POST DIGITAL

Instagram's Mystery Press Event: Instagram Direct

Instagram is holding a mystery press event. In advance of the the event, the company sent out physical Instagram images printed on canvas. Instagram co-founder and CEO Kevin Systrom will be in attendance, which means the announcement should be big.

Live Blogging:

Instagram launches Instagram Direct, lets you share photos and videos privately with friends.  Rise of the private network?

Key Features: new messaging feature that lets users send text, video, and photo messages to each other privately.

"Communication is not about photography, necessarily. If we were about photography we're built into cameras, but we're not, we're built into phones." Instagram up to this point focused on photos and videos — "moments" — as Instagram calls them.

"Messaging adds a third dimension to the app that lets people communicate using words and to do so privately, if you'd like. Sometimes you want to be able to share not with everyone, but just with a specific group," 

 

 

 

FedEx launches ‘Ship to Friends’ app on Facebook

With the launch of facebook gifts and the holidays right around the corner. FedEx has created a Facebook app that allows users to create address labels for parcels based on their friends’ profiles, and it notifies friends when they’re about to receive a package.

While this service isn’t much different than what FedEx’s website already offers, - placing it in FB is sure to get even more users this holiday season.

NYC's Comodo creates Instagram menu

Comodo has launched a campaign encouraging diners to take photos of their food inorder to create a visual menu. Once you snap your Instagram pic with a #comodomenu hashtag - it appears in the resturants Instgram menu.

The Instagram Menu from Raul Mandru on Vimeo.

 

Tumblr launches Reblorg, a new curated site with super eccentric content

Facebook Insights made accurate & now includes mobile data

Facebook made two important updates to its Insights to help Page owners understand more about the true reach of their posts. In a move to improve efficiency, the News Feed will load fewer stories and only load more when the user scrolls down the feed. As impressions and reach is calculated upon load of the story in the Feed, the reach shown in Insights will be far more accurate as to what users have actually viewed.

This now includes mobile data, previously this it only was desktop data a change to desktop News Feed views.

Nike+ FuelBand & RGA Roar into Cannes

"Life is a sport. Make it count."

Yes it is and I try every day to make it count -- now I can keep track of how I make it count with My Nike+ FUELBAND.  I love mine. From the moment I got it I understood the motivational power of it. This is why it won the CyberLion.  This is the perfect example of the post digital world!

From RGA: Nike came to us with an idea: a device that tracks your daily activity and a common, universal metric called Fuel for every active body out there. They asked us to design the entire user experience. We ensured ease of use: set your goal, and get from red to green. If you meet your goal, animations celebrate your performance. Hit a streak and Fuelie shows up to cheer you on. Data visualisations show where you were most active daily, weekly, monthly, and beyond. We created Bluetooth synch technology so when you finish your day, your Fuel is wireless synced to the platform. NikeFuel levels the playing field, and fits into your life. #Counts

See their entry here: http://judgeseyesonly.com/nike-fuelband

 

The genious behind this is no matter what shoe I am wearing (adidas glide4) Nike+ is my personal motivator, eco-system and service i subscribe to.

on: google+ games

After a two week launch frenzy, ( google+ platform blog for developers blog, adding google posts to search results on google) , Google wants people to spend even more time using G+ by giving it richer content – starting by adding a separate Games stream.

 

The initial set of games includes, the addictive, Angry Birds by, Rovio, PopCap's Bejeweled, and Zynga's Poker – and it’s attracting big developers like EA with a sweet new revenue model. Google only takes 5% of game revenues, as opposed to Facebook which takes 30%.  

But you have to ask yourself, with such a tiny slice of the social market, compared to Facebook's huge slice of the pie, what brought those big name game developers to the fledgling network? Could it be that G+ has a different audience than facebook's young social gamers? 

Have you played yet? I found it easy and fun.

If you’re a developer interested in building games for Google+, you can learn more on the new Google+ developer blog.

on: spotify

If you have not seen me in the social media high school halls its because I have a new drug. Me and my peeps are sharing music on Spotify.  This is a service I had drooled over when I saw two of my brit friends with it about a year ago.  If you are a music lover, it's kinda like when the beatles just arrived. Yes - Spotify has come to the US!

 

Right now it's in an invite-only beta phase. They are offering three great services - from absolutely free to paid subscriptions. Here is how it breaks down:

• Spotify Free – the unsurpassed free music service. With an invite, enjoy on-demand, buffer-free access to over 15 million songs on your computer and great social features. Manage your own music files through Spotify, and sync with your cellphone or iPod. Features occasional advertising.
• Spotify Unlimited – all the special features of our free service, but with uninterrupted, ad-free access to Spotify on your computer. All for only $4.99 a month.
• Spotify Premium - the top-of-the-range Spotify experience. Premium gives you access to all the music, all the time. Listen online or offline, on your computer, your cellphone and a whole heap of other devices. Enjoy enhanced sound quality and access to exclusive content, competitions and special offers. Premium costs just $9.99 a month. (That’s the equivalent of a couple of fancy coffees.)

Right now my favorite part of this is being able to subscribe to my friends lists.  I have almost abandoned my iTunes Library.

The part that makes this super interesting is that they are launching in partnership with some of the biggest brands.  Coca-Cola and Sprite, Chevrolet, Motorola, Reebok, Sonos and The Daily are the few I know about. These brands will be launching innovative campaigns in partnership with Spotify in the coming weeks and months. Imagine the possibilites!

If your looking for an invite I have a few left.  Send me your email via this blog!

on: google+'s growing audience

20 Million and growing and it's only been a month.  This is a meteoric rise for Google+ [G+] when you compare it to their past social endevours or Facebook and Twitter’s early growth as illustrated by the graph below [via Leon Håland]:

It’s only fair to consider and note that Facebook and Twitter were startups when they launched – conversely, Google is a global company with an enormous user base. [ we already use google for search and email ]

Now that G+ has its iPhone app now live, the option to bring in address books from other services seems like an easy way for G+ to expand past the early adopters.  That feature combined with the ‘celebrity acquisition plan’ designed to entice global influencers in music and movies will continue to lead to more users.

As it's audience grows businesses, marketers in particular, want to know how use Google+. G+ has continued to push out updates about their plans for businesses within the service. They have ended up back-tracking on their offer to let brands test the service, but to be fair to them, they’ve been completely transparent, with regular updates about what’s going on.

In spite of a few hiccups, this is monumental growth from a service only a month old.

I think real sign of success is when you are able to inspire champions to publish independent videos touting the quality of the service.  That is something we should all applaud. [thanks tom anderson for sharing this on g+]

For those new to G+, there are a number of hacks to get started.  People are creating videos by the hudreds on how to use the platform.  My favorite recent use is the Hangout feature.  I think this feature could be used in some fun ways by brands.  What's your fav. part of G+?

Champion Videos:

• http://youtu.be/S5qppb4A7kg
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoR0lirqRWE

on: american express and social commerce

In one of the boldest steps towards digital wallets, American Express' new social commerce products asks it's cardmembers to allow Amex to pull their data from Facebook, in exchange for offers and discounts. When a cardmember likes something on Facebook it will feedinto a secure cardmember profile that will spit out relvant offers that can be redeemed by using your american express card.  This is a great idea and superb use of the social graph.  Could this be the brand that gives facebook places life?

For many marketers, the big question is will cardmembers surrender their data for offers? Amex and their social platforms will be a brand to watch as they have alwaysed used data to enrich a cardmember's expereince through their closed network of merchants.