPhone departments and product marketing

After lunch we get a peak at Snow Leopard!

iPhone

25K applied to paid developer program
iPhone 2.0

Enterprise Support

SDK

New User Features

Enterprise Support

Push email

OTA config

Certs

Remote wipe

Cisco VPN

Beta program – 35% of Fortune 500 participated

Showing video of customers like Disney that were in the beta

Customer testimonials from the beta program. Disney, The Army, Security companies, etc.

  Now the SDK

Opening uo the same API and tools they use internally to developers

Coca Touch – Media – Core Services – Core OS

Line for line same source code as Mac OS X

New feature called core location allows for location based services

Core Audio – open GL es and surround sound

Coca touch – OOF and UI optimized for full screen touch interface, makes building it a breeze

X Code will be used to write edit and debug

Interface builder lets you construct the user interface and then insert in code

iPhone emulator to debug and test

Instruments allows you to test, benchmark and appropriately size your apps.

SDK Demo with Interface builder

Interface builder interacts with X Code and knows about each other. Then compile in X Code and complete. Test in the simulator. Plug an iPhone in to the computer and you can then test on that iPhone. Signs it automatically, loads it on the iPhone and you can test. Debugger loads automatically. Looks at the location with location based services and can sort data based on that.

More developer demos.

Sega gets big round of applause for having Super Monkey Ball for the iPhone. In three months all development was complete. Game will launch with app store for $10

eBay – auctions on iPhone – watch lists and custom searches give updates in real time. Find out when you get out bid and when things you are tracking go on sale. Filmstrip allows you view all photos associated with sale. Will go live with the app store.

Loopt – location with a social network. Using location based services, you can see your friends on the map and see where they are. You can also share photos, comments and emails about\with where you are. Communicate with friends and get directions to where they are. Never eat lunch alone again. Free when the app store launches.

TypePad – post to their blogging platform natively from the iPhone. Blog the moment. Send photos straight to blog. Select photos from the photo album, scale and add. Add blog comments, choose blog, keywords, tags, etc. Then publish straight to blog. You can also view via Safari to check final product. Free at launch of app store.

Associated Press – mobile news network, read news streams, watch video, email stories to friends, you can also report the news you see from the iPhone (hmmmm – wonder how that will work out). Completed entire app in 5 weeks. Free from app store at launch.

More demos, more demos, I will be back after all the demos . . . .

MLB.com has media minutes on the iPhone after it happens. Near realtime streaming video.

And, a developer from an insurance agency developed an awesome band\musical application that allows you to make music on your iPhone.

Modality made an iPhone based app for medical students to learn all the parts of the body on in stunning detail with annotations and definitions. Quiz mode, etc. Brilliant.

MIMvista medical imaging software – medical imaging is a lot of data and a lot of action. They are showing slices of a fusion study from a CAT scan and metabolism from a PET scan at the same time in composite mode like a weather map. You can even self-mix it and they had a prototype in 3 weeks and a working model soon there after. It looks amazing and the detail is phenomenal. You can mark up all the images and make measurements, etc on screen. When you want to erase them you just shake the phone like an Etch-a-Sketch!!

Digital Legends has only been working on this for two weeks with the SDK. Demo of a game called Krull which looked absolutely amazing with full OpenGL 3D graphics. Available in Sept.

Demos over. Phew. Lets here the news!!!

Developers want notifications on actions even when the user is not running the app. IM and eBay alerts even when not running the app. They dont want to do this using background running apps. Drains battery and hinders performance. Just slammed WM6 using its task manager to kill background processes, like a “game or challenge” to keep your phone running well. Push notifications service will be used instead.

You can push badges to show how many unread emails you have, you can push sounds and you can push text alerts with actionable buttons. It scales. Works OTA on both WiFi and cellular networks.

Thats it for SDK updates.

Few more features:

contact search

Full iWork document support

Full Office document support

Bulk delete and move for email

Save images from email right to photo library

Scientific calculator

Parental controls

Languages – Asian, 2 Japanese, 2 Chinese, they can draw the symbols with their fingers if they want. Switch on the fly.

Comes out in Early July – free for all iPhone owners. $10 for iPod touch owners.

App store – opens in July when iPhone 2.0 comes out. Developers set price of app. Keep 70% of revenue. Can also give them away for free. No credit card or hosting fees.

Now going to be in 62 countries. If 10MB or less they can download over any network. If larger than WiFi or iTunes.

Enterprise app store, their apps only on their phones only. Distribute them on their own intranet. Users download them and sync to their phone via iTunes.

Ad Hoc is a third way to distribute apps. Ad Hoc distribution for up to 100 iPhones. User download and sync them on to their phones via iTunes.

MobileMe (the new .Mac)

Called “Exchange for the rest of us.” Better than activeStink. (sic). Now you can push email, contacts and calendars right to your mobile device. You can use Mac, PC or iPhone. Everything is stored in the cloud. When you get a message it is immediately pushed to all of your devices. Change a contact, make an appt. Get an email. OTA it is all kept up to date.

Can also be accessed via a web browser. Very nice interface. http://me.com

Sync photos as well. Documents and content too with iDisk. Cost? Log out when done with that computer if a public computer. Live demo took 4 seconds to sync changes across Mac, PC and iPhone.

$99 a year with 20GB storage for all contact. 60 day free trial. Comes out with iPhone 2.0 in July. Mobile.me replaces .mac – will get automatically upgraded.

Battery running low – will go on as long as I can.

iPhone first birthday on 6/29.

“The phone that has changed phones forever” & “Users love their iPhones.” 97% customer satisfaction. 98% mobile browsing. 94% email 80% are using 10 or more features.

6M iPhones and then ran out about 4 weeks ago.

Next challenges: 3G, Enterprise support, 3rd party app support, sell in more countries, more affordable!!!!

iPhone 3G!!!

• 3G
• Thinner
• Full plastic back
• Metal buttons
• 3.5 inch display
• Camera
• Flush headphone jack
• improved audio
• Feels better in your hand

3G for faster data downloads. Need for browser and email.

Test website 21 secs for 3G and 59 secs on edge

Great Battey life – 300 hours standby time – 3G talk time – 5 hours – industry leading – browsing 5-6 hours, video 7 hours, audio – 24 hours

GPS included in the new phone!!

Location-based services will rule. Location data from cell towers, wifi and GPS.

Full Exchange and Cisco support.

To the tune of “Its a Small World” the map gets populated to show it will be selling in 70 countries.

Moving on to “more affordable” - $599 for a 8GB, now $399 – will now go for $199 for an 8GB phone!!!

Goes on sale 7/11

Everyone is streaming in trying to find the optimal seat. After four hours of waiting in line, I don’t care where I sit just as long as I am sitting. There are large plasmas all over the place which is good – from my vantage point, Jobs is going to be a dot. Huge applause – Al Gore is here in the audience. From my seat:

More cheesy pre-show music …

10:01 AM PST

Still waiting, people still streaming in. Whomever was in charge of the herd\logistics should be shot. Microsoft owns them in this regard – the all important conference logistics and organization!

10:05 AM PST

Still waiting – oh no, here we go – lights are down!! Applause. NDA on screen, all rights reserved, etc. Showtime!

Steve comes on stage to rabid and thunderous applause.

Record 5200 attendees. Sold out. Biggest venue we can find.

We have planned a lot of stuff to show you today.

Three parts to Apple: Mac, Music + iTunes, iPhone

Bringing up head of iPhone departments and product marketing

After lunch we get a peak at Snow Leopard!

iPhone

25K applied to paid developer program
iPhone 2.0

Enterprise Support

SDK

New User Features

Enterprise Support

Push email

OTA config

Certs

Remote wipe

Cisco VPN

Beta program – 35% of Fortune 500 participated

Showing video of customers like Disney that were in the beta

Customer testimonials from the beta program. Disney, The Army, Security companies, etc.

  Now the SDK

Opening uo the same API and tools they use internally to developers

Coca Touch – Media – Core Services – Core OS

Line for line same source code as Mac OS X

New feature called core location allows for location based services

Core Audio – open GL es and surround sound

Coca touch – OOF and UI optimized for full screen touch interface, makes building it a breeze

X Code will be used to write edit and debug

Interface builder lets you construct the user interface and then insert in code

iPhone emulator to debug and test

Instruments allows you to test, benchmark and appropriately size your apps.

SDK Demo with Interface builder

Interface builder interacts with X Code and knows about each other. Then compile in X Code and complete. Test in the simulator. Plug an iPhone in to the computer and you can then test on that iPhone. Signs it automatically, loads it on the iPhone and you can test. Debugger loads automatically. Looks at the location with location based services and can sort data based on that.

More developer demos.

Sega gets big round of applause for having Super Monkey Ball for the iPhone. In three months all development was complete. Game will launch with app store for $10

eBay – auctions on iPhone – watch lists and custom searches give updates in real time. Find out when you get out bid and when things you are tracking go on sale. Filmstrip allows you view all photos associated with sale. Will go live with the app store.

Loopt – location with a social network. Using location based services, you can see your friends on the map and see where they are. You can also share photos, comments and emails about\with where you are. Communicate with friends and get directions to where they are. Never eat lunch alone again. Free when the app store launches.

TypePad – post to their blogging platform natively from the iPhone. Blog the moment. Send photos straight to blog. Select photos from the photo album, scale and add. Add blog comments, choose blog, keywords, tags, etc. Then publish straight to blog. You can also view via Safari to check final product. Free at launch of app store.

Associated Press – mobile news network, read news streams, watch video, email stories to friends, you can also report the news you see from the iPhone (hmmmm – wonder how that will work out). Completed entire app in 5 weeks. Free from app store at launch.

So I stayed up until 2am (will post at 8am) to answer these questions… I got a bit cranky and short I am sure. Out of the 100 questions asked about 20 were repeats and 5 were just stupid.
Brian asks:
What is the biggest reason that people are not successful in making money […]