Really interesting initiative from the Internet Advertising Bureau. Social Media engagement reporting benchmarks.

“The IAB said that there needs to be a “degree of standardisation” in social media measurement, which it hopes the framework will address.”
- Research Live

They advocate the 4A’s (Awareness, Appreciation, Action and Advocacy)
The slide deck has some great examples of how that framework can be applied to different social media activities. (SN’s, blogs, microblogs, widgets, SM Advertising, Podcasting… etc)

It feels just like someone has done a whole bunch of work for you and they want you to use it.

Branding the real world with facebook feedback with a self inking stamp. Yes, I’m very proud. AND I made the graphic in visio! (ops. replicated…) He he.

Social network applications on mobile are set to get … well, creepier.

Loopt will be one of the first social networking applications to offer background location. The new features are now possible because of the latest iPhone OS4 allowing multi-tasking. So now you can leave some applications to run in the background and monitor your location.

Depending on the application users can set criteria which enable push notifications when they are near something that meets that criteria. Take Loopt for example, when you are with in a certain radius of a friend you get buzzed.

To do this Loopt users are able to continuously share where they are (no need to check in). Hence the creepiness. But don’t worry, you can choose which connections have access to this data and for how long.

While Loopt seems to be getting a lot more traction in the US it doesn’t take much grey matter to predict that this Loopt will be the next wave of mobile social networking in Aus too. Unless, foursquare can release background location features quickly.

Loopt Web | iTunes (free) | SocialBeat Review

Some really good points on why an iPad user says they prefer Safari over apps.
http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/05/i-prefer-safari-to-content-apps-on-the-ipad.html

What really resonated with me:
- apps don’t talk to each other
- social media doesn’t launch apps
- the UI is different for every app so you need to work out how each works
- yah, multitasking… no multiple tabs!
- web content is still free

Really makes me wonder about the volume of trade in the ipad app store. The crucial differences between iphone apps and ipad apps are the display size of the device, the cost of apps, subscription (you keep paying) and the fact that it doesn’t really matter if media companies have worked out how to automatically redirect urls to an optimised experience… as it was in the old days with the iphone… if it is a half decent site to start with that is!

Now, I know there are plenty of places and people and purposes for this. But my post is speaking generally. After all the business model should be about attracting as many consumers as possible. So how many is possible?

I wonder if users are going to be paying more for premium products will it equal less variety per user? How thin will that dollar need to be spread out across the media landscape? Will people really be loyal to more than one paper and a few magazines? And that’s just the slither of the market who are interested in the short to medium term.

At least this whole consumer fanaticism going on in the net world might distract the attentions of developers getting that one URL thing sorted and keep the iphone app industries pockets licked.

Even so, there are free news apps on this device to compete with already. And in many cases they got to market first. Just like the real web. (real, ha!) So does it all come back to brands backed by plesant experiences? (note brands first and loyalty second… UX as insurance?)

I guess what I’m really saying is that we should also be focused on making sure our current web properties perform well on these new devices as well as hopping on the app train. Just like you would support and test for any browser. Users already have two communications bills on the whole. One for our internet and the other for our phone.

Sure, the app store is an amazing business model and a cash cow if you get it right, but is it as neccessary for users with a larger screen for sites with good web infrastructure? In a competitive market it is likely that someone else will get this right if you don’t.

Cute as a button!
http://isparade.jp/#

While all hype in these modern times is focused around social networks – I can’t help but wonder about how email fits into the mix. Certainly, some user types and certain contexts would be more likely to result in an email than others. I think this begs for attention. The forgotten share…

Yep, a post about the old school art of emailing…

According to a recent post on Techcrunch around 13% of users are sharing content over email, second only to Facebook. (Published 16^th Feb, 2010)

Furthermore a recent study by the Pew Institute titled “Understanding the Participatory News Consumer” reports that 75% of news consumers had experienced receiving news via email. (Published 1^st March, 2010)

Why?

Last month the New York Times published an article titled “Will You Be E-Mailing This Column? It’s Awesome”. The article reveals details of an extensive study which focuses on what content is most frequently emailed from the New York Times site via a partnership with  researchers at the University of Pennsylvania (Reported: 8^th Feb, 2010). While clearly a bit of a thin share on the New York Times part (commercially protected findings), they do disclose a few gems…

Essentially people were likely to share hot content (20% from the home page), and that they are more likely to share positive content over negative. By contrast 30% of the content that was shared during their six month study was from the science section.

In short, it is thought articles that changed or challenged the sharers view of the world around them was more likely to be shared because people are seeking an emotional communication when they share articles. Apparently awe and anxiety are great motivators for wanting a shared experience. #contentstrategy

Introducing an email share tracking tool

Recently, at work we stumbled upon Tynt Tracer via copying and pasting. It’s a service and analytics tool which appends an article / page’s url to whatever the user copy and pastes. It makes sharing so much easier for emailers, bloggers and IM users to name a few. It also supplies site owners with analytics around how many copies have taken place and how many visitors actually click through on those specific shares (via copy & paste actions). When the receiver of a Tynt enhanced link clicks on an attribution link they will also see the original text highlighted in page and in context. Genius!

Network share of the share

A few days ago another outstanding piece of share statistical intrigue hit the rounds:

Five New Studies Show Facebook A Marketing Powerhouse, from the Social Media Examiner highlights Facebook’s  impressive dominance on all data accounts.

The question however, remains…

Which social networking sites (or email shares) are the most affective in terms of traffic outcomes (click throughs, not only shares)?

Which sites/ activities deliver the most page impressions after arrival (quality of traffic)?

Which sites/ activities deliver the most time on site once users visit via a social network (engagement).

Can someone do this bit of work for me?

Have you been thinking about the email share? Or is it a forgotten art of the share?

“The internet is like this new human experience. At first everybody is going to like it, but there will be a fundamental change in the human condition. One day we’re all going to wake up and realise that we’re all just servants. It’s captured us.”

- Josh Harris, Protagonist of We Live In Public (Ondi Timoner’s Sundance winning doco)

Josh Harris, most remarkable for his online video and streaming businesses / experiments did some ground breaking and odd things in the late nineties, just before the bubble burst.

Here is a list of just a few of them featured in the film:

• Founding Jupiter research (brought by Forrester Research in 2008 well after Josh floated, sold and then moved on to begin his next project)
• Founding Pseudo.com an internet tv station (1993)
• Creating an alter ego called Luvvy, the clown who would happily come out at networking events
• Filming and streaming  footage of 100 ordinary Americans and artists who were living in a wild and sanity challenging bunker in 1999. (totally nothing like Big Brother)
• Filming and streaming his own relationship from home
• Becoming an apple farmer

Josh is extreme, visionary, in many ways successful and decidedly strange. His success came from a ballsy approach so there is no surprise that his high flying take on things meant he would suffer badly in the dot-com crash. Josh always spent his personal profits on the next big idea and he loved to live it up wildly. Audiences will probably think he’s a jerk, but they will certainly find him interesting. I’m glad people like him exist, because extreme thinking and doing is just so damn interesting. For me, this film is a net-nuts must because it explores an era at its most insane and because it is totally wild and annoyingly fun. Thank you Trimoner!

You’ve seen the bird…  you’ve seen the peace sign… okay… the all good gesture… but have you been down with the #hashtag?

Woot! The triple j Unearthed iPhone app is now out! As the User Experience Architect, I couldn’t be more excited to find out just what people think of it.

Triple J Unearthed iPhone App

The Unearthed iPhone app features:

• Shake functionality so you can discover the cream of the crop (tracks played on triple j).
• Search for any Australian band on Unearthed and they will be found.
• Playlist creation, editing and sharing
• In app music downloads (save you bandwith on the go)
• Featured playlists (triple j, presenters, super users)
• Continiously stream random Unearthed tracks

Find out more about the app in Triple J’s Unearthed email to members.

Get the Unearthed iPhone App (itunes link)

So, it is a pretty feature rich app. I really hope people will enjoy it. Here is what some have had to say so far:

• “The Unearthed iPhone application from the ABC’s Triple J gives you access to 53,000 tracks from unsigned artists, and neither the app or the music will cost you a cent.” – Angus Kidman, Life Hacker
• “I’d say this just jumped straight into the “must download” category for every iPhone and iPod Touch user.” – Nick Broughall, Gizmodo
• “Been playing around with the triple j Unearthed app. A thing of beauty.” – @abcmarkscott
• “Everyone with an iPod or iPhone needs to download the triple j Unearthed app asap! Best app ever.” @dom_transformer

More comments on twitter

Facebook triple j group comments

Oh, and while it may not have beat the Kamasutra, Lego Photo or Facebook for the Top Free apps just yet – it is number two only to shazam within the Music category. Cool.

Get the Unearthed iPhone App (itunes link)

There are some amazing things about the iPhone 3GS’ “white on black” accessibility features. A great move by Apple and eagerly awaited by many.

Firstly, it works really well in the browser and applications like the BOM radar where you can zoom into pages – but less well with apps that haven’t catered for zooming or often the actual infrastructure of the iPhone itself – such as the keyboard, input fields and user feedback. Each of these are detailed with examples below in this first take review.

iPhone Safari, white on black mode

“White on Black” actually simply inverts the whole phone. Which means all screens be it white on black or black on white and it does so indiscriminately across the page attributes.

Inverting works well when you can zoom into web pages as items generally need to be larger for most users of this feature. I think even the horizontal scroll that is created by enlarging text, (while less than ideal) is much easier to manipulate on a gesture interface than the desktop experience which forces users to engage with the horizontal scroll bar. However, the user is unable to zoom into the browser itself, which means the buttons along the bottom of Safari and the input fields at the top can’t be enlarged for better viewing. The browser and similar interface elements throughout the application become black on brown, which is less than ideal from a high contrast perspective. (As most of the infrastructure is a mid blue on grey by default)

In the screen capture below you can see the safari browser with the keyboard active. Again, these infrastructural elements are still not enlargeable. The cancel button to exit out of the keyboard, and the url text erase buttons (that little cross in the input field) are also not only very poor contrast, but they are closely positioned as well meaning that the wrong button can be easily pressed with frustrating results.

iPhone Safari - active keyboard

Vocal Search

Google Vocal Search comes with the iPhone by default and it is a great resource for an alternative for search input. While this means that users will need to switch between the Google and Safari applications to perform searches, it provides a learn-able alternative to using the keyboard. (Unfortunately, I’ve only found evidence of external keyboards courtesy of DIY kits, hacks and jailbreaking)

iPhone Google Voice Search

Google’s Vocal Search interface also suffers from poor contrast and does not allow the user to zoom. When inverted the progress messages such as “Speak now”, “Working” or “Didn’t get that” become a black on white dialogue box sitting on top of a pale grey background, making it impossible for many people to see.

While this app would be learn-able and is supported by a “speak now” sound, it is hard to tell what has happened once any input has occurred. Generally speaking, vocal search really relies on feedback as it doesn’t always work. In this case, the feedback is unfortunately unusable.

More examples

Below are a few screen shots which highlight the inverted default iPhone interfaces which don’t stack up as well as they should for visually impaired users in “white on black” mode. Each of these examples are of standard interface elements.

Accessibility settings page

This is the accessibility settings page. You can not zoom in on this page. The navigation elements (back buttons) are poor contrast. The on switch provides good contrast and visibility, but the off toggle does not. These same features are found thoughout the iPhone application.

iPhone Accessibility Settings

Notifications

The default Apple standard notification is white on dark blue, so when inverted it becomes black on orange. It is also has very little contrast against the background especially because of the semi-transparent design – meaning some users in this mode may not see the message at all.

Ebay Notification

When the background is black by default

In white on black mode, (shown below) screens which are have a black background become white. This is particularly not useful with applications such as the calculator (second image) which would be best seen in standard mode. It is impractial to expect users to switch modes depending on the application, particularly given the settings pages are not ideal. Although, the calculator comes with nice big numbers and high contrast when in standard.

iPhone Homescreen in White on Black Mode

iPhone Calculator in White on Black mode

How to access the settings

Accessibility settings can only be found on the 3GS by going into Settings> General > Accessibility.

What about the voice over functionality?

The iPhone 3GS also provides a voice over function which reads out interface elements when tapping the screen. Because a single tap reads out the element – the interaction inputs are very different from the factory default. Check out the apple video to learn the input mechanisms:

http://www.apple.com/iphone/iphone-3gs/accessibility.html#video

More accessibility resources:

Media Access Australia

Media Access Australia’s iPhone Features Outline

W3C’s Web Accessible Initiative

Accessability Programming Guide for iPhone OS

Blind wikia’s iPhone accessibility pages provides information and resources for users and developers.

#iphoneaccess on twitter

Special thank you to Scott Hollier, Media Access who helped me write this post. We’ll be working together on hints and tips to make the most of the iphone with the accessibility features are enabled. If your interested, let me know and I’ll be sure to shoot you an email once we’ve pulled it together.

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