Building websites for kids

Sorry - this is a long one. Thanks to iMedia Connection for this post.

Conquering kid culture online
By Steve Glauberman

Designing sites for kids isn't child's play -- it takes a careful balance of usability, creative intuition and regulatory compliance.

They represent an internet population that's expected to balloon to nearly 38 million in 2008. Yet in many ways, they're the hardest online audience to reach. They're kids, and they're at the heart of a riddle that's been troubling online marketers for years: How can we effectively engage them on the web?

The emergence of new internet technologies and trends has provided us with some good options for increasing children's awareness of our products and brands. Marketers have been developing all manner of virtual worlds, online communities, social networks and online gaming destinations in an effort to attract and retain the attention of kids aged 3 through 17. The movement toward creating kid-friendly virtual worlds in particular has been likened to an online gold rush, as businesses recognize the potential of these sites to draw millions of dedicated young users each month.

This potential only promises to increase. Online research firm eMarketer reported last year that 24 percent of the 34.3 million child and teen web users in the U.S. visited virtual worlds once a month with that number expected to rise to 34 percent in 2008 and over 50 percent within the next three years. Meanwhile, Mediamark Research and Intelligence recently found that nearly 80 percent of kids aged 6 to 11 routinely play online games, with boys and girls spending almost an equal amount of time on the popular online activity.

Knowing young consumers are eager to experiment with these media doesn't make our task much easier. Marketing to kids has become a competitive business; we certainly benefit from understanding where their interests lie, but simply incorporating social community or gaming components into our sites (or those of our clients) doesn't guarantee their success. Designing sites for kids requires a unique strategy that takes usability, best practices and child marketing regulations into account.

Sounds like fun
The process of designing a site for kids begins as any web project does: by analyzing the needs of its target audience. If that audience is particularly young -- aged 3 to 7 -- sound will be an essential element of your site. Although kids this age are likely to go online with their parents, it's important to make sites as accessible to them as possible. Since they aren't likely to be reading well yet, that means using sound and voice-overs to narrate text intros, site options, even registration information if users are required to become members in order to use the site.

Children's attention can be further captured by the use of video, and in cases where sound is a must, offering an accompanying narrative video makes good sense. Many kids' sites incorporate a narrated video demo into their home page to walk new users through site features and familiarize them (and their cautious parents) with the site.

Rules to design by
The "anything goes" mentality inherent in many forms of online advertising doesn't apply when you're targeting kids. Laws like the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), enacted by congress in 1998, and the Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule (COPPR), issued by the FTC in 1999, have been put into place to protect children online and now guide every aspect of web design from site structure to copywriting.

These laws primarily prevent the collection of personal information from children under the age of 13 without parental involvement. Website publishers are therefore required to comply on a number of levels, including by posting their privacy policies, obtaining parental consent before collecting and using personal information (though email addresses can be collected in some instances) and allowing parents to review personal information collected from their kids. The FTC maintains a site where kids, adults and businesses can all obtain more information about both laws.

Even more relevant to web design are the regulations instilled by the Children's Advertising Review Unit. Established in 1974 by the National Advertising Review Council, CARU is a self-regulatory program intended to promote responsible children's advertising. Among other things, the program's guidelines require that online advertisers and publishers prominently identify the name, company or brand associated with each ad, and that online advertising integrated into the content of a game or activity be clearly demarcated as such.

Childrens' site developers abide by these rules by marking banners with the term "advertising" and by creating "jump pages" that site users see each time they transition from an sponsor-free page to one that features third-party ads. In the case of the latter, text will typically read, "You're about to enter the commercial area of our site," and might also provide a friendly warning about internet use in general (i.e., "Remember to never give out your personal information online").

Such site pages needn't be dull; in fact, they should maintain the same playful look and tone as the remainder of the site. Take a look at an example for DiscoveryKids.com (Disclosure: Discovery Kids is a client of Enlighten).

Creative that interacts
Whether designing brand sites or virtual worlds, the focus should be on activity and interactivity. Kids expect a lot from an online experience, for various reasons. They've never known a world without the energizing action of television and film and use these as a barometer for the entertainment value delivered by a medium like the web. They also didn't get to experience the internet the way it looked ten years ago, when deliberate interactivity wasn't nearly as prevalent as it is now. If they aren't sufficiently entertained by a site, there are plenty of other options to choose from. As such, keeping them engaged is a requirement, not a perk.

There are countless creative ways in which to do this. Some sites offer interactive slideshows of new features, transform the standard mouse curser into a symbol or character or provide users with avatars with which to navigate the site's activities. In virtual worlds, kids are often given a private online space to decorate in accordance with their personal tastes and are allowed to shop online for virtual furniture and accessories using credits earned by participating in site activities. This feature can be extended to brand sites in order to increase the time spent on a property and the child's affiliation with the product, but developers should be sure to update assets regularly to retain their users' interests.

Also worth considering is the amount of interactivity available on each individual site page. Our information architecture team has found that while sites that are uncluttered generally receive a higher usability rating, it's quite the opposite with sites for kids. Children have such a high tolerance for interaction that they expect every graphic on a site page to be clickable and deliver an interesting payoff.

Another useful finding is the way in which children interact with FAQ lists and help sections on a site. Because they have little patience for sorting through a laundry list of tips in search of the one that relates to their immediate needs, it's best to identify potential usability issues section by section and offer a succinct list of answers on each site page.

It may seem like child's play, but designing sites for kids requires a concerted approach that takes into account the users' capabilities, online behavior, interests, and needs. But that doesn't mean it can't be as much fun as the end product.

http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/19649.asp

Tweet your service

Thanks to NGT for this post on how our brands can make REAL use of Twitter, however, I can't imagine the amount of work involved in maintaining this kind of customer communication!

Jet Blue Tweets Customer Service
JUNE 11TH, 2008 BY ALLISON

More and more, smart marketers are scanning Twitter for mentions or creating Twitter channels for a brand’s “followers.” By microblogging, they can give consumers real-time company news, coupons, contests, etc. Some companies are even running customer service via Twitter. We recently came across a great case study on StyleITOnline.com, which chronicles a users’ actual experience:

For the rest: http://www.nextgreatthing.com/wordpress/2008/06/11/jet-blue-tweets-customer-service/

Mobile Commerce

Remember when you could buy Coke from a vending machine at Central Station with your mobile phone??? Well I think this is a little more techy than that... Thanks to Mobile Crunh for this post:

Your Mobile Phone to become Mobile Wallet
Posted by John Kullman

Report Buyer published a study today that finds mobile commerce is quickly catching on worldwide. By 2011, 25 million Americans are expected to use their mobile phones as mobile wallets. Many countries are finding the ease and convenience of mobile phone commerce is hard to resist.

For the full article check out: http://mobilecrunch.com/2008/06/10/your-mobile-phone-to-become-mobile-wallet/

list, goal and to do sites

Some interesting sites around lists, to-dos, goals etc... Go on, get something done!

http://www.mecanbe.com/default.aspx – a map showing goals, linked to real life action and collaboration tools

http://www.lifetango.com/ - whoa hold the yankee cheese, but a social network devoted entirely to achieving goals

http://www.wishlistr.com/ - create, share, search wishlists

http://www.rememberthemilk.com/ - awesome service based around remembering and scheduling tasks. Really nice social aspects

http://www.zirr.us/ - whiteboard, tag cloud, brain dumping tool

http://monkeyon.com/ - tool for getting other people to do things

http://www.grocerylists.org/ - love this, but it’s a bit out there: a list of shopping lists that have been turned in to book.

How to build a killer mobile database

Thanks to iMedia Connection for this post:

By Andreas Roell

Mobile opportunities

Every year is the "year of mobile." There have been expectations from the outset for this advertising platform to revolutionize the industry, and if mastered, marketers could tag along with consumers everywhere. While mobile marketing has not had a breakthrough yet, there are enough statistics and predictions circulating within the industry to keep experts forecasting its probable success -- year after year. The most appetizing is the continued increase of usage and penetration rates. If mobile advertising has its big break within the next two years, as many predictions forecast, it is time for marketers to begin bulking up their mobile databases right now.

What are the opportunities with SMS messaging?

The most obvious advantage of SMS messaging is the immediate access to users. With email, there is an inconsistent lag between when marketers reach out to consumers and when those consumers actually get the message. Mobile advertising allows marketers to reach users wherever they are during the day, not just when they are at a computer, in front of a TV set or in the car listening to the radio. This timeliness can be a crucial element for advertising campaigns such as sweepstakes, time-sensitive promotions or other incentive campaigns.

An advantage for mobile advertisers is the accessibility of the user -- consumers are attached to their cellphones. Marketers can factor this into their messaging strategy, making their communications particularly timely. The mobile platform also has tie-in opportunities with other advertising forums like social networking to help promote multiplatform campaigns. For example, a beer company that advertises during the Super Bowl can give users the opportunity to express play-by-play reactions as a part of an advertising campaign.

For the full article please visit:
http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/19644.asp

From iPhone with Love

This technology could put a whole new spin on Emoticons - just image what you could draw and send! Thanks to Telecoms Korea and NGT for this post:

Send Mobile Messages in Your Own Handwriting

A new SMS allows users to send a handwritten message over mobile networks. KTF announced the launch of Font of Your Own service.

Unlike existing SMS giving a choice of ready-made fonts, Font of Your Own is the first service that allows users to create personalized fonts for message writing.

To use Font of Your Own service, users have to download necessary applications and set up the idle screen before opening the folder and generate the font by sending the mobile photograph of 33 handwritten letters.

Download of applications and registration of fonts is free of data use fee. Customers can create or change fonts on the PC, using a font editor program.

http://www.telecomskorea.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5832&Itemid=2

Business trends to look out for in 2008

Thanks to FutureLab for this post:

Endless Innovation Business Trends: June 2008
by: Dominic Basulto

Largely as an outgrowth of client work over the past quarter, I've put together a brief overview of four business trends that are worth keeping an eye on over the remainder of 2008:

(1) Social Data
(2) Micro-Payments for Online Social Experiences
(3) Content Mashups
(4) "Live" experiences (that really aren't "live")

For the full article and corresponding powerpoint slides, visit: http://blog.futurelab.net/2008/06/endless_innovation_business_tr.html
OR// http://www.slideshare.net/basulto/endless-innovation-online-trends?src=embed

Women - Smarter than men?

I refer to an article I posted on Tuesday called "The new shake 'n' make" in which i challenged you to come up with a new iPhone application for your brand... well, seeing as though women are increasingly buying into the technology at a faster rate than men, lets target those applications at women and see if we can't help them find a new way to manage their weight, or chose what's for dinner tonight? Beef casserole anyone?

Thanks to the below blog from the NY Times:


Smartphones Now Ringing for Women

By LAURA M. HOLSON
Published: June 10, 2008

If recent history is any guide, roughly a third of the people snapping up Apple’s new iPhone are likely to tote it in a purse.

In the last year the number of American women using smartphones more than doubled to 10.4 million, growing at a faster pace than among men, according to Nielsen Mobile, which tracks wireless trends.

The trend is mirrored in sales of the iPhone. In October, nearly one out of four owners of the iPhone was a woman, according to Nielsen. By March that number rose to one in three. The iPhone model announced Monday, with faster Internet access and mapping features, may accelerate the shift.

Smartphones are cheaper now — as little as $99 for the petite BlackBerry Pearl — and are better designed. Women have been using them for years in business, of course, but many are finding that the phones can also help manage their families’ hectic schedules and keep them in touch with friends.

“You are not seen as a geek anymore if you have a smartphone,” said Carolina Milanesi, research director at Gartner Group, a research firm. “Women, including wives and mothers, need to keep track of their busy lives, too.”

The phone makers and service providers increasingly see women as the path to the entire household. According to Verizon Wireless, 71 percent of women make the decision about their family’s wireless choices, including phones and service plans. (Smartphones require data plans that can cost $30 or more a month.)

As a result, smartphone makers are beginning to market specifically to women. Research in Motion, based in Waterloo, Ontario, has taken out ads for its BlackBerry phones in Elle, Martha Stewart Living and Oprah Winfrey’s magazine O.

For the full article visit: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/10/technology/10phone.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

Google rates ad quality

Thanks to PinkAir for exposing this nugget in the below post.

The rate card that rates you

Not many companies are as interesting as Google. From their basic technology to how they make money, they repeatedly make you think "Okay, so that means..." and a bunch of new implications come spilling out.

Today's NYT outlines the workings of Google's "ad quality" team. Because the creative and placement variables of Google ads are relatively few and are controlled by Google, they can experiment with them and directly measure the results. This helps them determine how to price ads which makes them more money.

Even more interesting, one of the variables they incorporate into their pricing and placement model is the quality of the consumer's experience after they click on the ad:

Over time, the company also looked beyond click-through rates to rank ads. Google now takes into account the “landing page” that the ad links to, and, for example, gives low grades to pages whose sole purpose is to show more ads. Soon, the loading speed of a landing page will also be considered.

These factors contribute to an ad’s “quality score.” The higher that score, the less the advertiser has to bid to secure top billing. For example, an advertiser who offers to pay $1 per click to attract those searching for “vacation rentals in Colorado” may receive more prominent placement than another who bids $1.50 for the same query but has a lower quality score. An advertiser with a very low quality score may have to bid so much for placement as to make it uneconomical.

Quality scores work as an incentive to advertisers to improve their ads, which benefits users and, in turn, benefits Google.

Yikes! Better service (and can better products be far behind?) leading to lower ad rates? Some advertisers are confused and angry ("many advertisers complain that the company was, in essence, deciding who can and cannot advertise on its system") but Google seems to believe that the overall health/value of their ad system is increased when consumers believe that Google ads represent relevant and high-quality suggestions.

Most media discriminate among advertisers in some way. You're not going to see a Hooters ad in Vanity Fair anytime soon. But I've never heard of a media company digging so deeply into the post-ad consumer experience and using it to directly affect rates. I can feel the possible implications radiating outwards...

http://www.pinkair.com/2008/06/the-rate-card-t.html

Euro 2008 Fan Kit

Google’s euro 2008 effort - A nice example of aggregating existing content, and a little bit of development work to create something new:

The 2008 European Championship lasts for 23 days this year, which means 23 days of thrills, hopes, tears and cheers.

To celebrate those 23 days, Google and YouTube have put together a fan kit, so you can share your passion for football with thousands of other fans from around the world!

The Google Fan Map

Explore all the locations for the European Championship and view the latest news and information about your team. Find your favourite spot to watch, play or celebrate football, then share it with the world!

YouTube Fan Diary

Be a part of the YouTube Fan Diary:  http://youtube.com/23days

http://www.google.co.uk/intl/en/23days/

The Hottest Thing in Town

New service letting you visualise where people are via your mobile.  Great for marketers but limited for consumers? Thanks to TechCrunch for this post.

Location-Tracking Startup Sense Networks Emerges from Stealth To Answer the Question: Where Is Everybody?

Erick Schonfeld
What if you could look at your cell phone and see a heat map of where everybody in the city was at that very moment? The more people at any given location, the redder it would appear on the map. That’s what Citysense does. It is a mobile application that is supposed to help you figure out where the hottest clubs and night spots are so you can go there (or avoid them, depending on your preference).

It senses where the most popular places are based on the location information emitted by everyone’s cell phones, shows the places with the most activity, and then links into Yelp or Google to help you find out what is at that location. Over time, it learns about where you like to go (fancy restaurants or punk rock clubs) and shows you other people like you, and where they are—right now. And it does all of this anonymously. (You can’t see your where your actual friends are). Citysense only works in San Francisco right now. It is available as a mobile download for the Blackberry and soon for the iPhone as well.

The application is essentially a demonstration for a startup called Sense Networks that is emerging from stealth mode today. Citysense is built on top of the company’s main technology platform, Macrosense. The company ingests billions of data points about people’s location from cell phones, GPS devices, WiFi, and even taxis. The company also collects geo-location data from everyone who downloads Citysense, or any future app (although, the company considers the data to be yours, and you can delete it from the database at any time).

Using machine-learning algorithms, it then indexes all of this location data and ranks places in the real world much like a search engine ranks Websites. But instead of looking at Web links, it looks at how much data (i.e., people) are moving between locations. The company makes money by selling this data in the aggregate to professional investors and financial institutions, who are keen to find out things like where people are shopping.

Sense Networks was founded by MIT computer scientist Alex Pentland and Columbia computer scientist Tony Jebara back in May, 2003. But it remained pretty much a research project until the company was incorporated in 2006. In April, 2008 it raised an A round from hedge funds (including Passport Capital, Drobny Global Asset Management and the Challenge Funds) and angel investors. The amount was not disclosed, but VentureWire reports that it was $3 million.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/06/09/location-tracking-startup-sense-networks-emerges-from-stealth-to-answer-the-question-where-is-everybody/

TV, Meet the Web

Thanks to Tech Crunch for sharing the love on measuring TV through Google! Check out their post:

TV, Meet the Web. Google Analytics Starts Measuring TV Ads
Erick Schonfeld - June 6, 2008
Google’s experiment with selling and measuring TV ads on the Dish satellite network just got a lot more interesting. A month ago, Google incorporated the ability to buy TV ads into AdWords. Now, it is taking all of that ad impression data and layering it on top of Google Analytics. This is very basic and imperfect, but it hints at the future of how advertising will be measured: all in the same place.

Within Google Analytics, which many companies already use as a dashboard to measure their Website traffic and the effectiveness their online Google ad campaigns, it is now possible to also measure the effectiveness of your Google TV ads. It shows you how many times your ad was seen on TV, and overlays that on top of a graph showing how many people visited your Website.

While the two are not always directly correlated, if the point of the TV ads is to drive Website traffic, at least advertisers can now eyeball whether any corresponding spikes occur after they run their TV ads. Google Analytics also displays the cost of the ads, how many times each one played, and calculates a CPM (cost per thousand impressions) so that advertisers can roughly compare the return they get from TV ads versus Web ads.

Google can only place TV ads on Dish boxes at this point, so its reach is limited. But within that sandbox, Google is showing the way that advertising ought to be measured.

Now, imagine seeing radio, print, and other forms of advertising as well side by side with Web and TV and you get a sense of where Google wants to go with all of this. If advertisers can truly get to the point where they can measure all of their ad campaigns across all media in one place, then they will shift those advertising dollars to the most efficient place. And that may not be the Web in all cases. But if Google can place ads anywhere and collect better data on their relative effectiveness than anyone else, it really won’t care.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/06/06/tv-meet-the-web-google-analytics-starts-measuring-tv-ads/

The Real Business Model for Web 2.0

Thanks to Forrester / Groundswell for this nice blog post on objectives and examples of how companies are and can use social networks:

The real business model for Web 2.0: corporate clients
by Josh Bernoff
JUNE 09, 2008

Everyone seems to want an answer to the question "When will Web 2.0 startups start making money?" The implication is that unless we can answer the question, the "bubble" of Web 2.0 will burst and all of us who believe in this stuff will be revealed as fantasists.
The fact is, it's incredibly hard to make money as a Web 2.0 startup aimed at consumers.

There are hundreds of these companies, and they all clamor to brief us at Forrester. Each has its own twist on blogs, social networks, ratings, user generated video, or whatever. It's hard to get people to pay attention to a new tool, and the value of the tool depends on lots of participation -- the classic chicken-and-egg problem. You competitor is always one twist ahead of you. Some of these startups will succeed but the odds are one in a thousand -- you need just the right idea, at the right time, with the right push or set of potential customers, and you need to take off with such velocity that you leave the competition in the dust.

Once a startup like this does take off, there's that other pesky little problem -- monetizing the success. Google transformed the online world by first generating huge traffic, then finding a business model. But Google's success was based on a fantastically clever advertising mechanism that was automated, attracted new advertisers, and served searchers nearly as well as it served advertisers. Facebook hasn't yet unlocked that advertising gold mine, and flubbed up its most prominent try with Beacon. Twitter has no business model yet. Ning has hundreds of thousands of visitors, but still runs Google AdSense ads. And these are the successes. No wonder people are skeptical.

A few of these companies may (and likely will) unlock that genie as Google did and take off. But for any given startup, the odds are astronomical.

The amazing thing is that there are a class of startup companies making good money right now from Web 2.0. They're not flashy and they don't grow like mushrooms. But they've got all the business they can handle and they are growing. I am talking about companies that serve corporate social application needs. This isn't the typical Web 2.0 business paradigm, since serving corporate customers means lots of client service, which is people-intensive -- it doesn't lift off miraculously like a pure technology startup. In fact, in many of these companies, the technology itself is positively mundane. But the startups grow because they deliver value for which they can charge a premium and get customer loyalty. The customers of these companies don't defect when something shiny and new comes along, because they like the service they're getting.
Here are some examples, listed by the objectives they help companies accomplish (for more on these objectives see Chapters 4 through 9 of Groundswell).

Listening.
Communispace now has hundreds of private communities that its client companies are using to learn about their customers. It succeeds because it's unlocked the key to running and moderating these communities effectively, and grows despite charging $150K or more per year per community. The other class of listening companies are the brand monitoring companies, and the track record here is great. Research giant Nielsen bought BuzzMetrics. Another research giant, TNS, bought Cymfony. J.D. Power & Associates bought Umbria. MotiveQuest, which is still independent, has typical clients happily paying $70K $30K and up to work with it.

Talking.
Talking with the Groundswell is tricky, but there are plenty of agencies ready to help you with it. After building dozens of campaigns and sites, Blast Radius was bought by mega-agency Wunderman. Brains on Fire ignited the spectacular success of Fiskateers. The digital divisions of companies like Edelman also compete in this space, as do the big Web service companies like Avenue A/Razorfish (now part of Microsoft).

Energizing.
Ratings and reviews are the easiest way to energize customers to sell others, and the companies that provide them are taking off. On behalf of its clients, Bazaarvoice's clients have generated over 10 billion customer reviews has served over 10 billion reviews to consumers. PowerReviews works with over 200 retailers. And ExpoTV has built a business around consumers creating reviews on video.

Supporting.
Support forums work -- they please customers and they reduce costs. Lithium has an impressive client list including Dell, AT&T, Comcast, and Sprint. And forums are just one type of community. The community space is crowded, but other companies with growing client lists include Jive Software, Awareness, and Mzinga/Prospero.

Embracing. 

Startups that enable clients to source ideas from their customers have a bright future, because customer-generated innovation is hot right now. Salesforce.com bought Crispy News and turned it into Salesforce Ideas, which powers idea sites for Dell and Starbucks. And Innocentive is growing rapidly, with 50 companies including Procter & Gamble offering prizes of $10,000 or more to innovators that can solve their problems.

While many were distracted by sparkly consumer-facing startups, these companies were building and growing solid businesses. Look how many of them were acquired! This is no bubble, because companies that deliver business value to clients have durable growth potential. Could this be the Web 2.0 business model everyone is looking for?

If you're interested in what this means for marketing people working with startups (and you're a Forrester client), see our related document, going live today.

http://blogs.forrester.com/charleneli/2008/06/why-id-bet-on-w.html

MoneyAisle: Live Auctions Where Banks Compete for You

Cheers to Mashable for this post on a new finance site/model in which banks bid for consumers:

MoneyAisle

June 9, 2008 — 04:05 AM PDT — by Kristen Nicole —


MoneyAisle’s service launches today, and its offering may be something that becomes more commonplace in the coming years. As banking options move online, and comparative tools like LendingTree streamline the process on the banking and consumer side, one trend in particular is slowly overtaking the banking industry overall.

Consumer-centric models of banking and custom features are core to MoneyAisle’s service, which revolves around an online auction marketplace where banks bid for customers. It’s almost the reverse of an auction site like eBay. Banks using MoneyAisle can bid against each other in live auctions, starting with certificates of deposit (CDs), and high-yield savings accounts. These are the first two product offerings from MoneyAisle, and the company expects to expand beyond these two for more consumer offerings in the near future. Upon today’s launch, MoneyAisle has about 100 bank partners.

Aside from providing a 24/7 live auction service that aims to give consumers the best rate possible as banks literally compete for customers, MoneyAisle is touching on several developments we’re seeing in the banking and lending industries. The overarching trend is the leveraging of technology and online networks for the ability to survive.

But will MoneyAisle work? The concept will surely continue to develop, that’s for sure.

Sites like Zopa are taking a similar approach to lending, as consumers are able to put their requests (amount, interest rates, etc.) on the table and receive loans accordingly. We’re also likely to see services similar to MoneyAisle emerge in the coming year, as more banks become willing to participate in such services.

Banks are readily becoming more consumer-centric, looking to technological innovations in order to provide a competitive, custom experience. Capital One lets you customize your credit card with a photo, and JP Morgan Chase is planning on using Rearden’s concierge features as a perk for its banking customers.

http://mashable.com/2008/06/09/moneyaisl/

Hands Free Gaming in Time for Christmas!

I wonder: Is there a risk that the more you play the less you are able to? (i.e. as the game feeds off your brain cells, doesn't it also kill it? - I know my mother would think so!)

Thanks to the NewYork Times for this little novelty.

Moving Mountains With the Brain, Not a Joystick
By ANNE EISENBERG
Published: June 8, 2008

STILL using a mouse, keyboard, joystick or motion sensor to control the action in a video game? It may be time to try brain power instead.

A new headset system picks up electrical activity from the brain, as well as from facial muscles and other spots, and translates it into on-screen commands. This lets players vanquish villains not with a click, but with a thought.

Put on the headset, made by Emotiv Systems in San Francisco, and when a giant boulder blocks the path in a game you are playing, you can levitate it — not by something as crude as a keystroke, but just by concentrating on raising it, said Tan Le, Emotiv’s president. The headset captures electrical signals when you concentrate; then the computer processes these signals and pairs a screen action with them, like lifting a stone or repairing a falling bridge.

The headset is the consumer cousin of brain-computer interfaces developed in research labs and used, for example, by monkeys who manipulate prosthetic arms with thoughts. The monkeys’ intentions are detected by sensors, translated into machine language and used to move the arm. In general, some interfaces use sensors implanted directly in the brain; others use electrode-studded caps.

For humans, Emotiv plans to have its noninvasive, wireless EPOC headset ($299) on sale in time for Christmas, Ms. Le said. With 16 sensors that lightly touch the head, it uses a standard technology, electroencephalography, or EEG, to pick up electrical signals from the scalp’s surface and convert them to actions that control or enhance what happens on screen.

To help players master the art of moving on-screen objects solely through concentration, the headset will come bundled with a game, set on a magical mountain, that includes practice exercises, said Geoffrey Mackellar, Emotiv’s research and development manager. “You clear the mind,” he said, and then do 30 to 40 seconds of training, by concentrating, for instance, on visualizing a block lifting from the earth. “On the first or second attempt, you can lift it at will.”

Other, harder challenges follow. In constant feedback, he said, the machine learns more about how users think just as users grow more skillful at concentrating.

Many game developers are incorporating the EPOC’s biofeedback abilities into their applications, Ms. Le said.

The system doesn’t just lift boulders. It can also detect some of a player’s facial expressions and emotional responses: smile, frown or wink, for instance, and an avatar on screen can do so, too. Grow bored during a battle, and the system can detect ennui and supply a few dragons, or change the music. The device tracks a total of about 30 responses.

A chip inside the headset collects the signals and sends them wirelessly to a receiver plugged into a U.S.B. port of the computer, where most of the processing occurs, Dr. Mackellar said.

The sleek Emotiv headset is a version of the EEG cap used for decades to record brain electrical activity, said Nathan Fox, a professor of human development at the University of Maryland.

“There can be as many as 256 electrodes at one time in a cap,” he said. ‘The placement corresponds in some rough approximation to brain areas that are underneath the scalp.”

Medical-grade EEG caps are used in research to eavesdrop on the brain as it plans motion and to translate these plans, for example, into cursor actions on a screen so paralyzed people can control a computer to write messages.

The Emotiv headset, too, taps the power of the mind, as well as using feedback from muscles, Dr. Mackellar said.

“We definitely read brain waves — no doubt about it — but we also read other things,” he said. “In classical EEG, movements of the face and muscles are regarded as noise. But we use some of it, rather than discard it.”

Anton Nijholt, a professor of computer science at the University of Twente in the Netherlands who does research on innovative interfaces for games, looks forward to the extra means of interaction that EEG headsets will provide. But he doesn’t think that all consumers will be able to use them to raise mountains.

“Not all people are able to display the mental activity necessary to move an object on a screen,” he said. “Some people may not be able to imagine movement in a way that EEG can detect.”

So far, Dr. Mackellar said, all 200 testers of the headset had indeed been able to move on-screen objects mentally.

ANOTHER headset, the Neural Impulse Actuator ($169), just released by the OCZ Technology Group in Sunnyvale, Calif., has three sensors in a headband that pick up electrical activity primarily from muscles and convert it into commands, said Michael Schuette, vice president for technology development. Players of shooting games, for instance, may use eye movement to trigger a shot, shaving milliseconds off of their response time and sparing their hands.

The exact source of the electrical activity the headset is picking up may not be important, said Dr. Jonathan Wolpaw, chief of the laboratory for nervous system disorders at the Wadsworth Center of the New York State Department of Health in Albany. He uses EEG caps as part of brain-computer interfaces for severely paralyzed people. His systems record brain activity alone, but for a consumer game device, a cap that picks up a mixture of brain and muscle activity may be acceptable.

“In a lot of these commercial uses, people don’t care if the activity is coming from the brain or forehead muscles,” he said. “It doesn’t matter to them so long as they can play the game.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/08/technology/08novel.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Targeting just got lethal

Cheers to AdAge for an interesting use of alternative reality gaming to target a very specific group of people:

Toyota: No One's Targeted Black Women Like This
Alternate-Reality Game Challenges Camry's Rep as 'Suburban,' 'Boring'

By Claude Brodesser-Akner
Published: June 09, 2008

LOS ANGELES (AdAge.com) -- With companywide sales down 8% this May compared with a year ago, every sale suddenly matters to Toyota Motor Corp. And so the carmaker is launching what it calls an "episodic interactive campaign" to connect with a car-buying audience it has never targeted: professional African-American women.

Toyota's 'If Looks Could Kill' interactive site will target African-American women.

The automaker's Camry has been the best-selling car in America for nine of the past 10 years, but it seems African-American consumers would rather hitch their wagons to just about any other brand.

"Here's this nameplate that's ubiquitous," said Monica Warden, account director for Burrell, Toyota's agency of record or African-American advertising. "But for an African-American woman, it's not even in her consideration set. Our preliminary testing found they think of it as suburban, not urban; as solid but boring. And for this woman, she doesn't see herself as boring."

To shift the car's perception and increase purchase consideration, Toyota and Burrell have turned to the Pasadena, Calif.-based 42 Entertainment, a company that specializes in creating alternate-reality games, including a recent innovative viral campaign for Warner Bros.' forthcoming "Batman: The Dark Knight."

In the game, which makes its debut today, Bianca, a good-looking assistant designer at an urban fashion house, finds herself -- and her new 2009 Camry -- enmeshed in a world of espionage. A $5 million print, radio and online campaign that will run in media primarily consumed by African-American women aims to drive the target demographic to iflookscouldkill.com, a site where "fashion and espionage collide," said Susan Bonds, president of 42 Entertainment.

Espionage, mystery

Naturally, Bianca's unwitting involvement in spy tradecraft will be assisted by Camry's onboard Bluetooth, navigation and push-button ignition system, all features that will be "seamlessly integrated" into the content, Ms. Bonds said.

Why Camry hasn't caught on with African-American women is something of a mystery.

If the demographic simply wasn't buying any midprice sedans, one could to point to U.S. Census Bureau statistics that show that black women are the least likely to marry (in 2001, according to the U.S. Census, 41.9% of black women in America had never been married, in contrast to 20.7% of white women) and also the most likely to divorce. Lacking a double income, they might opt for cheaper wheels.

Or one might look to a November 2007 study by New York University's Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy that found that black and Hispanic borrowers were more likely to be steered into subprime loans than others, even adjusting for income, loan size and property location -- indicating they don't have money to buy a car.

But U.S. Census data from 2005 show that black and Asian women with bachelor's degrees earn slightly more than similarly educated white women. And a recent study conducted by Burrell found that black women do buy midprice sedans; they just tend to buy Altimas, Accords and Avengers. Indeed, the Camry was being outsold almost 2-to-1 by Dodge's Avenger among black customers -- a car that suffered from less horsepower and lower fuel mileage than just about every six-cylinder competitor, including the Camry.

Disrupting perceptions

The game developed by 42 Entertainment is designed to target exactly those professional black women between 25 and 40 who earn at least $70,000 a year -- the same group that, Ms.Warden said, had previously written off the car as a suburban yawn.

"They think they know the car, but we're going to disrupt those perceptions," she said. "When you think that someone actually cares enough to make their product relevant to you, it can change your mind."

She added: "No one has ever targeted African-American women like this."

http://adage.com/article?article_id=127615

The new shake 'n' make

This post from iMedia Connection, details some cool new applications that are in the mix for Apple's iPhone. 

The Siite example is certainly relevant for Dairy Farmers Ski yogurt, but i wonder what our other brands could develop using this technology?  You could shake coins from a piggy bank for Comm Bank or rock a cruise boat for P&O? Surely there must be loads more - let me know and post your ideas in the comments!

Breakthrough marketing with a twist, shake and squeeze
By Alan Ruthazer
Published: June 06, 2008

New iPhone applications open the field for creative marketing. Here are some examples of what's in the works.

Developers looking for the next marketing platform see the smart phone as a hot opportunity, one that -- with the impending launch of the new iPhone -- is heating up fast.

With the release of Apple's iPhone Software Developer's Kit (SDK) earlier this year, there has been tremendous speculation, along with a few sneak peeks of next generation applications for this mobile device from the likes of SalesForce.com, EA and Sega.

What's driving this fervor? Apple's elegant hardware and sleek user interface certainly go a long way toward forging a relationship between users and their device, but things really get interesting when one brings the accelerometer and multi-touch technology into play.

With the accelerometer the iPhone can measure gravity-induced reaction forces -- spinning, tipping or flipping-- and multi-touch functionality enables users to interact with the touch screen by simultaneously touching it in multiple locations.

As developers begin to tap into these technologies we will start seeing groundbreaking applications. This device also presents the opportunity to dramatically change the marketing landscape. That said, the following are a few iPhone-based marketing projects now under development in SiiTE Interactive's idea lab.

Shakin' things up
SiiTE is helping one of the fastest growing frozen yogurt franchises with a mobile coupon-generating iPhone application. Users make their fruit and yogurt choices, and then literally shake the phone to blend them up. Once the concoction is ready, a mobile coupon for their drink is displayed. Yogurt fans bring their iPhone into the store to have the onscreen bar code scanned and receive a discount.

For those about to rock
Since the cell phone has evolved as the replacement cigarette lighter for fans to hold high in solidarity at rock concerts, it is time for the evolution to continue. Soon music fans will be able to not only hold their lit iPhones to illuminate the concert halls, they will be able to shake them in unison to generate the sounds of maracas, tambourines, jingle bells, etc. This mobile music app may be among promotional items fans will download as they purchase their next iTunes song.

Give a little squeeze
To help a leading orange juice brand drive home the message that their juice is fresh-squeezed, users can take the "Juicer" challenge utilizing iPhone technology. Here, users try to beat the clock and fill as many glasses of OJ as they can by tilting their iPhone to roll an orange into a squeezing zone and then use two fingers to squeeze the juice from the orange. With a flick of the wrist, the used orange is flipped off screen as the next orange rolls into place.

Radical community
Nothing is quite as good as bragging rights when it comes to the world of board sports (surfing, snowboarding, skateboarding). Soon, thanks to the accelerometer, iPhone-equipped snowboarders will be able to verify whether that last spin was a true 360. They'll also be able to keep a log of their tricks and share their info with fellow snowboarders as they virtually compete against other users, and even the pros.

iFold
Many say the art of letter writing has died as a result of email culture, but the ancient art of paper folding, or origami, may spur its resurrection. Users will soon be able to send an Origami-gram to friends. Thanks to multi-touch technology, people will be able to write a note, then fold the virtual paper into custom origami configurations. Their swans, boxes and flowers will be saved in online galleries for other users to enjoy.

There will surely be plenty more ideas to develop with these technologies as rumors about the next generation iPhones continue to spread. Some include the addition of a video camera, a broadband connection, GPS, and even haptic technology (a tactile feedback system where users will feel keys that aren't there).

As clever uses of these technologies roll out in upcoming months it will be exciting to see how Apple will make an impression on us with "one more thing."

Alan Ruthazer is CEO, SiiTE Interactive.

http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/19490.asp

Some new and interesting business

Thanks to FutureLab for this post, highlighting some new business models / start ups. The NileGuide example could certainly be an interesting addition to any TrueLocal portfolio???

Walmart's Latest Innovation - It's Free Classified
by: Idris Mootee

Two interesting businesses launched this week and both worth special mention. First one is Wal-Mart has decided to compete with Craiglist and Kijiji (an eBay company); they quietly launched a free online classified service, and sell practically anything to anyone. It is still at pilot stage and currently carries 30 mil items. I searched for Tiffany and I got this Tiffany bracelet for $135. There's no fees involved for buyer and seller. I don't think eBay likes this idea.

The service is totally free through Walmart.Oodle.com. It is a way to attract their 130 mil customers who shop online every week. The service was provided by Oodle.com which was launched 3 years ago in San Francisco by former eBay Inc. and Excite executives. There is no business model but it doesn't cost much to run it either. The success rate is 50/50.

Former CEO of Technorati David Sifry’s latest new venture is Offbeat Guides, a service for printing customized travel books. When you go to the site, it asks you 5 basic questions: your name, your destination, your trip's dates, where you live, and where you're staying . With that, it goes out to the web and finds related content and assemble it. You can tweak the content: if you don't know where you're staying you can be sure the hotels section is included; if you already have a place, you can remove it and save some paper.

It is probably the first personalized publishing platform. You can add sections on food, events, transportation, etc. Books will always be customized for your travel dates and will be printed with the weather forecasts, exchange rates, and other relevant and timely information like local events happening when you're there. Your custom book will be sent in 4 days and costs $24.95 (including PDF download). I think this model will ultimately evolve to ad sponsored where the book is free. To make this really work, they need to bring in the local to create unique content. Quality control of the content is crucial. Extreme personalization is next as I can see people looking for the Antique Shopping in Paris, Electronics Shopping in Akihabara or Cosmetic Surgery Guide in Seoul. I like the business concept as many have explored this over the years.

There was this Nile Guide launched a few months ago. Nile Guide is a travel planning and what it does is they aggregate travel data from over 10 sources, including Citysearch, OpenTable, and Expedia, and add its own reports and reviews from local experts for 80 international destinations. Then all information is made searchable from within a tool that takes into consideration both objective and subjective factors related to your preconceived preferences. The four main search types on Nile Guide: food, lodging, nightlife, and “see & do”.

When you search from within anyone of them, you can filter the results in real-time using a variety of criteria. For example, you can choose to view only restaurants in a given city/region that are lively, quiet, off beat, romantic, family, or business entertainment etc. And when you're done planning your trip, simply download a PDF of your itinerary for FREE (with lots of ads).

A few more interesting start-ups here for you to check out:

Ffwd: This is a video content site with "social awareness and predictive recommendations".

Lil'grams: Not just another online baby photo site. The most precious moments of your baby's life are countless and now you can keep, track, and share anything about your baby.

SocialMedia Networks: An attempt to build an advertising network for social platforms and apps.

Xumii: A utility that gives you access to your social network contacts on your mobile phone. Pretty cool idea.

Original Post: http://mootee.typepad.com/innovation_playground/2008/06/walmarts-latest-innovation---free-classified.html

http://blog.futurelab.net/2008/06/walmarts_latest_innovation_its.html