POST DIGITAL

on: facebook's approach to the social semantic web

As many of you have been following in the mainstream and tech media, in late April, Facebook [FB] announced and launched a number of new and updated products for developers.  This set of products is centered on the Open Graph platform that allows the sites, brands and apps to share information about users in order to tailor offers, features and services.  FB’s approach will lead to a truly social semantic experience across the web.

Why do you want to integrate your website or blog with Facebook? 

Context.  FB has amassed more than 400 million users, 100 million mobile Users, 100 million Facebook Connect users and 25 billion items shared each month on FB.  While integrating with FB may not be right for all businesses and situations, it will likely be a valuable tool to create rich connections between marketers and their audiences.

What does that mean for your brand today?
Lets start with the social plug ins.  Imagine a person coming to your website and knowing what their friends thought about the content of your site. FB has developed a set of portable social plug-ins that will make it easy for users to see information from or about their FB friends, share things with their friends or even log in to FB all without leaving your site.

You may have recently noticed that the fan page you were a “fan” of has become more of a community, company or brand page that allows you to “like” it.   When you “like” a brand or product page, their content will appear in your personal news feed.  The FB feed is the femoral artery of the FB and social experience.  If you are a brand who wants prime real estate on the social web, the “like” button is the permission you need to deilver your content into people’s daily lives.  Under this new release the “like” button is much more powerful and now more portable.  You now can implement the “like” button, with a line of code on to your website. 

The Activity Feed exposes the actions your friends on any website. When you're logged into FB and visit CNN.com, you will instantly see articles & topics your friends’ sharing, recommending & commenting on via Activity Feed.

The Recommendations Social Plug In helps make sites more relevant to you by highlighting content based on top "Likes" across a site. Think of it as a people-powered "most popular" list. For e.g., if logged into FB, a user can visit your brand web page and instantly see articles, product summaries and features that people are liking & sharing with their friends most often, in real time.

The portable FB Log In now lets you increase sign up rates at your site.  This feature has the potential to catapult the power of the social CRM space. The Log in with Faces plugin displays your friend’s profile pictures that have already signed up for your site in addition to a login button.

We cannot forget the FB Social Bar. This nifty toolbar can be added to the bottom of your site. The Social Bar includes a like button, friends who like the site, as well as Facebook chat.  I expect to see chat addition groups pop up across the web.

What does this mean for consumers on sites in the FB ecosystem?

Tonight when I visited Pandora, using FB’s new open graph protocol, I was able to see that it picked up my FB music interests and recommended Bebel Gilberto’s latest and recommended that I create a Pandora station because of it.   Now that what I call personalization.

 

The new FB platform has jump-started the semantic web so that a users experience is incredibly personal and social with easy and simplicity.  

If you have not had a chance to check out this video of the f8 conference key note address, I highly recommend it for anyone who wants to connect their brands to consumers in a relevant way. 

f8conference on livestream.com. Broadcast Live Free

Sources 

• Facebook for Websites
• Hacking The Graph: Live From Facebook’s f8 Conference

ON: Nike's Grid

It starts with 40 postcodes across London each with a ‘Grid’ phone box. Participants play for their postcodes by running between boxes, dialing in at each location code and score points that earn badges (for speed, endurance and stamina).  This is experience planning at it's best.

ON: bing's day of rememberance

The Tribute in Light is an art installation of 88 searchlights placed next to the site of the World Trade Center to create two vertical columns of light in remembrance of the September 11 attacks.  bing's active commemoration has gotten me to change all of my search services to bing permanently and begin evangelizing its powerful decision engine.

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ON: SnowDays

They say that no 2 snowflakes are the same, despite looking identical to naked eye. That is probably also true when looking at them through the lens of this great Snow Flake maker.

Today I received a snowflake from a friend.  When I followed the link back I was delighted to see a "create a snowflake tool".  I must admit I have made about 10 different flakes and sent them out. It is addicting.

Make your own snow flake!  http://www.popularfront.com/snowdays/

The folks at Popular Front are smart marketers too!  Check out the badges they created for people to lift and put on their sites!

ON: An All-American Heros

When I logged into to my Facebook account today, I stumbled upon the featured video in my dashboard.  Upon click I fell for it! I love this campaign... Simply Big.

Kid Rock teamed up with Dale Earnhardt Jr. for the a new National Guard promotion "Warrior". Kid Rock wrote the new song, 'Warrior', that is the featured song in the campaign.

They used epic director James Mangold to shoot the videos. (Mangold has done Walk The Line and 3:10 To Yuma)  Make sure to go to the site and download the song!

ON: Don Julio Finds An Urban Social Media Voice

Don Julio recently joined the myriad of spirits companies toying with how do they take the most socially consumed products in the world and apply them in to social media. There is nothing more social than sharing a drink with friends. Combined that with the "Authenticity"campaign and what you get is an authentic way to create a drinking experience.

Don Julio has taken a smart idea and instead of trying to re-invent their site, they did the distributed media thing.They partnered with one of the hottest online blogs. Don Julio + UrbanDaddy = a brand faciltaing their consumers drink finds. I love that they highlight both great accounts in the trade as well as distinguishing places that the perfect find with fun categories like "First Date", "In Celebration", "The Bankers", "True Love" and my favorite "With The Parents"

Check it out! http://thefind.urbandaddy.com/

ON: U23D

Just when we had all written off IMAX, they launch The Dark Knight and inject a new spectacular experience for movie goers. All of the sudden the movie theater tickets were worth it again!  So now that you have the Dark Knight under your IMAX belt it is time for you to surround yourself with Bono, Edge and gang for an energetic ride in U23D.

As a U2 fan who did the Veritgo tour while in chi-town, this is a stunning production that puts you in the eclipse pit of the Argentinean stage.  U23D is the first digital 3D, multi-camera, real-time shoot.  It is the largest collection of 3D camera technology ever assembled for a single project.

 
For those of you who have invested in the home theater with surround sound and stadium seating - IMAX has made the movies magical again.  Seems like a fine time to go hang at the movies again.  Thanks IMAX!

Check out the site at http://www.u23dmovie.com

ON: Wildfire at Cannes

If you are rolling with your hommies to France for Cannes make sure to attend Wildfire!  This is yet another joint creative partnership that combines the world of publishing and agencies who give them something to write about.  (contagious magazine out of the UK and Leo Burnett) Over the last few years I have attended when it was in NYC and it is a great gathering of people.  Lots of creative blood to network with. 

One of the many thinkgs that I love about this event is that that they highlight work and the best ideas that real people engaged with. 

This year:
Leo Burnett will be talking about their fresh, 'HumanKind' approach to marketing - always putting people at the center of their thinking. Not the brand, not the category. In keeping with this, we’ve got case studies from the world’s biggest brand Nokia, and will be finding out how Swedish retailer IKEA personalized their meatballs and MDF shopping experience. We’ll be looking at how Guinness in Hong Kong and Coca-Cola in China transformed community events with a little smart thinking, and bringing you the branded content emerging from unlikely places and winning viewers worldwide.

If you are lucky enough to be amongst the glitter and glam side of our business Wildfire is a must!

Ripped From Their Press Release:
Everything that matters in the advertising business begins and ends with two things: people and behaviour. Wildfire brands understand this better than any, and are themselves built and defined by the people who buy them – people with the imagination, tools and enthusiasm to share their feelings and opinions about their favourite products with their peers.

Wildfire brands were created for, and thrive within today's 'People Era' – an era when marketers have to be more human in their behavior, insight and voice than ever before.

With this in mind, some of the most successful brands of the 21st century will be explored as well as new forms of advertising that feel more like real life than marketing. The panel will talk to people from all over the world about what they expect in return from the brands they invest their valuable time and money in, and show what turns a buyer of a brand into an advocate.

In short, Wildfire 2008 will look at the business of advertising through a distinctly human lens.

ON: Interaction = Conversations

Enjoy this video from Interaction 2008.(the video contains one of my industry favorites David Armano - who highlights an approach to emotional experiences)

The folks at Interaction 08 came from a many different areas of the business (Graphic design, Information Architecture, Industrial Design, Programming, Development and Web Design to name a few)  Over the last year one of the trends I have seen has been the inability to firmly define our practice in universal terms.

I ponder if in 2008 we will begin to unify the meaning of what we do.  Some in the industry believe in order to properly sell what we do we must agree that we as "creatives" must decide what to call ourselves.   When you combine design, engineering and marketing, what you get are the fundimentals of digital that have converged to play a dominant role in consumers lives.

ON: Experience Design 101

Experience design can sometimes be a slippery term. With all the other often used terms that float around in its realm in the technology and web space: interaction design, information architecture, human computer interaction, human factors engineering, usability, and user interface design.

People often end up asking “what is the difference between all these fields and which one do I need?” This article examines the term and field of user experience to plainly extrapolate its meaning and connect the dots with these other fields.

Those of us in the field have stated that the discipline takes the theory and the techniques of traditional design, which it merges with theoretical and practical approaches from other disciplines. The result is a gestalt-like synthesis of unique procedures and methods, and of a project-based approach to develop objects, environments and systems.

Interaction design seeks to establish a dialogue between products, people and physical, cultural and historical contexts; to anticipate how the use of products will affect comprehension; and to determine a form that is appropriate to its behavior and use.

Experience design takes into consideration not only physical devices but services. Our lives are increasingly connected through telecommunications networks and filled with immaterial things: music, films, TV and other information sources. These services, provided by companies and public institutions, are as important as the machines through which we access them: the phone, pager, PDA or set-top box.

Experience design involves the design of immaterial as well as material things: services and software as well as hardware.  Interactive technologies need a new kind of design, a fusion of sound, graphic and product design, and time-based narrative.

Developing this new kind of design will lead to a new aesthetic interface: one of use and experience as well as of form. When function and information (and perhaps entertainment) converge you should get a universal emotional design that takes the most positive human behaviors into account.

Getting The Terms Right

• User experience is a term used to describe the overall experience and satisfaction a user has when using a product or system. It most commonly refers to a combination of software and business topics, such as selling over the web, but it applies to any result of interaction design. Wikipedia definition

• Interaction design is a sub-discipline of design which examines the role of embedded behaviors and intelligence in physical and virtual spaces as well as the convergence of physical and digital products. Sometimes referred to by the acronyms “IxD” or “iD”… Wikipedia definition

• Information Architecture (IA) is the art and science of structuring knowledge (technically data), and defining user interactions. Wikipedia definition
• Usability is the measure of the ease with which particular people can employ a particular tool or other human-made object in order to achieve a particular goal. Usability can also refer to the methods of measuring usability and the study of the principles that may predict whether an object is found usable in practice. Wikipedia definition
• Human-computer interaction (HCI) is the study of interaction between people (users) and computers. It is an interdisciplinary subject, relating computer science with many other fields of study and research. Wikipedia definition
• Human factors engineering, also referred to as Ergonomics is the study of optimizing the interface between human beings, and the designed objects and environments they interact with. Wikipedia definition
• User interface design is the overall process of designing the interaction between a human (user) and a machine (computer). It includes graphic design, information design and a wide variety of usability methods. Wikipedia definition

User experience design is a subset of the broader field of experience design; the latter being defined as:
…an approach to the design of products, services and environments based on a holistic consideration of the users’ experience. Experience design is therefore driven by consideration of the ‘moments’ of engagement between people and brands, and the memories these moments create. Also known as experiential marketing, customer experience design, experiential design, brand experience.

Based on this definition, experience design uses the interactions of customers with products, services and company branding to optimize the overall impressions left by these. User experience design takes a similar approach and applies it to a specific set of products– computer-related ones. For example, an experience designer may refine the customer service and ambience of a hotel, whereas a user experience designer will optimize the customer’s interaction when making a reservation online, interacting with the hotel website or will improve the staff’s systems for managing hotel operations. The key difference can be found in the examination of the word ‘user.’

How Does it all work together?

 

For another perspective on experience design, read “How to Quantify the User Experience”. There are many articles which deconstruct this discipline, but they all revolve around the idea of user experience design as a multi-faceted approach aimed at making consumer experiences with products, sites and technology more pleasing for people to use.

This holistic methodology is often more adept at helping to reach a set of goals that encompass passive and active user interactions–goals determined both by users and the business or organization. 

Experience design is a complex field that is not exactly discrete from all the others mentioned. In essence, user experience draws from each of these fields in order to address the various aspects of a user’s experience. If the user experience is meant to describe the user’s satisfaction with a product, there are a few key elements which need can be addressed the design and implementation of a website, widget or even marketing campaign.

*** Source: Montparnas Blog