Marketing in an Interactive World

JOURNALISTIC CONTENT UNVEILED ON THE IPAD

All I can say after seeing this demo from Sports Illustrated is if the web was killing print media, the iPad has come along to save it!

 

Steve Jobs Makes Us Re-think Web Design

Apple recently announced that they have absolutely no plans to enable Flash content on iPhones, iPods or iPads and this has made everyone in our business re-think the utilization of Flash in web content. But the more conventional wisdom would be to think multi-platform. Think inclusive rather than exclusive.

What this announcement really brings home is the difference between the wired and mobile web. The world is changing and mobile devices are leading the way. If popular devices such as Apple's repertoire do not support one of the most popular animation applications on the internet, an adaptation or a correction if you will, has to take place somewhere down the line.

One thing seems certain. The adaptation will not come from Apple. They have listed reason after reason why their devices will not support Flash.. And all these reasons are quite valid. Apple believes in the open web, and Flash is closed and proprietary (even though many of their products, including the operating system on the iPhone, iPod and iPad are proprietary). This closed third-party architecture can be quite ubiquitous for developers when trying to integrate with these platforms. From a more basic perspective, Flash doesn't support touch navigation, which is a biggie, and can be a big drain on battery life. Another biggie.

So I get it. I understand Apple's position. It makes sense.

That doesn't change the fact that this stance they are taking is completely incompatible with today's web. So many sites offer Flash today as a central part of their content. The smart sites detect if a the Flash player is available, and if it is not, it serves up a boring placeholder image, and that cool user experience is lost. It's not Apple's fault. It certainly isn't Adobe's fault. And it also really isn't the designer's fault either. It is the fault of the web as we know it today. The web is primarily designed for the wired, not the mobile device.

Yes, there are plenty of mobile versions of sites being produced. Basically, these are stripped down versions of websites, lightweight interpretations that play nicely in the mobile world. But the iPhone offers an interface canvas that can easily allow for all the bells and whistles. The iPad in particular certainly should be able to keep up with the media rich content of today's web, no? Considering that you can play HD quality video on the thing!

What we have here is a complete change from what we expected a few years ago. Back then we were starting to see platforms coming together, making web design simple in that it was truly becoming a build once, run anywhere medium. But that has changed because the media has changed. Mobile users demand that content be delivered compatible with the devices they own, and at the same time, they will be unimpressed with the overly stripped-down. We are reaching a time where content from the world wide web will need to dynamically and drastically adjust for the platform, and web designers will be challenged to make that happen. Even more challenged will be the agencies as they try to convince their clients that they don't just need to add the mobile version for their website, but the iPad, or touch navigation version as well.

Understanding the Facebook "Like" Button

I have received a lot of questions from people asking me what this new Facebook "Like" button is all about. In the simplest of terms, "Like" has replaced the word "Fan." But there is more too it than just that.

Content on any site can now be fitted with this "Like" button. Upon clicking "Like" a message appears in the end users Facebook newsfeed that the user liked the content. A counter appears with the "Like" button showing how many people "Like" that piece of content, or website in general.

The Like button enables users to make connections to your pages and share content back to their friends on Facebook with one click. Since the content is hosted by Facebook, the button can display personalized content whether or not the user has logged into your site. For logged-in Facebook users, the button is personalized to highlight friends who have also liked the page.

This is great news for businesses as it now has become as easy as a single click to have a company's web content shared across the viral Facebook network. Even better, a page gets created on Facebook for every "Like" button implemented. This offers content providers the ability to view the information of anyone who has chosen to "Like" a piece of content. From there, the sky is the limit as to what the content provider can do next. Companies that are offering up the content in the form of say, a product page on their website, can directly market that particular product to any of those "fans" (now called "likers" I guess).

The fact that most user privacy settings are set to share rather openlywith their friends, even a Liker's friends become open to the publisher. This last part has raised the biggest privacy concerns.

Let's say you decide that you don't want to share your information with the sites you interact with on the web, but you do have a very open policy with your friends. You better make sure this open policy does not extend to sharing settings for applications and sites you interact with. If you visit privacy settings in your account profile, you can change this to be more closed off. Understand that if you close off sharing with sites entirely, you will be missing out on a lot of what the Facebook powered web will have to offer, which is a more personalized web experience.

Pandora is a great example. After the like feature was added, people were waking up to their favorite songs and bands being played. Why? Because Pandora found it in each user's profile. A bit creepy? Yes. Pretty col too though, huh?