Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Google Winter cleaning affects mostly unused sync features


This article was first published in my Examiner column:

Google announced their Winter Cleaning  on their blog. This is part of their periodic announcements where they shut down products or features that are not popular. In this announcement.
  • Google Calendar will lose some features like Appointment slots and Google recommends "Find a time view or Suggested times as alternatives."
  • Google Sync will not be open to new devices starting January 30th 2013. Google recommends using CardDAV specially for syncing Google contacts on your iOS device.
  • I had not used the app Punchd and that is going away. Here is what Google says : 
Punchd is an app that keeps loyalty punch cards on your smartphone. On June 7, 2013, we will discontinue the Punchd Android and iOS apps, and merchants will no longer honor Punchd loyalty cards.
This was a small winter cleaning and maybe Google has completed their product housekeeping. Have you heard anything else?

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Trends in Coupon Marketing and Small Business


I wrote a trends post on Coupon Marketing for 2013 for SmallBizTrends. I talk about how companies like Groupon are evolving their business model with resources to help merchants like GrouponWorks and what I think the evolution of coupon marketing will look like in 2013. Take a look and comment there on the article at SmallBizTrends.
On another note hope you saw my post on SheerID talking about Couponless Marketing published by Techcocktail.
Of course if you want another way to send a treat read my post on Treater.

Friday, December 14, 2012

[BOOK] Technology and Critical Literacy in Early Childhood : Vivian Vasquez

I was part of the book Technology and Critical Literacy in Early Childhood  by Vivian Maria Vasquez and  Carol Branigan Felderman

From the book description on Amazon :

What do new technologies and new forms of communication mean for young children growing up in the 21st century? How are they shaping the mindsets, identities and practices which impact their lives at home and at school? This book explores the intersection of technology and critical literacy, specifically addressing what ICTs afford critical literacy work with young children between ages three to eight.
Here is a embed from Google Book Search on the page that includes my relationship to this book:
I hope this has tempted you to buy this book specially if you are in education or have kids.
Vivian Vasquez is Professor at the American University. I met her at one of the first ever Social event I attended PodCamp DC EDU. I am glad a chance sharing of my experience on Facebook was instrumental in getting my experience featured in the book. Thank you Vivian.
On the Subject of PodCampDC EdU you may like this video by Joel Mark Witt.

Thursday, December 13, 2012

Real-Time Treats : Take Action Immediately When Your Friends Share Good News


At a high level Treater solves several problems, specially with the holidays coming and a lot of us scrambling to make sure we thank all those who helped us be successful this year. I was on the phone with my friend Duncan Alney of Firebelly Marketing and challenged him to send a gift using Treater. Within minutes he was able to send a gift of a coffee to his friend and says it is really easy to use. Admittedly he was hesitant at first wondering if there were merchant partners that Treater had in all parts of the country. After receiving the treat of course his friend was wowed by this and said she was not surprised that Duncan had chosen a treat from Dunkin (get it ;) )


Following treater on Twitter or Facebook is also a treat with all kinds of fun stuff and contests.
"Our first contest winner, Julie, had such an amazing Treater story to share," says Kim Bryden . "To enter, you had to say why you deserved free coffee for a week. Julie won with an amazing response - she was getting married! Every day that week Julie sent us photos of her drinking her coffee and prepping for the big day. It's moments like these where we love to #SpreadTreatLove."
Kim Bryden works as the Treater's Social Media face to the world and takes a lot of delight in looking for how people are using Treater and ensuring a great experience.

Gift giving should be an easy process. I remember way back when I was still working for the hotel industry, fielding calls from relatives from out of town to mail them the restaurant gift cards and then they would send it to their local relatives who would use it.
Treater makes it easy, all you have to do is to be a Facebook friend and magic is in the air. Treater has both an Android and a IOS app and is looking to add more social networks.

“Magic is indeed in the air, Shashi” says Treater’s marketing head, Trish Tobin. “The number of serendipitous stories we’ve heard about Treats that connect people near and far warms our hearts. We’re looking forward to spreading more generosity and fun in 2013!”

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Rohit Bhargava's : 15 Marketing Trends In 2013


Speaking at the Potomac Tech Wire's "Social Outlook 2013", Rohit Bhargava had given us a preview of his trends for 2013. This is the full version and I am happy to see Infusd included as well under the 'Social Visualization Trend". Rohit's Blog is interesting and you should subscribe to his RSS feed.

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Is The World Coming Closer? Delta Buys Stake in Virgin Atlantic

The first inklink I got about this deal between Delta and Virgin Atlantic is from an article by Carla Caldwell in the Atlanta Business Chronicle of course In his inimitable style Richard Branson announced
I love following International travel and this is exciting to me. I have flown on Virgin Atlantic to London Heathrow and decided never to use a flight through Heathrow to Asia again. It was not Virgin's fault but more of the airport itself. It may have improved a lot since then with the opening of the new terminal.
The world of travel gives you more choice now. You can get to Asia faster through the Middle Esst with direct flights from DC to Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Qatar, Bahrain on United, Etihad, Qatar or Emirates. It is usually a 14 hoir flight to the Middle East and then a 3 to 4 hour hop to most places in Asia.
Coming back to Delta and the Virgin deal, Richard Branson thinks it will give Virgin a advantage over his competitor British Airways. For Delta which already flies a lot of International Destinations after the KLM/Air France/Alitalia Joint Venture. Now thay have many spots in Heathrow so I expect they will fly to more destinations. In any case a slot in Heathrow could be a very good investment.

Sunday, December 09, 2012

Swami's Sunday Digest: Google+ Confusing Numbers, Netflix CEO should not be in trouble

My Geek cred ... and age ..exposed. found this in a old box
This week had it's share of interesting news and here is what got my attention :
  • Google Plus introduced Communities and Geoff Livingston promptly starts Billy Bob Thornton's Marketing Chutzpah. This is another feature that is bringing Google Plus to parity with Facebook, I compare this with Facebook Groups. The blog post announcing the communities also said,
    "Today Google+ is the fastest-growing network thingy ever. More than 500 million people have upgraded, 235 million are active across Google (+1'ing apps in Google Play, hanging out in Gmail, connecting with friends in Search...), and 135 million are active in just the stream."

    This was confusing to me and they could have just said 135 active users. Of course Vic Gundotra , Google's SVP, Engineering is supposed to have said in an interview with Danny Sullivan that his boss asked him to stop tweeting. If you see the tweet in question you can see why. The tweet is snarky about a competitor that I think senior executives should remember they have to show thought leadership and learning and rise above snarkiness.

  • NETFLIX CEO Reed Hasting apparently got a notice that his Facebook update streamed a billion hours of video in the month of June could be in violation of the rule "Reg FD" that prohibits selective disclosure of material information. I think Reed Hastings update was very public and there is a view that social updates spread to the public much better than press releases and SEC filings. I think Holman Jenkins agrees. Madoff Got Away but Netflix Won't

  • Jonathan O’Connell wrote a nice post in the Sunday Washington Post about what he calls Experience Economy. Many brick and mortar businesses are disrupting their model of selling products to providing an experience. His examples include Dupont Circle's Kramer Books (Which is a delightful restaurant) and Heidi Kallett's Dandelion Patch (Has sessions and event programs to design invitations and Thank you notes. I think I have an additional example Lost Boys DC by Kelly Muccio where you not to buy pants but get a style experience

  • New tool of the week: I am looking forward to the release of PersonSpot's new version. Yiannis Velissarakos CEO of PersonSpot wants to solve the curation and publishing problems that content marketing faces today. I am looking forward to seeing the new version this Monday and I think it will make my engagement more efficient. Check out the Site on Monday.
How was your week? Are you all ready for NMX/BlogWorld at the beginning of the year 2013? WHat are your plans for 2013? Let me know.

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