voiceapps

Mobile gaming is getting hotter by the day and monetization companies are trying to take advantage. gWallet, a social media monetization company, just announced their latest platform that will allow mobile app developers to monetize their apps through branded offers and installs. gWallet will partner with Mobclix, the largest targeted mobile ad exchange network, to deliver mobile-specific offers and installs from trusted brands. gWallet’s brand relationships coupled with Mobclix’ open marketplace should make this offering a compelling one for all in the mobile space.

Users will essentially be able to earn virtual currency for downloading an app such as the Time mobile app. gWallet’s platform will be available on all major mobile platforms like iPhone, Android, and Blackberry. The offers will be specific for the mobile environment and focus on quick completion as opposed to the multi-step approach of monetization on the traditional web.

Developers will use a bidding system to purchase installs. This is similar in a sense to what Tapjoy offers. Tapjoy, in the past, has charged $0.45 per install for a free app and 50% of the price for a paid app.  In the case of Tapjoy, users got to select from 15-20 apps over time they wanted to earn virtual currency on apps that enabled Tapjoy. This increases conversion rates to around 80% for free apps.  Overall this system makes it easier for apps to get installs and thus have a higher chance of gaining visibility in the app store in the case of iPhone. The whole idea is to get the app to a high rank and subsidize the cost of installs with free installs that come from exposure in top ranking lists.

“Consumers who are playing games on their phones are not willing to complete web-based offers,” said Gurbaksh Chahal, gWallet’s Founder and CEO. “They don’t have the time to go through a lot of screens, and they don’t want to enter in a lot of information on a small keyboard. We solve that problem by delivering mobile-specific offers and installs from brands they trust.”

gWallet has been working with over 120 brands since its launch from industries such as beverage, computer security and retail. Evidently, gWallet and Mobclix will work together to create compelling campaigns for tablets like iPad that could provide high quality advertising and advergaming experiences for consumers. The extension to mobile is an obvious one for gWallet and Gurbaksh Chahal is looking forward to the launch of this service. For more information check out: gWallet mobile.

“gWallet is changing the demand equation,” said Krishna Subramanian, Co-Founder of Mobclix. “As an exchange, we see this as a premium opportunity for publishers, as gWallet’s demand from agencies and advertisers is truly unique. We’ll work closely with gWallet in extending a new class of offers to the mobile consumer – offers that embrace the new and growing demand for virtual currency as a form of payment.”

Earlier this month, AOL joined the privacy bandwagon with the introduction of its SafeSocial service, a tool that grants parents access to key pieces of their kids’ online lives, from pictures and posts to Internet accounts and Facebook friends.

Now AOL has revealed the technology behind the tool, announcing today it will partner with SocialShield, a San Bruno, Calif.-based software company, to power the SafeSocial offering.

The partnership is a boon to SocialShield, a small start-up founded just last year by Noah Kindler and Arad Rostampour.  The two men were prompted to apply their technology expertise and Ivy League-training to the privacy issue after a mutual friend’s daughter was followed by more than 80 men on Facebook when her father posted family vacation photos to the site, according to the company bio.

Rostampour described the company as “heavily focused on innovation,” and said of the partnership with AOL:  “We’re committed to evolving alongside the social web and helping parents keep pace with the expanding universe of new websites, forums and other media that are available.”

The software’s ‘360 Degree View’ technology pulls out the irrelevant information that bogged down previous search tools by looking for words or phrases that raise red flags.  Parents then receive email alerts if anything alarming comes up, and the data is highlighted at the top of the dashboard for easy viewing.

The SafeSocial service is also unique in that kids have to agree to be monitored.  But once parents can convince their kids to agree, they receive what can only be considered the ‘golden key’ to online snooping:  access to their kids’ accounts, an investigative feature that checks their kids’ “friends” against “more than 50 Web sites to find out more about them,” and their kids’ photos investigated and displayed in “an easy-to-use gallery.”

AOL said the decision to go with SocialShield was made after an “extensive partner search.”

The company will continue to market the product under the name, AOL Safe Social, and will maintain separate development, engineering and marketing teams.

AOL is now offering SafeSocial as a free 30 day trial, after which it will cost users $9.99 per month.

It’s been days, a lifetime in the world of online news, since Craigslist quietly placed a “censored” image over its “adult services” link yet the surprising move remains a hot topic.  Was the move a dramatic concession by the pioneering ad-services site or  strategic “check mate” move by an unpredictable company?  Let’s take a look at the top 5 takeaways and potential implications of Craigslist’s decision.

Here are the top five takeaways, and potential implications, of the Craigslist decision:

1) Free Speech Remains Intact: The reason Craigslist had long been able to defend its right to carry the ads is that the law is clearly on its side.  The federal Communications Decency Act protects Web sites against liability for what their users post on the sites.  The company’s standing was reinforced just last year when a federal judge blocked South Carolina’s attorney general from prosecuting Craigslist executives for prostitution arrests stemming from listings on the site.

With a few days behind them to analyze Craigslist’s most recent move, many experts see the “censored” label as a sly dig at the attorney generals seeking to, critics would say, block free speech on the Internet.  They conclude the very intentional choice of language and discrepancy by Craigslist means the socially-conscious company won’t back down from its stand.

2) But the Fight Goes On: If Craigslist does follow through with its decision and block the adult ads, the industry won’t just disappear from the Internet.  Other sites may jump in seeing a potential for gain, and current sites such as Backpage.com owned by Village Voice Media will continue to grow.  Craigslist’s actions also only apply to the U.S. section of the site, so the service remains intact globally.

Also vowing to continue the fight are a wide network of state attorney generals, largely led by two Democrats, Martha Coakley in Massachusetts and Richard Blumenthal in Connecticut.  Both have stated since the decision that they plan to hold public hearings and look for legislative solutions to hold sites accountable, but experts predict they face a tough fight ahead.  “There’s going to be a game of Whac-a-Mole to try to achieve this goal through censorship — information will keep popping up online,’’ John Palfrey, of Harvard Law School told the Boston Globe. “Strategically, you have to go to the root causes, and not just focus on the intermediaries, like the Phoenix or Craigslist, but directly on the wrongdoers.’’

3) Financial Blow for Craigslist: Doubts about whether Craigslist is sincere in permanently deleting adult service ads from its site largely stem from the amount of money the company could lose should it let this business go.  The site charges $10 to post and $5 to repost each ad, meaning the adult services section alone brings in about a third of Craigslist’s annual revenue, or almost $45 million, according to the Advanced Interactive Media Group.

4) Public Pressure Still Rules: Veteran political watcher and Washington insider Mike Allen immediately pinpointed the move as a result of a “quiet, low-budget syntheisis of GOVERNMENT, MEDIA, CELEBRITIES AND ADVOCACY GROUPS – a textbook pressure campaign that defeated an Internet powerhouse.”  Indeed, public interest groups and government officials alike have orchestrated an ongoing drumbeat of negative publicity against the company, from Congressional briefings and White House meetings to full-page ads in the Washington Post and an Anderson Cooper-reported, “AC360” investigation on CNN in August.  Publicity went from bad to worse last April with the killing of 25-year old Julissa Brisman in New York, and the subsequent high-profile arrest of Philip Markoff who became known as the “Craigslist killer.” And just last month, 17 state attorney generals released a joint letter accusing the site of profiting from the “suffering of the women and children who continue to be victimized by Craigslist.”

5) Can A Company Play Non-Profit, with Two CEOs: Founder and “caretaker” Craig Newmaker has been just that for the company, its caretaker in every sense of the word.  He’s no longer CEO, replaced by Jim Buckmaster, but has maintained a heavy hand in cultivating the company as an advocacy group and charity, not just a ‘dysfunctional corporate entity.’  Newmaker has donated nearly $84,000 to Democratic candidates since 2003, according to campaign tracker OpenSecrets.org, while Buckmaster has not made any donations.  Buckmaster has been most vocal on the company blog about the debate, writing screeds upon screeds to defend the company’s free speech rights and social good against journalists, attorneys and public interest groups alike.  Nonetheless, Craigslist is a company, one estimated to generate more than $120 million this year alone.  Adult Services makes up almost one third of that amount.

No matter how hard they may try, what no supporter or critic can accurately foresee right now is which side will win.  Or will Craigslist surprise us all once again and prove that social good and corporate profit can get along?

I recently had the chance to chat with Wilson Kriegel — Chief Revenue Officer for casual multiplayer games portal OMGPOP — about the release of Cupcake Corner, their first Facebook game.  The game is a restaurant management type game that doesn’t veer too far from the genre standard in aesthetics, but has some unique features and OMGPOP style graphical flourishes that set it apart from other titles in the genre.  What’s interesting here is that the game is part of OMGPOP’s bigger strategy to make inroads into the Facebook gaming market.  I talk with Wilson about market research, the Facebook gaming market and the crossover between OMGPOP and Facebook below.

Wilson first explained that Cupcake Corner was the result of a lot of market research, starting approximately 6 months ago.  OMGPOP devoted a small team to creating a Facebook game that would stand alone and act as its own product, and would not be solely a vehicle to drive people to OMGPOP.  “We went with a baking themed game based on research we did within our site and test campaigns on Facebook.  We did surveys and asked our community what they wanted to play and after analyzing the data there was opportunity with this [cupcake] theme.”

Wilson stressed that they came up with their theme before competitors like Baking Life hit the market, and that those games took a little wind out of Cupcake Corner’s sails.  That doesn’t phase him or the team, though, as they have a long term strategy to attack the Facebook Games way in the same way they did with OMGPOP, which is to steadily develop quality games and build loyal gamers, rather than overly concern themselves with market competition and timing.

In terms of development, the team wanted to first develop a Facebook game platform, upon which they could create their games and accelerate the development of future games.  “Our CTO built a platform first, and that will allow us to release the game faster.  This took a bit of time up front and as we got into the market, we fell behind a few competitors.”

I asked Wilson about the goals of Cupcake Corner, and their goals on Facebook.  Wilson stated “The goal with Cupcake Corner is to create a quality product.  It has 100,000 installations and that’s been fully organic, without any advertising.  It’s monetizing very well at this point, and we plan for it to be a standalone product.”

Wilson continued “Strategically, we view an opportunity to leverage it as a marketing opportunity but also a way to enter the burgeoning Facebook games market.  It’s not primarily to drive people back to OMGPOP … we view OMGPOP as a standalone site.”

Wilson also stated that OMGPOP has marketing opportunities that Facebook doesn’t, as they have control over their own site, and for this reason they are keeping the projects and games pretty much completely separate.  The OMGPOP is currently doing some digging to see how many crossover players are playing on both sites to help inform their advertising strategies across the two different products.

Finally, Wilson let us know about their future plans.  “IP based content is very important, as Playfish got into that with  EA and Playdom had ESPN.  We’re in talks with some large sports and music companies about some branded games.  We’re also developing unique IP, as usual.  Hopefully, we want to see something by Christmas 2010.”

Read an earlier interview with Wilson here.

Just as consumers get used to “checking in” on each other’s every move, from the grocery store to the neighborhood bar, the fad is invading an even more private space:  your television set.

The success of location-based apps like Foursquare and Facebook Places have prompted media companies to quickly secure deals with check-in start-ups like Miso, Philo, Starling and GetGlue.  But will these partnerships be able to do for content what Foursquare did for locations?

For media companies the apps are a way to build loyalty programs to reward their most dedicated watchers.  For fans, the check-in options seem to be a way to feed the “one-upmanship” beast social networking tools have created.

“Checking in is a repetitive behavior that demonstrates continuity,” Alex Iskold, GetGlue founder-CEO, tells Ad Age. “I can like ‘True Blood’ on Facebook, or I can check in to ‘True Blood’ every Sunday night, religiously. It demonstrates I’m a better fan that just someone who Likes.”

GetGlue, for one, has an exclusive deal with Fox that allows users who check-in to Fox shows such as ‘Glee’ to unlock special previews of the network’s upcoming shows.  On Philo, viewers with enough credits can become the ‘executive producer’ of their favorite show.

The apps are a relatively easy, high-tech way for media companies to reach the goal of all service providers:  making the user feel special.

The early versions of these TV-specific “check-ins” seek to build loyalty mainly through just awarding stickers and badges.  Or, as Sabrina Caluori, HBO’s director of marketing and social media describes it they need only be, “…as simple as holding somebody up in an exalted position…”

This leads some to question whether these tools will be able to hold their own as a stand-alone model.

Ad Age reports MTV is one network that has chosen to stick with Foursquare rather than pair with apps like GetGlue designed just for the niche TV market, reasoning that it’s better to ‘extend content into the real world rather than keeping the check-in about what’s on screen.’

So only time will tell whether telling Fox you’ve tuned into ‘Glee’ will deliver the same rewards, or personal high, as telling the world you’ve arrived at the neighborhood bar.

The Associated Press – the go-to organization for journalistic standards – has announced today that its staff will recognize bloggers as valid sources of news and credit them in their articles. This announcement comes from a smattering of policy changes designed to respond to “the age of the Web”, yet critics are raising their eyebrows at the seriously delayed timing of such a response to bloggers as respected media professionals. However, the fact that the AP recognizes bloggers – even if this recognition has already been given by many other respected media outlets – will likely give them more clout at events and more credence in their writing, two goals that bloggers have been fighting for since their early stages. Bloggers have typically been looked down upon with disdain by traditional media, especially several years ago when the word blog was more synonymous with “journal” than “news source”. However, in the past few years, outlets like the New York Times and the Washington Post have begun citing bloggers as new sources independent of AP guidelines.

Some critics are saying that the AP is slow to move towards accepting bloggers and other online news sources as credible. As one of the largest and most respected sources of news itself, the AP lagged behind for years in terms of how it used web content – particularly web content linked to anything “social” like blogging.

The letter from AP Senior Managing Editor Michael Oreskes that outlines the new stance towards bloggers begins with acknowledging that, “we should provide attribution whether the other organization is a newspaper, website, broadcaster or blog; whether or not it’s U.S. based; and whether or not it’s an AP member or subscriber.” It goes on to qualify this attribution with, “the attribution doesn’t always have to be at the start of a story or script; it can sometimes be two or three graphs down.”

Interestingly, this AP release deals only with blogs – not Facebook or Twitter. Twitter is known to be a relevant – if somewhat volatile – source of potential news-as-it-happens, exemplified by the Red Cross recently emphasizing the need to educate first responders on how to react to SMS and Twitter distress calls. Tweets can contain valuable information about disasters that otherwise would not reach the mainstream media. While Twitter and other social networks do have the potential to by hijacked by misinformation much more easily than an edited news source, the potential for breaking news is there, and the AP might want to state its policy towards these somewhat unconventional sources in the near future as well.

Facebook Places gets a little more “Foursquare-ized” today with the introduction of Context Optional’s Facebook Places Check-In Leaderboard. According to Context Optional, this is the first product that enables brands to recognize users who check in to Facebook Places, such as retail stores and restaurants, and reward top fans with promotions and special offers.

The customizable Places Check-In Leaderboard allows guests who check in to various locations to claim ownership of said locations via specially-designated categories which are tied to frequency of check-ins. Brands who implement a Places Check-In Leaderboard will be able to create Leaderboard categories such as “High Roller” and “Shop-a-holic” and attach special deals and offers to top fans on the Leaderboard. An example leaderboard can be seen on Context Optional’s Facebook page.

“Location-based marketing is a highly prized opportunity for brands,” said Kevin Barenblat, CEO and co-founder, Context Optional. “We’re excited to be the first company to provide brands a solution for capitalizing on Facebook Places.”

Check-ins are made on mobile platforms and presented them on brands’ Facebook landing Pages on Facebook.com. As a Facebook app, the leaderboard will only be accessible to fans via their desktop — there is no instant gratification or other brand feedback for the fans on their mobile devices, a significant loyalty-enhancing feature found on location-based services with dedicated mobile applications.

The Facebook Places Check In Leaderboard is part of Context Optional’s Social Marketing Suite an integrated, SaaS solution for enterprises to build, monitor, manage and measure their brand presence on Facebook. Social Times posted a profile of the subscription-based Social Marketing Suite in July.

You can now support your favorite charity with the click of a mouse using Endorse for a Cause. This new social media / philanthropy platform was launched last week, and connects consumers with charities using social networking and online shopping to encourage people to show their support. Each purchase that a user completes – either directly through Endorse for a Cause or through one of the more than 500 retailers – sees a percentage of the money spent go towards a charity of the user’s choice. While philanthropic shopping isn’t new, Endorse for a Cause is unique in how it leverages user’s existing social networks to promote charity. Below the jump, a detailed look at how you can shop for a cause. Users have to sign up with Endorse for a Cause to start their philanthropic shopping spree. They can then choose a cause to support from the ten charities in the initial roster. Initially, about 4-8% of the money the user spends at the retailers in the Endorse for a Cause network will go towards their charity, without costing the user anything.

Endorse for a Cause encourages users not only to shop at their partner retailers themselves, but to share links to the cause they support on Facebook and Twitter. If their friends sign up for their own Endorse for a Cause account through this link, the initial user’s purchases will see even more money going towards their chosen charity.

The Endorse for a Cause network not only relies on external social networks, but offers users a profile page, badges and more, all meant to foster social activity. For instance, users can earn badges for being an early adopter of the service, for referring friends, and they can earn points for the endorsements (purchases) that they and their friends give to the causes. These points and badges can be used for real-world prizes offered by the causes on the network, such as trips to conferences and gala events.

There are ten major charities linked to Endorse for a Cause as of today, including micro-lending non-profit Kiva.org, the American Cancer Society, and Feeding America. And users can add more charities if they can garner enough support (10,000 member votes). Along with these high profile non-profits, Endorse for a Cause has partnerships with more than 500 retailers across the country, including Target, Starbucks and Old Navy. With the clout that comes with big, recognizable names, Endorse for a Cause has high visibility in its favor.

If you’ve ever felt that you’d like an easy, effective way to support a charity, this is it. It takes very little effort after an initial account set up on the user’s side, and each purchase rewards a charity of your choice – without requiring that you actually donate any money yourself. For the budget-conscious out there, the Endorse for a Cause network is the way to go.

Sam Altman is co-founder and CEO of the Loopt social media network. Loopt is at the nexus of two of the hottest topics in social media — geolocation and location-based applications. Social Times asked Altman about Loopt, how it compares with its competitors and what might be coming up next.

The list of mobile location-based social networks has grown. How does Loopt see its place in the location-based universe?

The location-based space is on fire right now. We’re just now starting to see the kinds of activity we envisioned when we started Loopt in 2006, and Loopt’s activity rates have been consistently increasing.

With our core Loopt app, the capability to find and connect with friends sets it apart from the others. With background location sharing on smartphones, this has become an amazingly popular feature. We don’t just stream a list of places people have checked in, but we show a friend’s current location (if they have turned that on). We alert users when friends are physically nearby, and we allow people to find and discover cool places and events around them. With Loopt, people can see their social plans unfold on the map in front of them. It’s the social media that truly allows you to get social in person.

With Loopt Star, we have differentiated our game by focusing on “real world” rewards for people who check in. So instead of just rewarding the person who checks in the most with a gift or a digital badge, we allow any person who checks in to get real discounts and goods. We can reward hundreds and thousands of people, not just one person, and we utilize a variety of redemption methods for that reward (coupons, codes, emails, etc.).

We’re tightly integrating both Loopt and our newest app, Loopt Star, with Twitter and Facebook. Loopt Star, our rewards app that launched this summer, is built 100% on Facebook Connect. You don’t have to build a new friend network. All your Facebook friends are already there.

We’ve already gone on the record stating our plan to integrate more deeply into the Facebook Places data set. Having a huge amount of geo-social data available to us to provide interesting insights to our users is a huge opportunity and offers us a chance to add value and innovate in areas that Facebook encourages on top of its social graph and data set.

Twitter and Facebook have both launched their geolocation functionalities. How do you see face2face “interleaving” with the platforms of these established and (so far) non-competing social networking giants? Or maybe you don’t see that happening.

It’s all been really energizing. The promise of location services is predicated on an abundance of alluring geo-tagged data. The location party has a lot more room for attendees that can bring real, useful information. More data is better for all of us. Facebook and Twitter are both important social layers for the web and could bring a new level of ubiquity and data to location services.

We’re aggressively working with Facebook’s Places API to make our product stronger; our most recent product, Loopt Star, was 100% built on Facebook Connect. We’ve long seen the potential in bringing location to a greater community, and we respect the lifeblood both Facebook and Twitter will be able to pump into the location services space. Loopt can offer a lot to these social-media giants — we were the first in the location space, and have been diligent about staying ahead of the curve and paying very close attention to users’ privacy at every turn.

The data Facebook will bring to us is a huge opportunity, giving us a chance to add value and innovate on top of Facebook’s social graph and data set.

This is a space that never stops changing. We’re still learning, and Facebook and Twitter will have much to learn as well. Our goal moving foward is to have the absolute best geo-based mobile application experience feeding into Facebook or Twitter.

Do you have a good crystal ball that shows what advances in geolocation and location-based applications will offer users as new benefits, features and ways of participating in their social networks?

I have something better than a crystal ball. I’ve got a very shiny screen on my smartphone showing a clear picture of still-unlocked potential. Naturally, the increasing number of smartphones, smarter GPS chip sets, and faster and better networks will all help geo-location services. You’ll simply be able to do more on the move. Everyday, more people completely rely on their smartphone as their computer; we’ll be able to offer them services targeted to where they and their friends are, right now in the world.

In a not-so-distant future, there are going to be incredible new ways of monetizing a user’s presence, beyond just hyper-targeted, local banner ads. With advances in location technologies, people will be able to learn about what’s going on by querying the geo-social content layer that overlays their person’s physical location. The utility of these apps are going to become much more relevant.

The opportunity in the location space is huge, and now is the time to decide what the future looks like. Loopt will most certainly be a major contributor to that picture we see in our location-services crystal ball.

Be sure to read the responses to these questions given to Social Times by Whrrl’s Jeff Holden and face2face’s Hameed Khan.

Samsung, one of the premiere makers of LCD, LED and Plasma televisions, is reportedly pondering whether to build televisions that use the Google Android operating system.  This is the Google dream, to get their Android operating system to become a spinal cord for web connected televisions around the world, and was part of their recent announcement of Google TV.  The problem is that there isn’t a whole lot of detail on exactly how some elements of the new service will work.  Some of the features seem to require typing, and unless Samsung is shipping LCD TVs with a wireless keyboard, it’ll probably end up awkward and unused.  We take a look at the possibilities after the jump.

The connected home theatre is a dream for many technovideoaudiophiles around the world, and seamlessly switching from web to TV while sitting on your couch in front of the biggest screen in the house has obvious appeal for a mass audience as well.  This is why this year, TV manufacturers have kind of ditched the “3D with glasses” thing and are all about web access, app stores and other connected features that enhance the viewing process.

For that reason, we recently oohed and aahed over Samsung’s demonstration of their own in house BADA platform running on some LCD TVs at Casual Connect.  But that wasn’t Android, that was Samsung’s own platform.  Why are they considering using an external OS while simultaneously developing their own?  I’d bet Google is aggressively pursuing Samsung, and asking them to use the operating system in order to get a jump start on a market that will eventually all be using Google TV (if Google has its way).  So Samsung is sitting there wondering whether their small Bada Platform team can create a platform robust enough to go against their competitors Operating Systems, or whether they should go with Android, developed by the super brains at Google, and perhaps blow the other competitors out of the water.

The problem is, Android is still unproven on a TV, so there is likely a lot of prototyping and demoing going on behind closed doors between the two companies to see if they can fit together.  Being a long time product manager for several companies, including RIM, Electronic Arts, Epson and more, I can tell you that at the end of the day, it’s near impossible to get one hardware manufacturer to use another group’s operating system, so I’m skeptical of this deal going all the way through.  We’ll see, though.

Video portals like YouTube and Hulu seem to get all the attention but live streaming sites like Justin.tv, Livestream and USTREAM are on the rise as well.  According to comScore, over the past year, live video streaming sites have seen a huge 648% growth among American audiences, while YouTube and Hulu have grown only 68% and 75%, respectively. Live video streaming is newer on the online video scene than traditional video click and play platforms, and for many years there was little in the way of innovation in user experience.  However, comScore points out that, “Now more than ever, live online video sites are willing to build out their technology infrastructure to provide a better user experience.”  Justin.tv, as an example, recently released mobile application for iOS and Android devices, giving users the opportunity to stream live video from mobile devices.  This, along with the fact that more and more content providers are discovering the possibilities of streaming live conferences, conventions, award shows, sporting events and more, are likely culprits for the massive growth of live video online.

comScore also points out that, in addition to a growing audience, live streaming video sites are also able to keep audiences tuned in for longer periods of time than traditional video sites.  They provide data that says an average live video stream is viewed 7% longer than an average online video.  This could be because the average live stream video viewer is tuning in because they know for a fact that this is content they actually want to watch (i.e. a sporting event, speech or conference).  With traditional online video, many viewers click to see what a video is, get bored and stop watching within minutes.

Though live video streaming sites still don’t compare to video giants like YouTube in terms of viewers, they are still showing tremendous growth.  According to comScore, USTREAM received more than 3.2 unique viewers in July, Justin.tv had 2.6 million unique viewers and Livestream had 2.4 million unique viewers.  Livestream served a total of 160 million live videos, Justin.tv served 130 million and USTREAM served 20 million.  You may be thinking to yourself, “USTREAM serves over 100 million less videos than the other sites, what’s up with that?”  Well these videos were viewed for an average of eight minutes longer than those on Justin.tv and 17 minutes longer than those on Livestream.

Have you watched any live video streams online in the past few months?  What was your experience like, and do you see the potential for increased live streaming popularity in the future?

Allen Bonde is co-founder and CMO of Offerpop, a new social marketing apps company, and Managing Director of Evoke CRM, his consultancy. His passion for online marketing and e-commerce started at McKinsey and Yankee Group way back in 1996. Join his conversation on Twitter on @abonde.

It’s clear that there are a lot of moving parts and stages in moving from “hey that’s cool” social media to “wow look at all those orders” social commerce. In fact last time I presented some thoughts on how to take a programmatic approach using a maturity model framework to assess where you are and take practical steps to evolve your various social marketing programs. But as I’ve been socializing this approach, looking at what’s been happening in the marketplace, and thinking about what we are learning from the promotions our customers are running, a couple questions keep coming to mind.

First: What types of products are best suited for this approach? And if we see a successful social campaign for selling eBooks or music, what does that say (or not) about promoting and selling other things on social channels.

Second: What’s the core, emotional driver that makes viral campaigns go viral, and social commerce turn discussions and sharing into deals and orders.

I was reading a great piece by Om Malik on Apple’s thinking behind Ping and how relationships are formed around music or movies we love. And how social discovery feeds purchases, which feed discussions, and so on. This addresses some of the second question. But what if you’re not selling music downloads or you don’t have the reach of Apple or Amazon or Groupon?

In addition to thinking of items that have a lot of options/wide selection (and are generally small-ticket purchases), the key is picking products that involve a shared experience. And then structuring social campaigns that make it easy to participate and actually share that experience. It’s also critical to shorten the path between the engagement part and the conversion part, perhaps by using some of the tactics and capabilities in our maturity model. And finally, a great thing about online commerce and social media is that you can experiment with different offers and creative and get real-time feedback.

So, what are some of the products (beyond music and movies) that seem to fit social commerce the best? Here’s a starter list and some early/related examples:

Books and eBooks — Amazon is certainly one of the merchants that should be leading the way in social commerce, especially as an early innovator in recommendations. But arguably upstarts like Kobo (a customer) and campaigns such as its “tweet about your favorite books” giveaway, which attracted almost 4,000 entries and reached half a million users on Twitter, are even better examples.

Travel — Delta recently opened its Delta Ticket Window on Facebook which allows you to book and share your travel plans with friends, and I expect others to follow. For a community play, TripAdvisor could be the model with its huge volume of user-generated content and slick ratings systems, especially as the gaps between content, community and commerce continue to close.

Fashion — We all know about the The Gap campaign with Groupon, and everyone by now knows about Zappos (anyone else tired of hearing their story at this point?). But other brands are tapping Facebook and Twitter as well. In April Levi’s opened its Friends Store which makes liberal use of the Like button to track style preferences. On Twitter, we are seeing similar potential, but more for private sales and contests (similar to Kobo example). We hope to share results from initial campaigns shortly.

Consumer Tech — As of last December Dell has said it’s promotions on Twitter had generated more than $6.5 million in sales. While in the brick-and-mortar world, RadioShack has been testing a social rewards program with foursquare that gives 10-20% discounts when you check in at a RadioShack location.

Food — OpenTable’s Spotlight is a Groupon clone that has potential, and Yelp, the standard in reviews related to local purchases, is testing one-day coupons, but some of the more interesting programs may be ongoing social campaigns by national or regional chains. For example Red Mango in Boston tested viral coupon offers with our platform that were effective at driving significant traffic and attracting new followers, without the high overhead or one-time nature of a Groupon-type approach.

What’s your experience with these types of offers and promotions? Clearly many of the brands I’ve mentioned have passionate, online-savvy customers. But with the power of influencers and word-of-mouth, even businesses with a modest social media presence can create winning campaigns and enable social commerce if they provide a fun, easy way for customers to tell their stories, share their experiences, and purchase while the conversation is still fresh.

Back in June we released a goofy video of dogs dancing to Justin Bieber as part of a project we called ‘Will It Stick.’  We threw a bunch of elements together that people seem to love—Justin Bieber, cute dogs, dancing dogs—and waited to see if it would go viral.  The video received just over 3,000 views in the first three months, which can hardly be called “viral”, but suddenly, at the beginning of this month we saw a massive spike in viewership and the video now has just over 6,500 views.  Surprisingly enough, we’ve got another viral video to thank for this growth—the Dancing Merengue Dog!

A few days ago my brother and founder of Social Times, Nick O’Neill, sent me a message on Skype that said, “Do you know your Justin Bieber video has over 4,600 views?”  This surprised me, as I had checked the video just a couple of days before and it was still stuck around the 3,000 mark.  We both assumed that the reason for the views was, of course, because YouTubers love Justin Bieber.  But when I went to my video page to check out the statistics I saw a surprising new development—the analytics told me that on August 29 the video had it’s “First referral from related video – Dancing Merengue Dog.”  When I went to the Dancing Merengue Dog video on YouTube I saw that, sure enough, our video was showing up under the “Suggestions” on the side bar.

In the last three days, since Nick and I discovered the spike in traffic to our ‘Bieber Fever! Dogs Love Justin Bieber’ clip we have received a whopping 2,000 views, in addition to the initial 1,000 plus that we received before we knew that it was being shared as a suggested video on the Dancing Merengue Dog clip.  According to the view analytics, we have received 1,983 views so far from YouTubers referred directly to our clip from the Dancing Merengue Dog viral.  I would chock up the other views to viewers who decided to share the clip with friends after discovering it.

I can’t say for sure how YouTube decides which videos will be listed in the “Suggestions” lists for particular videos.  However, I assume that a lot of it has to do with video tags and descriptions.  The only tags that our video shares with the Dancing Merengue Dog are the words “dog” and “dancing”, and in our description we credit a video that we used in our clip called ‘Merengue Dancing Dogs’, which also appears in the Suggestions sidebar.

What can be gleaned from this experience is that creators uploading videos to YouTube should never underestimate the power of tags and descriptions.  Of course, it’s sheer luck of the draw that our video happened to share important keywords with a video that went viral with over 3 million views, but if you don’t put enough thought into your titles, keywords and descriptions you could miss out on having a similar experience to ours.

I have to admit that I was rather bummed out that our ‘Will It Stick’ viral video attempt only got 3,000 views in the first three months, but our experience with the Dancing Merengue Dog has been inspirational to me.  Even if our video doesn’t get thousands more views or become the next viral hit, each video that we upload gives us more experience in the viral video world.  In the coming months, we hope to experiment more with YouTube to find out how you can maximize your success through titling and tagging, experimenting with different video lengths and more and can’t wait to share our findings with you!

Have you experienced any spikes in viewership on YouTube because of other people’s video successes?  Do you have any suggestions, or tricks of the trade to increase your YouTube views?  Feel free to share them in the comments!

Members of the UN will be meeting in New York during the week of September 20th to discuss the Millennium Development Goals and attend the annual General Assembly, and running alongside these high profile events will be the Social Good Summit – a first of its kind meeting between some of the most recognizable names in social media to discuss how social media can positively influence global challenges. The event will contrast with the official invitation-only UN events of the week in that it is open to the public, a move which mirrors the ethos behind social media itself. Below the jump, a look at participating speakers, the organizers, and the goals of the Social Good Summit. In attendance at the Social Good Summit are a whole host of social media stars. Here’s the official list of confirmed speakers:

• Chris Hughes – Co-founder of Facebook and founder of Jumo. Also directed online organizing for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign
• Howard W. Buffett – Policy Advisor in the Executive Office of the President of the United States
• Jessica Jackley – Co-founder of Kiva
• Judy McGrath – CEO of MTV Networks
• Pete Cashmore – CEO and founder of Mashable
• Ray Chambers – UN Special Envoy for Malaria and founder of Malaria No More
• Susan Smith Ellis – CEO of (RED)
• Ted Turner – CHairman of Turner Enterprises, Inc.

These speakers will be discussing their area of expertise within social media, incorporating this with macroscopic discussions of how social media can address the challenges that the world faces.

Organizers of this event include Mashable, 92nd Street Y, and the United Nations Foundation. The event will be live-streamed by media partner CNN.com, and several of the speakers will phone in via Skype video calls.

In addition to this Summit, which is scheduled for September 20th, the United Nations Foundation is sponsoring the Digital Media Lounge from September 21st to 24th. The Digital Media Lounge gives the online community unprecedented access to UN officials and leaders through Skype and in-person interviews, as well as Livestream.com video footage of parts of the event.

2010 is an auspicious year for the Social Good Summit, as it will run parallel to official UN talks concerning the Millennium Development Goals. These goals were set by world leaders at a UN meeting in 2000, and they concern global issues such as women’s rights, healthcare, reducing poverty and promoting universal primary education. Ten years after these goals were adopted in 2000, many of them have yet to be reached – making the possibility that social media can positively impact such important global issues extremely salient.

Over the last year, YouTube has been sitting down for interviews with some of the world’s biggest celebrities, giving viewers the opportunity to ask them questions.  Previous interviewees have included President Obama, Katy Perry, and Shakira, but none of these have been as cute and lovable as the next star YouTube is set to interview—Elmo! If you have something you’d like to ask Elmo, just submit your question to the Sesame Street YouTube Channel.  If you don’t have a question of your own, you can click on “View Questions” from the Sesame Street channel’s home page and you can see what other people are asking Elmo.  Click “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” to vote a question up or down.  The questions that get the most thumbs ups are the questions that YouTube will ask Elmo in their interview on September 15.

So far, the top questions include, “What is it like to be a furry red monster?” and “What makes you laugh? What do you find funny?”  What would you like to ask Elmo?

How many hours can you spend watching cute dog photos and videos?  Probably more than you think. Dogasaur.com, a new website all about dogs, has become a social network of sorts for dog lovers where users can create profiles for their dogs, make friends for themselves and their dogs, chat and email, post photos, videos and also do more on their new Facebook page. The appeal of this social model for Dogasaur.com has been sensational since its Facebook page was launched about 2 months ago and already attracted over 200,000 likes.  Now inquiring minds want to know, so how did they do that?

I had a chance to ask questions to Dogasaur.com’s founder and CEO, Josh Abrams, and head of Business Development, Erlend Wilhelmsen, about the success and the social features of Dogasaur.com. When asked how they managed to reach so many Facebook users, Erland says ‘Without getting into too much detail, we can safely say that the traffic generation and getting past 200,000 likes was done through a mix of engagement ads pointing to the fan page itself within the Facebook network and organic growth through seeding. When you get past 10,000 fans, you can experience a snowball effect with the right play and the right content.”

So, with this answer not disclosing too much information, Wilhelmsen makes a point that once pages get fairly popular on Facebook, a viral effect can naturally occur.  Not to mention that dog related topics are a widespread popular interest and people are drawn to the page through a shared love for dogs.  “At a deeper level, people are incredibly passionate about their own dogs. In this light, Dogasaur is perfect for social media. Besides your children, there is little in life you care about as much as your dog(s). If you look at the Facebook wall for Dogasaur, you’ll notice that a large percentage of posts are really people posting pics of their dog. Then people follow up with likes and comments if they fancy it.”

Abrams and Wilhelmsen anticipate the growth of Dogasaur’s page to rise with time. They expect growth to be around 100,000 more fans per month because social elements are really keeping users busy on the site and the word is spreading fast. The Facebook page has been a clear success and this may have worked so well because Dogasaur did their homework before the launch. Erland stated that “We’ve spent over a year tweaking the product and observed user feedback. We tested various content styles while figuring out what worked and what didn’t before we started implementing a strategy and road map for our Facebook extension.”

Dogasaur is a place to learn facts about dogs, participate in a community and be entertained by funny pics and videos. Do you think you’ll join this site to see what other dogs are doing or share your adorable dog with the world?

Huggies recently released their interesting new High Chair Critics social marketing campaign by leveraging the Tumblr microblogging service, and if their front page is anything, it’s a lesson that big brands should pay close attention to who’s running their social media campaign.  The first entry on the page is a reference to “the most famous babies of all time”, but for some reason, instead of showing a picture of a cute baby model, it’s a missing person poster of Chas. A. Lindbergh, Jr,, who was kidnapped in 1932.  Read on for more ways to avoid messing up your social media campaign.

The key problem here is that the posts on the site seem very scrapped together, and it’s clear that one of the various anonymous writers didn’t do the extra work to ensure that the included image was in sync with the Huggies brand.

The fact that this project is likely done by a contracted company underscores the pitfalls of social media campaigns: big brands usually want to have complete control over their messaging, and these external contractors may veer off track.  This is a double-edged sword though, because sometimes that can generate all kinds of viral appeal that the company didn’t expect, as was the case with the Old Spice Guy social media extravaganza.

We’ll get in touch with the site creators and figure out how this happened, and what their official word is on the story.  Check out the site here.

If you have watched YouTube videos on a regular basis for any amount of time then you have probably noticed an increase in advertising on the site—whether it be in the form of branded channels, video pre-roll ads, layovers, banner ads or advertisements of other varieties.  The New York Times confirmed this increase in a recent article, which stated that YouTube video ad views are up 50 percent, with two billion views per week. A big part of this growth can be attributed to content copyright owners, such as major motion picture studios, television networks and record labels.  Not long ago, these copyright owners would immediately request that YouTube take down videos using footage from their films or television shows, or using music from their labels.  Today, copyright owners are realizing that by leaving clips up they can beef up their own profits by allowing YouTube to run ads with the videos and split the revenue gleaned from these ads.

As an example, the New York Times refers to a video clip of the popular television series “Mad Men”, which was uploaded to YouTube by user TomR35.  Lions Gate, owners of the rights to “Mad Men” opted to leave the clip up, rather than have YouTube take it down, and to allow YouTube to run ads on the video.  YouTube splits the revenue with Lions Gate.

According to Claire Cain Miller of the New York Times, “More than one-third of the two billion views of YouTube videos with ads each week are like TomR35’s ‘Mad Men’ clip—uploaded without the copyright owner’s permission but left up by the owner’s choice.”  It wasn’t always like this, as YouTube’s lawyers spent years in negotiations over copyright violations.  But more and more, content copyright holders are discovering the potential of placing ads on videos uploaded with their content, rather than taking the videos down altogether.

While these 200 billion weekly ad views on YouTube only account for 14 percent of the site’s total views, it is should still be enough to make YouTube profitable by years end.  Miller writes in her article that, according to analysts, YouTube should bring in about $450 million in revenue, and will only continue to grow in future years, as revenue has more than doubled every year for the past three years.

What do you think about this trend towards YouTube advertising for copyright owners?  Do you think there are too many ads on YouTube?