alyssagardina.com - applications

Facebook Places: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly

siteadmin — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 02:40:33 +0000

Facebook Places has been out and about for the past few weeks now. Many of us have used it (or at least tried out out and turned it off), and there are definitely some good things, some bad things, and some downright ugly things about it.

The Good
The first weekend after Facebook Places launched, I went home for a visit. My newly iPhone-d mother wanted to tell me all about this new tool she found, where she could share where she was with all of her friends. Now, I had tried to convince her to use Foursquare, but I was her only Facebook friend using the tool.

For her, Facebook Places has some serious value with its built in audience. For me, that group was already on Foursquare, so Places is a redundant tool. Different audiences, different needs. Places definitely fills a gap.

The Bad
As with any Facebook product roll out, there are downsides. For businesses, the process of claiming, measuring and moderating venues is incredibly labor-intensive. Facebook requires scanned documentation of a Better Business Bureau accreditation or Articles of Incorporation to even claim a business, and owners with multiple locations currently have no way to bulk claim or integrate their many venues.

For users, the interface is pretty rigid. You can add a venue and comment on your check-in, but you can't leave tips, earn badges, become mayor or share with other social networks. For many users, these extensions make these geolocation applications more useful, and the elements of competition keep them engaged.

The Ugly
Well, look at it:

If someone checks me in with them, it posts twice. Plus, there's no option to check-in "off the grid" or to share with certain friends.

What do you think so far? Is Facebook Places mostly good, bad or ugly?

Step 1, install app. Step 2, find friend with app. Step 3, use QR code. Step 4, give up.

agardina — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 02:22:29 +0000

Durex Baby from Peter Ammentorp Lund on Vimeo.

As far as I can tell from this video, the only way this campaign works is if you:

Install the app
Have a friend install the app
Do something inappropriate with your phones, preferably in a public place.
Activate the app at 3 AM
Babysit your phone, also in public
Buy Durex
Take a photo of a QR code on Durex
Install yet another app
Close a weird curtain on your iPhone

One of the biggest downfalls in creating these social media campaigns is that agencies forget something very basic: people are busy. Unless your app provides some extraordinary value (like free Durex + a blind date), you're going to lose audience members on each step of the process.

And if your process doesn't involve a sale until step 6, how many people are actually going to get there?

(Thanks to @randymatheson for the original link!)

Foursquare and the Tragedy of the GPS

agardina — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 07:56:50 +0000

This post was supposed to be a lot of things. It was supposed to be the last post in my mobile series - how business & organizations can use geolocation apps. Then, it was supposed to be a rant about Foursquare's new GPS integration and how much I hate it. And, on a personal level, I do hate it. But I understand it. Why?

I know why Foursquare did it. And they're smart.

Business are getting ideas about using Foursquare for campaigns. P rizes for mayors, discounts for a certain number of check-ins, branded badges. Foursquare, like any company, likes money. Pride in winning the "Don't Stop Believin'" badge doesn't keep the lights on and it doesn't pay salaries.

And so, to monetize, Foursquare had to change. They had to hold users accountable and prove to businesses that the mayor of their venue was actually the person who's been physically there the most times. (By the way, this is, in essence, a summary of what my use for businesses post was going to be about - rewarding your visitors. More later!)

As a user? I hate the GPS integration, but not because it exists. As I said less than a week ago, the reason I use Foursquare over Gowalla is because of Gowalla's bug-ridden GPS. For non-smartphone users, their Foursquare usage is going to basically be nil, and if you ever forget to check-in somewhere while you're there, well, you're just out of luck.

Foursquare made this decision because they're a business. As a marketer, I get that. But I'm willing to bet thousands of their users aren't - and who's going to meet their needs?

(Coming up next: Foursquare Fox: You have to be kidding me.)

Geolocation Applications: The Major Players

agardina — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 03:44:52 +0000

In less than 18 months, over three billion applications have been downloaded from the iTunes App Store. Thousands, if not millions, of these have been geolocation apps - applications that use an iPhone or other smartphone's GPS. By locating you and your phone, geolocation apps give you the opportunity to "check-in", or opt in and share your location with your social networks.

Depending on your security settings, this location is shared with your network in the application, Twitter, Facebook or any number of other social networks. And now, an overview of some of the most popular geolocation applications:

Foursquare
I'll admit it, I'm partial. Foursquare is my location app of choice. It has the biggest network - 725,000 users and 22 million checkins as of March 29th and consistently good updates and features. You can check-in by selecting a list of nearby spots or by typing in the name of where you are. Not in the system? You can create it (this feature has led to some interesting locations.)

Foursquare is flexible - the interface allows you to check in at a place even if you're not quite there geographically. The best part of Foursquare is the competition - users who check in most at a location become the mayor. The app also uses badges to reward check-ins, and these virtual awards have led many a user to quest after items like "I'm on a Boat" and the "Douchebag" badge. Your network on Foursquare is built from friend requests, generated from Twitter followers, Facebook fans and email contacts.

Foursquare's one downfall is that it doesn't allow photo submissions - at all. Users can submit to-do suggestions or tips, and post their locations to Twitter or Facebook, but adding images just isn't available (yet) (I hope). Still, it's one of the richest applications available, and, with many of my friends and contacts already using it, it's an easy pick for first.

Gowalla
Gowalla has the market on attractive location-based apps cornered. It works in a similar way to Foursquare - you "check-in" by selecting a nearby location. The caveat with Gowalla is that you must actually be at (or close to) the location you want to choose. This has led to some headaches, such as the time I tried to check-in at the Austin Convention Center, and a glitch within the app told me I was 10 km away.

Frustrations aside, Gowalla also uses a virtual rewarding system. Users can pick up or leave "items" (a taco, ice skates, a drink) at locations for other users to find. Unlike Foursquare, Gowalla allows users to take and upload photos to locations and tweet tips, highlights or simply just your location. As an added interaction tool, Gowalla has incorporated "trips", which are like geographic scavenger hunts through cities.

Whrrl
If I had written this post before SXSW, I think I would have stopped at Gowalla. But SXSW reintroduced me to Whrrl, an app that's reinterpreting social and gaming in location based apps. Foursquare and Gowalla have taken a similar virtual reward approach that's essentially the same from place to place and for user to user. Whrrl, on the other hand, has created "societies", within which users gain points and move up levels. For example, each time I check in at the gym, I get points in the "gym rat" society to move up from rookie to total gym junkie (hey, I'll get there.)

Whrrl is one of the few apps that rewards users for making recommendations or adding tips. When I add a to-do item, Whrrl gives me points towards a society. If someone completes that item or recommends it to others, I get points as well. They're the first app, to me, to really incentivize the user-generated content portion of their tool.

Other Applications
These are just 3 of the many, many geolocation apps available. The recently released Rally Up and Check.in incorporate other geolocation apps with other tools, like Google Maps, to create a more immersive, social experience. Meanwhile, Brightkite, Loopt and others who were early into the app game, find themselves struggling to achieve success in a crowded market.

Up next: how can businesses and organizations take advantage of mayorships, societies and check-ins to market themselves and identify their most passionate consumers?

Did I miss your favorite app or feature? Let me know in the comments!

Facebook Scam Applications Strike Again

agardina — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 15:58:03 +0000

You've got to wonder who, if anyone, is approving applications for distribution on Facebook. A far cry from Apple's "deny first, ask later" policy, Facebook seems to have allowed yet another spam application through.

The application is called Photo Comments, and it appears to be a reincarnation of Phetas, an application that made its rounds a few weeks back. Phetas has since been removed, and all notifications generated by the application deleted. Here's how Photo Comments works, and why Facebook needs to start weighing in:

Photo Comments goes viral by notifying you that one of your friends has "commented on a photo of you". The image in the notification looks exactly like Facebook's built-in photo application.
You click the notification and are directed to add the application Photo Comments. Don't, because if you do...
Facebook notifies your friends that you've commented on a photo of them, and the virus/scam spreads further.

Review of Photo Comments average one star, with users saying:

"this thing attacked me, linked to a bunch of adds and is purposefully trying to look like normal picture comments."
"This appears to be a bogus application - possibly virus?"

Facebook is losing a lot of ground. In the past month they have implemented new privacy policies that are as confusing as they are incomplete, and now they have approved (passively or actively) at least 2 spam applications that look and feel just like one of their native apps. Where are they going to go from here?

Update: While Photo Comments & Phetas have disappeared from Facebook's list of applications, as of 2/24, a new one has appeared. "Like", an application that uses graphic elements similar to Facebook's "Like" button, works in exactly the same way as the other spam applications. Interestingly enough, they also seem to have been developed by the same group of people. Caveat, Facebooker!