Marketers Studio - David Berkowitz's Marketing Blog

We Have Sinned

Here's today's Social Media Insider, originally published in MediaPost

It's time to atone.

Some may appreciate the timing, as it coincides with yesterday's observance of Yom Kippur, Judaism's Day of Atonement, the climax of a period of repentance. Everyone has some sins to atone for, including marketers and agencies trying to engage consumers through social media. Today, we'll confess.

On the Day of Atonement, one of the most memorable prayers is a short confessional where a series of sins are listed alphabetically in Hebrew. It's unlikely anyone reciting the confessional has committed all such sins over the past year, but one recognizes that these sins have been committed. Some sins listed are so broad, such as scorning and sinning willfully, that most likely everyone will have committed them.

Below is our confessional, for marketers and agencies. Similar to the spirit of the liturgy, we haven't all committed all of these sins, but most of these transgressions should be familiar.

We Have Sinned

We have awkwardly applied metrics like click-through rates to social marketing programs when we could have found more appropriate ways to quantify results that aligned with our business objectives.

We have bribed consumers to be our friends without devising ways to connect with our real fans and sustain communication with them.

We have ceded control of our social programs to interns, or lawyers, or those who are not in the best position to be the faces and voices of our brands.

We have deceived ourselves, falling in love with our ideas without considering what would provide value for our target audience.

We have eavesdropped on consumers, instead of actually hearing them and listening to them.

We have failed to monitor social channels for discussions of our brands and competitors.

We have guessed at our target audience's interests and activities rather than conducting research that could have provided real answers.

We have hurried into the newest, most-buzzed-about social spaces without developing a strategy.

We have imitated when we could have innovated.

We have judged competitors harshly for making the same mistakes we made.

We have killed ideas that were spot on in favor of pet projects that we wanted for our portfolios.

We have lost consumers by organizing social architectures that were impossible to navigate coherently.

We have mismanaged social marketing by shoehorning it into someone's job description.

We have neglected to integrate social marketing with broader marketing programs.

We have overreached, hoping for content to go viral without investing in resources to properly create, distribute, and promote it.

We have partitioned our organizations so rigidly that we can't plan earned and paid media together.

We have quarreled over who should own social media in our organization.

We have repurposed creative and messaging from other channels when we should have adapted or created it for these social spaces.

We have shortchanged social marketing by planning campaigns instead of ongoing programs.

We have tuned out consumers' criticism when we could have engaged with them to better understand it, or we could have learned from it to ensure other consumers wouldn't have such problems in the future.

We have undervalued and underfunded social programs to such an extent that we have set them up for failure.

We have violated consumers' trust by not being fully transparent as to our identities and objectives.

We have wronged consumers by not respecting their privacy.

We have xenophobically avoided any forms of social media beyond the ones we use ourselves.

We have yelled when we could have conversed.

We have zigzagged between the path we knew was best and the path that was most convenient, even when we could have prevented our transgressions.

Acknowledging these sins is not the same as absolving ourselves of them, but it is the first step on the path to repentance. What we can hope and strive for us that next year, should our community as a whole revisit this confessional, the transgressions will seem more alien -- a memory of how we were and a sign of how far we've come.

What other sins must we atone for? Add your contributions to the confessional in the comments.

Glum and Glummer at Future of Media Forum: Quotable Quips but No Answers on Monetizing Media

Today I sat in on the Future of Media summit from MediaPost held during Advertising Week.

• Mark Cuban, Chairman & Co-Founder, HDNet / Dallas Mavericks owner
• Vivian Schiller, President & CEO, NPR
• Bob Garfield, Columnist, Advertising Age
• Martha Stewart, Founder, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia
• Reid Hoffman, Executive Chairman and Co-Founder,LinkedIn
• Susan Whiting, Vice Chair, Nielsen Company
• Rob Norman, CEO, GroupM Interaction Worldwide
• Judy McGrath, Chairman & CEO, MTV Networks
• Milton Glaser, Founder, New York Magazine / Milton Glaser Inc
• Moderator: Chris Anderson, Editor in Chief, Wired Magazine

They say pictures don’t lie. If that’s the case, the panelists looked agonized. It felt somewhat more upbeat, but all in all, it sounded like a lot of banter with no answers to big issues like where media’s going and how these companies are tackling monetization. You can also find all my photos from the event on Flickr; they’re under the Creative Commons license so feel free to share and use them if you like.

 
All of this pontificating about the future of media gave GroupM CEO Rob Norman a migraine.

 
 

Mark Cuban, Bob Garfield, Martha Stewart: all brilliant, but none too bubbly

 

On to the panel coverage…

Chris: “We don’t have to disagree about what’s happening anymore… It’s clear what people want, so now the question is, ‘What are we going to do about it?’” He took issue with the word “media” and wonders what it even means anymore. To Vivian – NPR: “I believe this is the golden age of the spoken word because we have so many ways to receive it.” He sees NPR as the “atomization of content.”

Vivian: “It’s destroying the original business model of public radio and NPR.” NPR didn’t used to go directly to consumers. Stations “need to become increasingly relevant to their local market.” She doesn’t care where people listen as long as they do. She sees a future not too far off where listening to her content on the iPhone far surpasses the audience of 28 million who listen on the radio.

Milton Glaser and Chris Anderson

Chris: To Judy, MTVN – What are you doing differently?

Judy: “We have atomized content, we have the advantage of brands…, relevance has always been the name of our game… the advent of social media is an opportunity, the proliferation of mobile is an opportunity…” She sees music once being a defining preference, and now comedy is taking much of that role.

Chris: This economic crisis has revealed the limits of advertising and the need for alternative revenue streams. To Martha: How does this crisis change how you run the business?

Martha: “Our business plan is still a good business plan.” The Omnimedia model “still works” and “at the center of the model is content.” Monetization is still a challenge. “The consumer is all-important to us, whether he or she is a reader or viewer or Internet user.” They develop programs for advertisers – she notes they’re effective and loved, but monetization is the challenge. [I’m not sure how she says the model works and they figured it out, but monetization is still a challenge.] Merchandising is also important for their consumers, as a way to satisfy their dreams and help them “become the doer.”

Chris Anderson

Chris: To Rob: “Do you see the limits of media?”

Rob: “We know now that addressable media, social media are of equal influence [to broadcast].” The question becomes how much more than advertising media companies can do.

Chris: To Reid: “You represent the competition… “ If he ran a major media company, what would he do?

Reid: He [not surprisingly] sees social and Web 2.0 as a bi“A business model is not just something you slap on top of content production… those ecosystems are changing.” As Chris elaborated, Reid doesn’t want their jobs.

Mark Cuban and Vivian Schiller

Mark: “Free as a form of sampling is very valid… it’s been used by drug dealers for years and years.” “In the analog world, we’ve assigned value to things that have become free.” It’s that “legacy perceived value.” “The Internet IS becoming stale… What’s next?…” At the Giants-Cowboys game, everyone was talking about the screen. It cost $40 million – what will it cost in five years?" It used to be “smaller, cheaper, faster.” Now it’s “bigger, better, and cheaper.” The focus on the Internet means “you’re missing all the good stuff.” He’s looking at mobile, screen, laptop… He notes the Internet is mature. “Once it gets so mature, the business models aren’t there.” … “How do you get to ubiquity? Through maturity?”

Susan: “That idea of best screen possible enabled by content – it still matters.”

Mark: “What’s premium today is going to be ubiquitous tomorrow.” Today it’s Twitter, social networks, etc…. six years ago it was something else. “How do you get ahead of the curve?”

Mark Cuban and Bob Garfield

Bob: “I know how to get ahead of the curve.” If Dallas has a 7-story screen, the future is 8 stories tall… “In the very near future, everyone in this room will be curled up in the fetal position whimpering.” Nobody will be paying for content. Fragmentation and the glut of supply is destroying the critical miss. Craigslist obliterated the newspaper industry and DVRs and the Internet are destroying cable. “CBS and NBC are talking about becoming cable networks.” Cable has much better prospects.

Milton: “The combination of words that most scares me is ‘targeted consumers.’”

Martha: They’ve been watching the erosion of church and state between advertising and editorial.

Chris: “It is paradoxical.” They assumed advertising and content needed to be separated. “The consumers clearly like it because they click on it.” “Either we were wrong… and we were just suffering from self-importance” or it’s different online.

Martha: I think there’s a relaxation online. “It doesn’t bother me anymore.”

Bob: “There’s a big difference between relevance… and corruption…” “Now it’s becoming like Plato’s retreat.”

Martha: “Look it up on Wikipedia.”

Vivian: In legitimate newsrooms this isn’t happening.

Judy McGrath and Milton Glaser

Judy: “Fake news has been very, very good to me… The consumer is more discerning than we give them credit for.”

Chris: “Are you happy about paying more and more for smaller and smaller audiences on broadcast?” Also, how does he reconcile that with online video?

Rob: “The value judgment I make is the exchange of money for effectiveness… We believe there is still a premium to be paid… for the volume and reach… we are trying to blend the costs of that with all the alternative forms of distribution that we have.” Advertisers feel pressure from many areas: television, Wal-Mart, distribution and logistics costs, Amazon, etc - “their margins are being stripped away.” … They must strip away waste.

Chris: To Judy, after she mentioned the success and viral nature of the Video Music Awards: “How did you monetize this?”

Judy: “We prepared in advance for this.” “We’re probably creating 50 pieces of content across multiple brands…” “These are the most marketed to generations in the history of time.” “I’m not saying we have the answers figured out, but we’re in the process of figuring out how to make great experiences happen and get compensated for it.” [Note: she still didn’t say anything about how it was monetized.]

Chris and Judy debated this – he still wanted to know how it was monetized and she said he was taking it too literally, as the audience grew.

Judy: “It isn’t the apocalypse. It’s quite the contrary.”

Reid: “It’s a failure of imagination not to believe that innovation will happen.”

Mark: There are “imitators, innovators, and idiots.” You need to recognize where you are on that scale.

I’m still wondering what I learned from this. But with Bob, Mark, Martha, Judy, and Chris sharing the stage, it made for a fun couple hours.

When Mobile Apps Go Social

Originally published in MediaPost's Social Media Insider

When Mobile Apps Go Social

Not all mobile applications are social, but those with social elements will keep pushing social media's boundaries forward.

Last week, we took a look at how consumers use mobile social networks. This week, we'll look at four mobile applications, and to keep things focused we'll stick with the iPhone. One thing these apps have in common is that they were used as examples at 360i's Digital Marketing Summit last week, covered on the agency's Digital Connections blog, either during my presentation on emerging media or in roundtable discussions.  Here are how four different apps incorporate social elements.

Yelp

Here's a classic example of a site fueled by user-generated content running as a mobile application. It doesn't become any more or less social in this context; Yelp is one of the more intuitive review sites, with an active community constantly contributing. In a mobile social context, Yelp needs to make sure it's just as easy to access and write reviews and then share listings with others, and all of that can be done here.

Yelp delivers a new twist with augmented reality (read more on the subject in a column posted earlier this month). Through its Monocle feature on the latest iPhone, users can see listings appear in their surroundings as viewed through the camera. This makes the reviews more accessible, but again the social functionality isn't, well, augmented here.

Sit or Squat

Like Yelp, Sit or Squat's a user-generated content site accessible via the Web. Yet as any parent who's tried it knows, this bathroom-finding program is far more useful via mobile, and the iPhone app is especially intuitive. I've tried it for finding bathrooms, and I've even contributed one with photos (just look for the New York City Westin around 43^rd St and 8^th Ave). The overall social principle is similar to Yelp's, though: get users creating the content, and make it easy for anyone else to benefit from it.

Foursquare

It's a game, a social network, and maybe even a social experiment.  With Foursquare, users check in wherever they are (right now it's just for select North American cities) and earn points for doing so, while earning extra points for going out several times in a night or visiting new places. There are other hooks to keep users coming back. Badges are earned for completing challenges like going out four times in a night or, for New Yorkers, going out north of 59^th Street. If you visit the same place often enough, you become the Mayor, another bragging right.

Unlike the other applications mentioned, the whole point of Foursquare is the social experience: telling others where you are, seeing where your friends are, and earning more points than others in your city. There are also reviews and tips for each location, so this too fits in with the user-generated content realm.

2012

The app for the upcoming disaster movie originally wasn't social at all. The point of the app is to complete a number of survival trivia questions and complete your journey to the other side of the world. I'm horrible at it and wouldn't be inclined to share my score with my friends -- until I get some practice.

Originally published in MediaPost's Social Media Insider

The app has since evolved. First, it incorporates Facebook Connect to share certain questions. Oddly, sharing your final score isn't an option, and I couldn't actually get Facebook Connect to work. Still, the movie's not out for a couple months and the app's already getting updated, so the studio has time to work out the few kinks. It's a terrific app and now includes multiplayer functionality, taking advantage of the latest iPhone release's social functionality.

Will all mobile be social?

Incorporating user-generated content, location-based social networking and multiplayer gaming are just some of the ways mobile apps can be social. Not all apps need to be social at their core, but it's increasingly where they're going -- just like the Web itself, where even the most traditional and driest sites are incorporating social functionality. That doesn't make all mobile media social, but the best apps in the space will incorporate what's especially social about mobile devices and create a unique experience combining those elements.

Go Deeper into the Real-Time Search Panel at OMMA Global

At MediaPost's OMMA Global conference, I have the pleasure of moderating an amazing panel focused on real-time search. Below you can find the panelists on Twitter, along with recommended reading to learn more about the panelists' perspectives on the subject.

Update: Read coverage of the panel in MediaPost.

Tom Daly, Group Manager, Strategy & Planning, The Coca-Cola Company - @travelingparent  

• Coca-Cola Page on Facebook

Rob Garner, Search Strategy Director, iCrossing - @robgarner

• Column: Real-Time Search is Much Bigger Than Twitter
• Column archives at MediaPost

Jonathan Mendez, Founder & CEO, RAMP Digital – @jonathanmendez

• Blog post: Misguided Notions: A Study of Value Creation in Real-Time Search
• Blog post: Google Will Own Real-Time Search by Indexing, Filtering, and Ranking Tweets Better Than Twitter

Tobias Peggs, General Manager, OneRiot - @tobiaspeggs

• White paper: The Inner Workings of a Real-Time Search Engine
• OneRiot.com

Stephanie Sarka, Strategic Advisor, Wowd - @wowd

• White paper: Real-Time Search: Discovering the Web in Real-Time
• Wowd Blog

Moderator: David Berkowitz, Senior Director of Emerging Media & Innovation, 360i - @dberkowitz

• Blogs: MarketersStudio.com and 360i's Digital Connections

Also, here are the slides that accompanied the panel (note: the presentation is updated on SlideShare but you need to click to view it there, as the old version keeps showing up here):

Real-Time Search Panel at OMMA Global 2009

View more presentations from David Berkowitz.

How the Mobile Socialites Network

Originally published in MediaPost. Special thanks to Johanna Werther at AdMob for making this possible. I know I'm not the New York Times and don't seek exclusives, but if it makes sense for you I'm all for exploring story ideas that provide some custom hook or information for my readers in MediaPost, here, or elsewhere.

Mobile Social Networking Study from AdMob

View more presentations from David Berkowitz.

How Mobile Socialites Network

Given how obsessed people are with social networks, especially younger consumers who use it to religiously keep in touch with their friends, it's hardly surprising that mobile social network usage is skyrocketing. So which networks are benefiting the most from the trend?

I sought answers from my friends at mobile advertising platform AdMob. They're able to run surveys through their mobile ad units, and they can target consumers by which phones they're using, among other options. They ran a brief study for me and received responses from 71 iPhone users, 43 smartphone users, and 38 feature phone users (essentially any other mobile phone). It's not a huge sample size, so consider this more of a glimpse than a deep dive. But it's a start for understanding consumer interest in mobile social networking. The full presentation is available on SlideShare.

The study covered eight social properties: Facebook, MySpace, Digg, Twitter, LinkedIn, Mocospace, Peperonity, and Mig33 (the last three are mobile social networks). To get some sort of benchmark, respondents were asked about their favorite social networks they use both on mobile devices and on their computers. Here are some of the findings by device:

iPhone

·       Over half (52%) of iPhone users preferred to use Facebook the most from their phone. MySpace (11%) and Twitter (8%) also ranked, but nothing else came close, unless you count "other" and "I don't use social networks from my phone."

·       MySpace is much more popular on the PC than it is on the phone for iPhone users, while Twitter is the other way around, overrepresented on the phone compared with the PC.

·       Twitter is more popular among iPhone users than it is among any other device user.

·       Nearly two-fifths of iPhone users often engage with social networks from their phones.

Smartphone

·       Facebook is again the hands-down favorite for the most visited mobile social network by smartphone users (44% said it's their top preference).

·       The spread is much more even when asking which network smartphone users engage with at all from mobile devices: 63% for Facebook, 44% for MySpace, and 30% for Twitter, with another 12% noting Mocospace. The PC usage patterns are very similar, with slightly fewer accessing Facebook and Twitter from the PC.

·       Smartphone users were more likely than iPhone users to say they often use their phone for social networking, but also more likely to say they never use their phone that way.

Feature Phone

·       When it comes to social network usage on mobile devices, Mocospace is the dominant network, with 47% of feature phone users calling it their favorite.

·       Leading networks used by feature phone users on the PC include MySpace (66%), Mocospace (55%), and Facebook (42%).

·       More feature phone users say they use their phone for social networking often -- more than they use other devices.

The results directionally show some of what you might expect: Consumers with higher-end mobile devices gravitate toward Facebook and Twitter, and the likely younger feature phone user base is the most interested in Mocospace. Meanwhile, LinkedIn and Digg are not yet viewed as mobile properties.

The numbers themselves are just a hint of the research that can be done as we gain a better understanding of how mobile social networking differs from the Web experience we're used to. As more research comes out, we'll explore it here to gauge what's a fluke and what's a trend.

NY Times Toxic Waters Series Shows How Vital Traditional Media Is

The New York Times has a series on United States water pollution now that it calls Toxic Waters. Check out this excerpt:

The Times obtained hundreds of thousands of water pollution records through Freedom of Information Act requests to every state and the E.P.A., and compiled a national database of water pollution violations that is more comprehensive than those maintained by states or the E.P.A. (For an interactive version, which can show violations in any community, visit www.nytimes.com/toxicwaters.)

In addition, The Times interviewed more than 250 state and federal regulators, water-system managers, environmental advocates and scientists.

This is ‘traditional’ media showing why the media industry matters so much. And The New York Times is using the Web to provide a public service that complements its story.

This is a public good, with efforts that few if any bloggers could muster – though one could imagine some sort of crowdsourced version of the database with a wiki to back it up if it had a strong enough and passionate enough project lead. The reporting though takes it a step further – both are essential to tell this story.

Why Does Facebook Think I’m German?

First Jewdar, now Deutschdar?

Is anyone else getting this message?

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Umm, now I have to switch it back. (found the link on the bottom left)

A Reminder of the Power of Reviews

On the way home today, I went to the barber around the corner from my apartment in Manhattan. Naturally (ummm) the conversation turned to online marketing. Really.

Normally the father cut my hair. Today it was the son, Paul. He wanted to know about free ways to do online marketing and advertising, and I started bringing up low-cost options like Google and Facebook. With Facebook, I noted, it will be much more powerful when you can target by ZIP code and not just city.

Then we started talking about Yelp. Admittedly I don't know too much about advertising on Yelp, but the barber said he uses it and it does help the business.

Finally it occurred to me that the most concrete thing I could do for him was write a review. I base tons of decisions on reviews, so one more five-star rating could materially help his business. And since I never had a bad haircut there, five stars out of five was not just a nicety - it was true. As soon as I went home, after taking out the garbage, I wrote the review.

I should do this more, especially for local businesses or independent hotels/inns, or other establishments where it really matters. Of course, to a franchise owner - an important part of the business world - even reviewing a local KFC can help someone's livelihood. For local businesses where you get to know the properietor, it can feel especially rewarding. It takes just as long to write that as it does an average email, and it's likely far more important.

I need to do this more, such as for the dry cleaners and my favorite coffee shop. But this is a start. Whether it's Yelp or Menupages or Citysearch or Google/Yahoo/Bing Local, is there somewhere you love you can review?

By the way if you're in the Gramercy/Flatiron area of Manhattan and need a haircut, check out Classic Barber Shop on 27th between 3rd/Lex. I'm not the only one to give it a five-star rating either.

Social Brands In The City Of Angels

Originally published in MediaPost

A yummy Yucatanian spread at Chichen Itza in South LA, which we found in Zagat

Social Brands In The City Of Angels

I swore this would be a vacation. It was so weird taking a cab to JFK and not asking for a receipt, but I was ready to embrace it. Still, a long Labor Day weekend in Los Angeles for a friend's wedding wound up being shaped continually by social media experiences with brands big and small. Here are some standouts.

Virgin America: There are two reasons I flew Virgin for the first time to get to LA. One was that the groom noted there were good deals on flights from New York. Yet uncharacteristically of me, when I checked that the fare was reasonable, I didn't look elsewhere -- I booked it right away. The buzz surrounding the brand has been a big influence, especially with the countless exposures I've had through social media such as the repeated mentions on Rohit Bhargava's blog. I don't quite get all the hype, but I'd fly it again if the deal warrants it.

Kogi: We landed at LAX at 8 p.m., got our rental car at 8:30, and by 9 had arrived at where one of the Kogi trucks cooking fresh Korean barbecue was scheduled to arrive, according to their Twitter status update. We were among the first on line, and we still waited an hour and a quarter for the grub, even walking with the line around the block when the truck had to change parking spots. Its fans on Twitter, and it diehard fan base of California hipsters, know what they're talking about. We got far more food than we needed and devoured it all on the trunk of our rented Ford Mustang in a liquor store parking lot. It was the best meal of our trip.

Coolhaus: When arriving at the hotel, the groom heard our predilection for Twitter-promoted food and told us to check out Coolhaus ice cream sandwiches, which had some architectural inspiration. It turns out a furniture store was sponsoring free Coolhaus giveaways, again as per Twitter, and we managed to make it over.

Sprinkles Cupcakes: There was little doubt that having frequented the Sprinkles in Dallas, I had to visit the birthplace of these baked goods in Beverly Hills. The original's just as good, with slight menu variations such as offering Coca-Cola with cane sugar, instead of Dr Pepper in Texas.

This West Coast visit came with a social twist though. Sprinkles routinely posts Facebook and Twitter status updates with secret passwords that a number of customers can whisper in the stores to get free treats. On Saturday, for instance, Sprinkles tweeted, "It's football season! The first 50 people to whisper 'touchdown' at each #Sprinkles today receive a free football vanilla #cupcake!" When we got to the front of the line, my wife couldn't keep herself to a whisper and shouted "Touchdown!" as if Tony Romo of her home-team Cowboys had just completed a pass that sent them to the Super Bowl.

Granted, we would have gone to Sprinkles anyway, so they didn't gain a new customer. That kind of math would be shortsighted, though. Sprinkles has turned me into such a fan that they trained me to check Twitter before going into a store, deepening their number of touch-points with me and strengthening the consumer-brand relationship. Furthermore, they created a much more buzzworthy experience -- instead of just saying I bought cupcakes, I can say my wife shouted for them, and they gave her one for free. Through social media, even more people get involved -- the "touchdown" comment has 170 comments and 70 "likes." The total cost of the promotion? $162.50 in free cupcakes that day at retail prices, minus their margins, plus a few minutes of someone's time, which may have just been shifted from doing something else -- like writing a press release.

Millennium Biltmore: This was the official hotel for wedding guests close to the event venue. But as a rule my wife won't stay somewhere unless it has at least a pretty good TripAdvisor rating, so that means I check TripAdvisor before we go anywhere. Other consumers' reviews, and the nature of them (do they write like seasoned travelers or first-timers?), will make or break our decision. To Millennium's credit, they regularly respond to any negative reviews.

Chichen Itza and Water Grill: Zagat reviews influenced my wife's interest in both of these restaurants, the former a Yucatanian quick-service restaurant in South LA and the latter an upscale seafood restaurant by our hotel in New Downtown. The heart of Zagat Survey's business is curating user-generated content; it had a business model around social media before the phrase "social media" was coined.

There were many other brands we engaged with on the trip that were not social media-related. The cult around In-N-Out Burger led to my wife's first and my second visit there. And speaking of religion, we had to check out the Church of Scientology when we drove by the headquarters; we only caught the first five minutes of their four-hour video in their screening room (catch it all on the DVD for $20). Then there's one of the world's largest unofficial religions, the worshippers at the Texas Longhorn altar, who without fail routinely comment on my beloved burnt orange University of Texas shirt that I wear wherever I go. All of these are social brands, even if I can't trace my connection with them to a Twitter update or blog post. Brands that understand the role they play in social contexts, though, can more effectively use social media to spread the word, amplify the buzz, and bring in more customers in the process.

When Augmented Reality Goes Social

Now that augmented reality has established itself as the technology buzzword of the year, what impact will it have on social media?

Google Trends shows the growth curve for augmented reality, first appearing in the United States in November 2008, and then picking up more steam in March and June of this year. Putting it in perspective though, over the past 12 months, there were 16 times as many searches for "widgets" and nearly 26 times as many searches for "Second Life." It has some catching up to do with the emerging trends of yesteryear.

So what is augmented reality (often abbreviated as AR)? Here's the simplest definition I can muster: augmented reality provides a layer of digital content over real-world experiences. Vague? Perhaps. But it covers the main ways augmented reality is used today.

The first, the best known, and the most gimmicky is when you print out an image, hold it up to a webcam, and a 3D effect appears on the screen. GE was one of the first brands to do this, using augmented reality to create digital holograms to promote its Smart Grid technology; Popular Science then printed the image on its July magazine cover. Topps uses augmented reality to offer 3D games with its baseball cards, eliminating the need to print out anything else. Doritos turned bags for its Late Night chips into an augmented reality campaign, giving consumers access to online concerts from Blink-182 and Big Boi; fans who made a lot of noise after could get the band to do an encore performance faster. All of this is first-generation, so expect a marketing arms race to fuel more buzz.

Far more interesting potential for augmented reality comes from mobile applications. Instead of webcams, the mobile version relies on camera phones.  Consumers can view their surroundings through the camera lens and find location-based information appearing on the handset screen.

Several such applications have been made available for Google Android, and last week word leaked that Yelp was the first to offer augmented reality on the iPhone via an Easter egg (or hidden feature) in its app; you can view my screen shots on Flickr. The feature, dubbed "Monocle," activates your camera so, as you pan around your environment, business listings pop up in the direction you're looking, all with links to iPhone-optimized Yelp profiles. This is the first of its kind for the iPhone, and it's still buggy; most places that came up for me in Manhattan and Brooklyn were close by, but not in the direction I was looking. Still, I was able to get useful input from Monocle. Thanks to reviews appearing on Monocle, I even bought a chocolate chip cookie at Ashby's, a lunch spot near the office (and yes, the reviews were spot-on).

The reviews also hint at the potential for where social media fits. I'd expect that most of the real-world information used for mobile augmented reality applications will be user-generated in some way, but curated. This could be through a system like Yelp, where it hosts and organizes the reviews that its users submit. Another version of this is Wikitude's augmented reality browser, now on Android and soon on the iPhone, where the initial concept is to overlay Wikipedia information on the screen.

The possibilities are infinite, but they all center on content anchored to a specific location. Some of this doesn't need to be user-generated at all, like addresses or public transportation locations. But many other categories will be especially applicable:

·  Tweets, especially as Twitter rolls out location information for all posts.

·  Facebook updates; as more come from mobile apps, location-based information will be more central to their meaning.

·  Games, like new versions of geocaching, where it's possible to compete with other players based on digital markers uncovered through AR applications.

·  Art, as in new forms of graffiti that can enhance environments and provide everything from social commentary to territory marking, all without defacing physical property.

·  Citizen journalism, as you'll someday see every tree that once had a cat stuck in it and every block that had a crime committed on it based on people's reports.

This is just a sampling, and the marketing opportunities are coming. If this catches on, consider paid AR listings in Yelp that are a bolder color or otherwise more prominent. Marketers will also have more to monitor, especially those brands with a physical presence or brands that are tied to real-world locations (such as a soda brand that's likely to be consumed at quick-service restaurants and movie theaters). Marketers will soon have to make choices on whether to pay attention to, encourage and potentially build these new applications, or hide from and fight them. My bias should be obvious, but new technologies always bring new fears.

The hype is building, but the practical applications are coming. If you were turned off by augmented reality after spending an hour trying to get some black-and-white printout to trigger some action on a webcam, give it another look. Some of these applications will literally let you see the world in a new way.