What Are You Doing?

With all of the hype surrounding Twitter, I just had to write about it. For those of you unaware of Twitter, it is a minute by minute, second by second updater that you can post to via SMS or the web. It's popularity really grew after the SxSW film festival about a month and a half ago, and its been growing ever since. There have been some Twitter clones out there, like a Facebook or Bebo, however Twitter seems to have rapidly become its own verb in a very short amount of time.

The sign that Twitter has made it to the big time is the new Barack Obama account that is a featured Twitter member. While Barack is the most Web 2.0 ified of presidential candidates (he has his own social network, YouTube, MySpace, etc), something about Twitter is extremely compelling. Unlike Facebook's automatic updates, Twitter allows you to write about something when you WANT to write about it and be able to broadcast this to the world (or your subscribers).

So you're probably thinking "Why would I want to know what you are doing at all times?" From a personal perspective, you probably wouldn't. (You definitely wouldn't.) However, from a brand perspective and perhaps even from an IR perspective (although this is very far from happening), you might be interested in knowing what is going on and a daily updated blog is simply not enough. Diehard Apple fanatics would be able to know Steve Jobs every thought at any time of the day. Fans of 24 would get to know what "Jack Bauer" was thinking every second of his day. And supporters, or potential on-the-fencers would be able to know what Barack Obama's viewpoints were...every second of every day. Sounds almost too good to be true, and it is, but the point that I want to make here is that as more and more tools come out that are being adopted by mainstream (right now it is the blog), consumers will be demanding more and more usage of it, which means allocating more resources to updating your Twitter / blog /MySpace profile / YouTube channel

Google Rules the World

So in addition to their purchase of Doubleclick and their announcement of the Clear Channel Radio ads roll out, coupled with Google TV and their purchase of YouTube last year, Google seems to be the major force in the new world of targeted advertising. Google's database is going to stretch across all media which will truly be either a scary thing or an extremely good thing.

With Doubleclick, Google now has a presence in serving up banner ads and other display media. Coupled with their AdWords product, Google hopes to serve up relevant ads not just in text but also via banners. Overall Google is hoping that you have one crossover Google account. You can be hit with advertisements for your favorite foods and mainstream brands on TV, your favorite restaurants while on the road via Radio, and anything else they've missed via the Internet. One area where Google is lacking (although I'm sure they can find a small fledging company in this space that would LOVE to get bought by them) is mobile. Could Google be going the way of Apple and their iPhone product? Mobile is the hot new area of growth especially in the advertising front. Mobile gaming has grown in triple digits, nearly everyone has a cell phone (80%), web access is coming up on 50% and so on. While Google has their text messaging feature, it will be a matter of time before Google offers you free service, but only if you listen to an ad or if someone interjects during your conversation about different goods and services from some type of voice recognition pattern. Scary huh?

One last point. With this inevitable big brotherliness about Google, why does everyone still cower down on Microsoft? Why is Microsoft evil while Google is always the good guy? It's clearly not David and Goliath anymore but rather a battle of two near equals. I think it comes down to the fact that Google doesn't charge YOU the end consumer and for the people that they do charge, they have guaranteed results. Google is open source everything, opening up their API's, and integrating their revenue source into it. Microsoft meanwhile is more old economy by selling IP and closing off the rest of the world to their monopoly. Lesson here? Be open, be liked, and also take over the world while you're at it.

Mobile and Gaming Lagging Search and E-mail

A recent Forrester research report as reported by Adage notes that interactive budgets are skewed toward measurable means like email marketing and search marketing. The report notes that mobile and gaming are falling behind while social media advertising has risen 40%. Mobile is claimed to fall behind because of the lack of any proof of performance and gaming is skewed to younger sophisticated crowds.

It's so strange that the study notes that mobile is having a tough time growing roots. All around us are examples of successful mobile campaigns. Text messaging your favorite Idol in, guessing which briefcase has all of the Deal or No Deal money, and so on. The key with mobile is point of purchase. The phone is with you at ALL times, more so than even your wallet and/or keys. (And if you forget your wallet you can PAY with your phone via PayPal Mobile). So there it is marketers, your examples of successful campaigns. Then comes the second argument of cost. Well the great thing is that you don't need a graphic designer, a brand name director, or recognizable faces. It's TEXT! It's simple, it's cheap, it's 160 characters including spaces. Once you've decided what your campaign is, whether its polling, driving to web, or simple message push, you just need to rent space on a short code and there you have it - your own text messaging campaign.

Sure, you're going to need to promote it. After all how are people going to find out about your keyword and short code, but if you have a consumer facing brand you have tons of real estate to do so. I think that all marketers should be in the mobile space because its cheap, easy, and quick to roll out. You'll be able to collect the king of all data points, the cell phone number, the most sacred closely kept piece of information guarded by all consumers. (Maybe second to your credit card number, but definitely ahead of your social since you can find that online already).