360DigitalInfluence

Since everyone is talking about location let’s extend the conversation Sophia started in her post “Geo-Location Is Truly Everywhere“.

It seems we are at an interesting point in location based content. On one hand you have the early pioneers of this new land Foursquare and Gowalla (I will leave Mytown on its own because of the amazing gaming experience) who are consistently gaining new users. But what happens to Foursquare and the likes when people start tapping into the API for Twitters geo location data and when Facebook checkin gains critical mass ?

The openness of API’s means all platforms can technically benefit because there is more geo tagged content. For example if Foursquare pulled in places data which was actually tagged via a tweet it would only enhance the experience consumers have while trying to oust their others as the “Mayor”.

The flip side is that the critical mass of Twitter and Facebook could mean doom for the little guys. Kind of like when the big box retailer moves into to small town America.

The advantage I see Facebook having in this space is the amount of behavioral data it collects both implicit and explicitly. This could translate into highly targeted content and very relevant offers. If there was a way to opt in for specials or useful content delivered to my mobile device from my favorite brands I would do it. The challenge with the current models is that they are only location based and not preference. This may feel like spam to some.

Assuming the start ups can extend their platforms and keep a fun gaming experience with a proper balance of rewards extending beyond a badge there is plenty of shelf space available.

Only time will tell how this will shake out but either way location based content and marketing has made great progress. It is proving to be a unique way for brands to engage and reward their most loyal customers with special offers based on frequency or prospective customers who happen to be “nearby”.

How do you think this will play out? Will there be a “winner” or Will everyone win because of broader adoption?

Last week was chock full of announcements that changed the landscape in the ever-evolving partnership between brands, social networks, and game developers.
A few of the more intriguing story lines were:

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I recently came across an interesting study that declared mobile web will be the leading trend in 2015. This is a pretty bold statement but believe it or not there is truth to it. This year we’ve witnessed an explosion in mobile and location based content with cool location based social applications like Foursquare, Gowalla, and BrightKite. Location based services are one of the most powerful ways to personalize one’s mobile experience which can be even more amplified with the integration of social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.  An increasing number of brands are experimenting and trying out mobile marketing strategies as a result. Last month, Gowalla partnered with Travel Channel to integrate some of its dining content from the show Food Wars.  When Gowalla users check in to venues visited in Food Wars, they will be able to read show-related information about the restaurant and collect passport-stamp rewards. This is a great way to engage fans and build strong brand awareness and loyalty. Gowalla says users have checked in at 600,000 locations in more than 165 countries to-date.

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Over the last year, location-based social networks such as Foursquare, Gowalla and Brightkite have exploded among early adopters. It’s no question—with increasing adoption of smart phone usage, location-based social networks are rising in popularity every day.

Recently covered in GigaOM, CNN, Ad Age and The New York Times, Foursquare is currently one of the most buzzed about location-based mobile social networks. Intel and Ogilvy recently used Foursquare to drive traffic to and create buzz around Intel’s offline events and activities at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this month.

For CES, Intel created a branded Foursquare page, featuring locations where Intel had activity and tips for Las Vegas visitors. Intel also rewarded check-in’s to key events with branded badges, paired with the chance to win an Intel-powered netbook for all badge recipients.

This exclusive collaboration allowed Intel to track and build relationships with online influencers active on Foursquare at CES. With more than 400 cumulative check-in’s to Intel-affiliated locations and events, the collaboration was a breakout success and proved to be an interesting event-based model for brands looking to work with Foursquare.

We interviewed Tristan Walker, head of business development at Foursquare, to learn more about their vision for what’s to come for brands, businesses and Foursquare.

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Or is it?

2009 has been an interesting and dare I say it even a breakout year for hyperlocal thus far. The New York Times launched The Local a few months before it announced it was cutting 8% of it newsroom jobs, MSNBC bought Everyblock, and services like Patch.com are slowly but surely growing in popularity.  ESPN launched a series of local efforts this year too, and although they’re not what I would call truly hyperlocal yet, (rather local aggregations of mostly major league sports coverage), it’s another example of big media exploring the area.

If the ESPN sites do well the natural next step would be for them to broaden to true local interests like little league and highschool football community coverage. Post wiki updates from your son’s baseball game, or a pitchcount updated live from an AAA baseball game anyone? The numbers aren’t super impressive just yet: according to compete patch.com gets about 50k uniques a month and the ESPN sites are all doing under 60k a month, but they’re all trending up dramatically.

So why are so many major players interested in and investing in the space?  In part it has to do with the news industry searching for alternate revenue streams of course, but for me the more interesting reason is that hyperlocal services, whether news, reviews or plain old yellowpages style info, are and will always be at the very heart of community. If I, as a resident of the Upper West Side of Manhattan, have absolutely nothing else in common with my neighbor other than our shared geography, we would still both benefit from a service that gave us trusted local news and information.  If that information is created by or curated by or contributed to by people who live in my neighborhood (e.g. my neighbor who I’ve never met, but has just as vested an interest in, for example, crime levels in 10025), it is more relevant and interesting to me than if is created by an Atlanta newsroom, or even by the New York Times just a couple of miles south of me. More relevant and interesting = greater engagement = more opportunities to generate revenue (with apologies to the hyperlocal purists!).

It’s the ultimate in contextual thinking: give people information that is as relevant and targeted as possible. The kind of thinking that built Google into a powerhouse, and for me it’s an area that is poised to explode. As location based services improve and mobile broadband coverage and speeds increase, local generated reviews and content are only going to go from strength to strength: there are 307 million people in the US that care about some aspect of their local community. When somebody finds a model that scales without compromising the integrity of the content they’ll have a goldmine on their hands.

Years back we used to say that content was king. Now I would argue that hyperlocal is. Or at least that it will be soon.

Along with a group of 11 diverse consumer tech influencers, Ogilvy PR worked with our client Intel recently to host a day-long visit to the company’s Santa Clara headquarters that included conversations about the digital divide, the latest in mobile technology, eco-computing, and more. The “Upgrade Your Life” event participants, who are prolific gadget and performance content creators, talked with Intel’s executive leadership about ways that technology is improving the lives of women and girls globally.

Photo by Intel’s Ken Kaplan.

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As a follow up to our recent webinar, Facebook Bootcamp for PR, you’ll see five blog posts in the coming weeks exploring the five trends set out in our presentation. With over 30 million active users Facebook Mobile is a trend that’s gaining serious momentum over the last year and eMarketer.com predicts that worldwide numbers across networks will reach 369 million by 2010. This is great news for brands looking to leverage social media for offline events; some of the new possibilities include signing up fans via SMS and extending consumer generated media programs to include mobile uploads.

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Throughout the year, we saw a global increase in brands using mobile to foster word of mouth or support offline campaigns.

No one demonstrated the power of mobile better than our next President.   Sent in the early morning hours on Friday, August 23rd, the VP text has described been single largest mobile marketing event to-date.   Best guesses put the number of opt-in text subscribers at around 2.9 million unique mobile numbers.

While most brands won’t have the star appeal of Barack Obama, the possibilities for a branded mobile play in 2008 grew exponentially, due in no small part to the campaign.