Last year I hinted around in a few blog post that I was done speaking at tech conferences for a few reasons. One being my first child was being born in January. Two, felling a little burnt out having speaking over 60 times in the last 4 years. Three, I wanted to focus more on doing what I love pre-twitter (2006) and before the web went social media crazy and that was entrepreneurship and launching my own startup. Four, being a little tired of the lack of diversity in web/tech/social, etc. Fast forward to today I’ve done most of that by only participating at SXSW 2011 and being on a panel at the Black Enterprise Entrepreneurs Conference & Expo, along with co-launching the NewMe Accelerator in Silicon Valley.

Currently I’m planning a few projects and also working on my next trick. Then two amazing opportunities just opened up for me last week. One was being asked to be on a panel at the Congressional Black Caucus Conference about Social Media & Entrepreneurship. The panel takes place Friday, September 23, 2011, 1:30-3:30pm. You can follow the conference hashtag at 41stALC for updates. We’ll announce a panel hashtag soon too. Other panelist will include the following:
Chris Genteel, Google
Susan Gonzales, Facebook
Patricia Cesaire, Black Enterprise
BMaynard Scaborough, One Economy Corporation
Hajj Flemings, Gokit, BrandCamp University

If you’re attending the panel feel free to add yourself to the plancast event here: http://plancast.com/p/7loh/panel-social-media-entrepreneurship-using-technology-build-successful-business

The second opportunity is O’Reilly Web 2.0 conference in New York. My session topic is “Prepare for the 2012 Social Media Landscape and will be on Thursday, October 13, 3:15. Yep, social media. Web 2.0 is one of the conferences you want to say you have spoken at that’s on your bucket list. I’m excited, nervous and focused to delver value in this session. So if the world doesn’t end in 2012 you’ll at least know how to use social media. If you’re planning to attend Web 2.0 NY register today with discount code webny11alx107 to save an extra 20%. The code expires September 22.

I just want to say thank you to my readers, followers, friends, supporters, heck everyone who really cares. Without your support and encouragement a lot of the opportunites that I’ve had would never happened. Keep being awesome and although my inbox(email & voice) stays full and it’s hard to get back with everyone, feel free to call or email or leave a comment if you need anything.

Have a successful future.

1ST Annual Blacks in Technology Entrepreneurship Week, Durham NC

November 6 – 13, 2011 Durham, NC – The 1st Annual Blacks in Technology Entrepreneurship Week holds promise like no other. The theme for this year’s event is “Changing the Face of Technology” and focus’ on NC natives and residents who are indeed changing the face and landscape of technology entrepreneurship. Katrina M Harrell in connection with 100 Urban Entrepreneurs of NC will honor six extraordinary minority innovators in technology and entrepreneurship:

• Wayne Sutton and Angela Benton co-founders of NewMe Accelerator,
• Tiffani Bell founder of Pencilyou.in and part of NewMe Accelerator project who are each subjects of CNN: “Black in America 4”;
• Stephanie Harris and Roderick Frizzelle cofounders of ibuzzn.com, and
• LaShanda Henry, founder of Black Business Women Online.

This year’s kick-off event on Sunday, November 6, 2011 will be held at the spectacular and historic Bay 7 in the American Tobacco District, Durham NC, as a networking and celebration event not only celebrating the accomplishments of the honorees but also providing unsurpassed networking opportunity among Top entrepreneurs throughout the state. Networking begins at 6:00pm with the honoree event & program beginning promptly at 6:30pm. November 13, 2011 viewing party of the CNN show to be announced.

An array of sponsorship and vendor opportunities is also available. Any questions regarding sponsorship should be directed to the contact information below. The event founder seeks a goal to raise $10,000 to help fund an Entrepreneurship program at a Historically Black College or University within the state of North Carolina.

Registration for the event can be completed online by visiting 
BLACKSINTECHNOLOGYENTREPRENEURSHIPWEEK.YOLASITE.COM or by contacting Katrina Harrell at 919-438-BITE (2483) or via email: katrina.harrell@100ue.org.

About 100 Urban Entrepreneurs – 100 Urban Entrepreneurs is a nonprofit foundation dedicated to helping provide a long-term economic boost to urban communities throughout the United States by supporting entrepreneurship at its earliest stages. 100 Urban Entrepreneurs seeks to identify, fund and mentor 100 of the most promising young businesspeople from economically disadvantaged communities who might otherwise lack access to startup capital and a professional network. Our goal is to provide the tools to help talented young dreamers create viable, profitable companies and create jobs within urban America. For more information, visitwww.100UrbanEntrepreneurs.org.

About Katrina M Harrell – North Carolina resident and Businessperson,Katrina is the founding CEO of Your Simple Bookkeeper, Inc. which was the recipient of 100 Urban Entrepreneur funding grant in 2010. As founder of BITE week, Katrina Harrell is an advocate for entrepreneurship as a wealth builder for people of color and women. Ms. Harrell is also the President of the KM Harrell Group, LLC a strategic business development & consulting firm offering business strategy solutions to create profitable business models. She has been featured in blackenterprise.com, Top 200 Leading Moms in business by Start-upNation.com and a host of other media outlets. For more information, visit www.katrinamharrell.com.

Event Title Sponsors: American Tobacco District, Your Simple Bookkeeper, Inc., ibuzzn.com, Opulent Suites Media & PR, Selections entertainment.

Last month, Black Web 2.o CEO and founder, Angela Benton announced the launch of the NewME Accelerator. The “first-ever technology accelerator for minority-led startups,” the NewME Accelerator will help a select number of startups take their budding businesses to the next level. Taking place over a nine-week period (June 16 – August 18), startup founders will travel to the heart of Silicon Valley to learn from some of technology’s top industry leaders.

In addition to five pre-selected startups, (goKit, kloud.co, Pencil You In, Cued, TriOut ) and a group of  locally selected startups (Central.ly, Mosion, AisleFinder, and Qykno), and a stealth startup, there were three additional spots open. With an opportunity this big being offered, the selection process wasn’t taken lightly.  In addition to concept, quality of pitch, and the problem the product solves were also taken into consideration.

The winners of the NewME Accelerator application process are:

• BeCouply – An exclusive mobile/web app and network for power couples.
  http://becouply.com
  

• Playd – A mobile app that allows you to check into, rate, share, and discuss the games you love with your friends and other gamers worldwide.
  http://playd.it
  

• FetchMob –  Offers a way for people to buy what they need without shopping for it.
  http://fetchmob.com 

  

During the program, startup founders will have speakers and one-on-one mentorship opportunities with reps from successful startup reps including Zynga, Facebook, Twitter, Tagged, and Foursquare. At the end of the program, NewME participants will have the opportunity to pitch their products to investors and other members of the startup community.

“The NewME Accelerator is not just about the participating startups, but about providing a path for future minority-led start-ups to be encouraged to launch successful companies. We want to be an example to show that no matter your race or gender innovation can happen in the web/tech space. I’m beyond excited about this summer and am grateful to have the support from many industry peers,” said Sutton.

News of the accelerator has been spreading like wildfire around the web with tech influentials like Stanley “M.C. Hammer” Burrell showing his support. Benton and Sutton are pleased at the positive response.

“The amount of support and interest from the Silicon Valley community in the NewME Accelerator is overwhelming,” says Benton, “and serves as a testament to not only the need for a program like this, but also to the receptiveness of a program like this.  We are more than excited about this summer and the companies and individuals who’ve agreed to be involved.”

For more information about the NewME Accelerator and its first class, please click here.

This is just cool. Google I/O starts tomorrow and Google created an awesome countdown clock, along with the Android logo holding a QR Code sign that will take you to the Google I/O Android App or app site page.

To capture the awesomeness I recorded a screencast of the Google I/O page.

Scanning the QR Code with an iPhone took you to the Google I/O Android app page

Scanning the QR Code with an Android App took you to the app’s page in the Android App market.

Via Google I/O 2011. Tip> HackerNews

Wish I going to Google I/O … maybe next year! Are you?

It seems like just yesterday we closed out the first NewME Conference, #goodTimes.  While small, we got a lot of good information and data on what is needed to make technology focused start-ups successful.  And by successful we mean either operating in the black or experiencing a liquidity event.  Entrepreneurs, private equity, business leaders, and key members of government all came together last May and what we came up with was no surprise but confirmed theories we each had individually.

Several things stuck out that day but the key takeaways were minority-led tech entrepreneurs needed:

1.  Mentorship from people who have led or been involved in the day-to-day of successful start-ups.

2. Access to early stage capital (especially since minorities often don’t raise formal friend and family rounds)

As the year trickled on and I got the opportunity to speak with many more Founders informally and even from talks I gave at places like Google.  The lifecycle of what I think needs to occur developed.  Without successful exits from minority-led start-ups we forgo creating new angle investors, venture capitalist, mentors, role models, and more start-ups.  And the importance of producing these start-ups goes above and beyond just being good for the economy.  It also helps students (pre-k through college) see the opportunity that can exist for them.  We’ll slowly but surely start to change the way students think and start getting them to major in Computer Science instead of an entertainment or sports related fields.  The panel I spoke on a week or so ago at Howard University hit this home even more for me.  The panel was about small business but I was excited and proud to see students stand-up to ask questions of the panelist with the goal of starting a business in the digital space.  Below is a slide that I think will help illustrate the lifecycle that I think is needed.  Like all things I’m sure this will change and refine as we all gather more information and experience new lessons.

With all that said I’m super excited to announce that we’ll be launching the NewME Accelerator this summer in Silicon Valley with Semantic Seed and Wayne Sutton.  Seven Founders will be based in Mountain View from June through August and will participate in weekly private dinners with Angle Investors, Venture Capitalist, Entrepreneurs, and other heavyweights.  They’ll also have access to an insanely impressive list of people who have graciously donated their time and agreed to participate as mentors.  The speakers and mentors have an unspeakable amount of experience and come from companies like Twitter, Path, Foursquare, TechStars, SoftTechVC, and a lot of others, you can check the full list out on the site there.

The Founders will have the option of working from Mountain View where we’ll be based or working from Citizen Space in the ever so popular SoMA area of San Fran.  Last but not least the summer will close with a Demo Day where the start-ups involved can pitch the product they’ve been working on to potential investors and others from the start-up community.  We’ll also be including local minority led-start-ups in the Bay Area in the festivities; they just won’t be staying in the house.

While we are an accelerator the start-ups that are involved aren’t receiving any kind of investment from us.  They also aren’t guaranteed an investment from their Pitch at the Demo Day.  This is pure, unadulterated, balls to the wall, entrepreneurship.  And the entrepreneurs who are involved are doing what entrepreneurs do best.  Taking a risk.

If you’re a risk taker then we have 2 slots left and you can pitch your start-up on the NewME Accelerator site.  The deadline for submissions is April 29th and we’ll announce the lucky two shortly after.

There is only one word that will describe this summer.  EPIC.

Provided by FutureSimple.com

Does your conference strategy look like the one above?

If you’re downtown Raleigh tomorrow join us for chatterbox Wednesdays at Designbox 12:00 P.M. With guest speaker BJ Emerson of Tasti D-lite. BJ is the Social Technology Officer for Tasti D-lite. Earlier this year Tasti D-lite received a lot of media attention by launching the first Social Media-Integrated Point of Sale (POS) Loyalty Application that implements Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare with are loyalty cards. Recently Tasti D-lite was mentioned on Mashable by installing iPads and using QR Codes in their stores.

BJ brings a strong blend of technical and creative abilities as VP of Technology for Tasti D-Lite. His experience in the early and effective implementation of social technologies within a franchise system has earned him recognition as a pioneer and leader. Featured in Twitter’s Business 101 Case Studies, BJ has spearheaded the integration of the Tasti D-Lite brand experience with online communities by engaging customers and working with franchisees to expand the brand through social media.
In 2010, BJ led the deployment of the first ever POS loyalty program to feature an integration with social sites Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare. His passion for empowering others with technology can be seen through the award winning and innovative solutions he manages.

We’re excited to hear BJ speak and looking forward to learning more about the future of Social Point of Sales systems and the Tasti D-Lite story.

Designbox is located at 323 West Martin Street, Raleigh, NC.
http://Designbox.US on twitter as @DBRaleigh
RSVP is not requred but if you’re attending feel free to add it to your plancast: http://plancast.com/p/3alg.

Today I start one of the most interesting trips in my life and career as a speaker. I’m currently in Boston, MA for FutureM week where I’ll be speaking on a location panel at GeoM and Inbound Marketing Summit. Tuesday, I’m hosting a live #GEOchat show from SCVNGR HQ. Thursday I’m leaving Boston for Michigan to present at Brandcamp and closing out the week I’ll present in Miami, Fl for Blogalicious 2010. If you count it, that’s 7 days, 3 cities, 2 panels, 2 presentations & 1 live video show.

Earlier this year while planning my schedule I new this week was going to be crazy but now that it’s here I’m shaking my head and asking myself what was I thinking! Everything starts tomorrow and I’m stressed out like Vampire trying to get home before the sunrise. Before agreeing to the events I wasn’t managing the new coworking/incubator office at Designbox. Also I didn’t know how I would feelbleaving LaToya aka “thewife” home expecting as she’s now four months away from #babysutton being born. Regardless, no time for stress, as it’s time to deliver to conference attendees information about why everyone should care about location based services and the upcoming TriOut world edition.

flickr photo By: Stuck in Customs

The end of the road:
Today also starts the end of a two year journey for me. After speaking/presenting and taking part of various panels at meetups, conferences and workshops, the last 10 commitments I have from now to the end of November will be the end of the road for me. Since 2008 I have spoken over 60 times and although at love it, a few things have changed along the way. Somewhere it stopped being fun and more stressful for me. Along with the fact I never thought I was good at speaking anyway and if you would tell some of my elementary classmates that I was speaking at conferences they would laugh knowing that as child I was in speech class from 3rd grade to middle school. Taking some advice from Dennis Crowley, Co-founder at Foursquare, who once told me if he spoke at all the events he was asked to speak at you’ll never get anything done. Plus most of the time before speaking I’m always supper nervous. Add that to the now competitive industry of web/tech speaking, everyone is a speaker now. Also I feel like now is a good time to slow down with LaToya and I expecting our first child, working at Designbox and trying to take TriOut to the next level. Maybe I’ll work on that book I wanted to have done by middle of the year.

I did reach some personal goals in terms of speaking such as being a keynote speaker and speaking at SXSW and BlogWorld but I never did make it to Web 2.0 Expo. Since 2008 I’ve traveled more in my life than I have the previous 32 years. I won’t say that I’ll never, ever speak at a conference or meetup again because of two things. One, money talks and two we still have TriOut to run. Meaning if a conference is beneficial to TriOut, like Where 2.0 we would consider it. I do have a talk submitted for SXSW 2011 that I’m waiting to see if approved and that may be the last time but for now I have 10 events left to close out the year. So, tomorrow starts the beginning of the end at GeoM and it ends at the Internet Summit on November 18 in Raleigh, NC. Seems like a good way to go out being Raleigh is my home.

To everyone who gave me an opportunity speak and/or participate at your event thank you.

October 4-8, MITX presents Future M week in Boston. On October 4th, brands, marketers, technologists, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, students and business people and will gather in Cambridge at the Microsoft NERD to talk about the future of geo location and the future of geo marketing. Yes. This is a promotional post for an event that my company, Allen & Gerritsen is planning, but since you have read this far, I think you will find the content helpful in making a decision as to whether or not you should attend. For the record, I think you should, particularly if you are a B2C brand or working in the B2C space.

Making Money with Location

Everyone needs to be able to make money to be able to be a going-concern. In this panel, Jason Keath of Social Fresh leads a discussion that will look at revenue streams and service models that make sense. We’ll talk to two platforms that started with revenue models. David Chang will represent Where.com and Wayne Sutton will talk about Triout’s model. We also have Josh Karpf of mega-brand PepsiCo who can tell us about how applications like Pepsi Loot are important to their marketing and revenue stream. Jason Keath is not known for shyness, so I expect he will pose the tough questions and drive panelists toward talking about useful models and cases that drive business results.

Data and Loyalty

Why does it matter? Location is an important component in doing what every brand would like to do – provide a relevant message to its audience at a time when the receiver is ready to hear and act on the message. Everyone would like a reduction of noise and an increase in overall signal. The future of marketing is not casting a wide net, rather brands conitinue to hone their communications and become trusted companions that better the lives of those who need them. In order for this to happen the way we all would like it to happen, brands need access to data and they need to be willing to give something in return to receive.

In the panel entitled “Data and Loyalty”, Melissa Parrish of Forrester leads a discussion with 2 of the industry’s top thought leaders on LBS, Aaron Strout of Powered Inc and Simon Salt of Incslingers. They have not only been vocal about the space, but built solutions that incorporate their thinking. With the focus of this panel being data, we are elated to have the founder of SimpleGeo, Matt Galligan coming out to talk about how their database / backbone aligns the ecosystem by eliminating the disparity across platforms thereby making near limitless applications possibilities – possible.

The Future of Geo

The day culminates in a visit from 3 of the top LBS platforms on the market. In the last panel we will talk to three heads of LBS technology shops and give them the opportunity not only to talk about their current plans for word domination, but about how they see the industry evolving. Jeff Holden of Whrrl, Seth Priebatsch of SCVNGR and Dennis Crowley of Foursquare, three very different location based platforms, will be asked to talk about why location is important today and what it means in the grand scheme and how it becomes increasingly useful for everyone. The end game needs to be a win for brands, consumers and for platforms and currently the fog-of-new is still very prevalent. Each company has a story to tell about engagement with the consumer, rewards, loyalty and relevant content.

This conversation will be 90 minutes so there will be plenty of time to get deep on the topic and to get the crowd involved. I’ll be moderating and as I prepare, would love to get your thoughts on some of the things you would like to hear about from these 3 gurus. Just leave a comment.

How Much?

$130 per person. Beam Interactive thinker and disruptor, Graham Nelson tweeted about the charge and I think this is the proper forum to address the question. We want to be able to provide snacks and libation to our audience and record the event while covering some of our costs. As you well know, it takes a lot of time and effort to plan an event of this size (and it’s nothing compared to the entire Future M event, kudos to MITX!). The point of this session is to provide an atmosphere to push the conversation to the next level. As one of the missions of Future M, the parent conference, is to promote innovation in Boston, we are currently talking to MIT about donating any profits to an innovation scholarship.

Where’s Gowalla?

Because some of you have asked: Where’s Gowalla? Brightkite and Gowalla both expressed regret for being unable to attend. Facebook is still a non-responder.

See You There!

Come out for a day of discussion filled with a balance of best practices, ideas, innovation and though leadership.

To register, go to the official Geo M site and click register.



Early registration for the Location-Based Marketing Summit ends this Friday.  Promo code SPEAKERVIP gets you in for $495. A one day option is available for $395. The Summit, taking place next week, Sept. 29-30, 2010 in NYC is the leading event for Fortune companies seeking to maximize business, marketing and commerce using location-based services. We give you an inside look at the location-based marketing activities of major brands and agencies.

Join senior level executives from Marc Ecko Enterprises, Pillsbury, ESPN, Google, Deep Focus, Verizon, Microsoft, Mashable, Adweek, New Jersey Nets, Booyah, Advertising Age, Location Labs, SimpleGeo, FortiusOne, Brightkite, 360i, Trendrr, American Express, Bayer, USA TODAY, Tasti D-Lite, JWT, Bridge Worldwide, VaynerMedia and many more who will be speaking and attending. The full schedule is available at http://www.LocationMarketingSummit.com

KEYNOTES

- Ian Schafer, CEO, Deep Focus (leading digital advertising agency)
- Marc Ecko, Founder, Marc Ecko Enterprises (fashion, retail and lifestyle entrepreneur)
- Marc Horine, Vice President of Digital Partnerships, ESPN (world leader in sports and media)

For the location-based marketing summit I’ll be moderating the location-based marketing consumer behaviors and the evolution of social networking, how to plan for it panel at 3:15pm. See the description below.

Are Location Based Marketing consumers trend setters? Are they early adopters? Understand the demographics of Location Based Marketing participants so you can plan your presence accordingly. What do they respond well to? How do you communicate your efforts… from launch to day-to-day management… understand the “in’s” and “out’s” of your audience. Are Location Based Marketing platforms the Facebook-and Twitter killers or will the services be integrated?
Aaron Strout, CMO, Powered Inc.
Geoffrey Lewis, Co-Founder / CEO, Topguest
Phil Thomas DiGiulio, Co-Founder, Pegshot.com
Jodi Gersh, Content Manager / Social Media, Gannett Company Inc
Wayne Sutton, Biz. Dev/Marketing Strategist, TriOut (moderator)

You can see the full schedule here: http://www.locationmarketingsummit.com/schedule/index.html .  I’m excited to take part in the event and if you’re attending be sure to check-in and say hello.

SPARKcon celebrates creativity in the NC Triangle.For 4 days, Raleigh’s Fayetteville St, public spaces, clubs and stages will be filled with art, music, dance, film, fashion, design and more. SPARKcon showcases local cultural richness through an open-source approach to collaboration and cross pollination. It’s completely grass-roots and by the people for the people!
SPARKcon is a program of Visual Art Exchange.

Thursday, kicked off SPARKcon with ideaSPARK and last night I attended fashionSPARK, here are a few photos from both events taken with my iPhone 4. Some photos were edited with TiltShiftGen iPhone app.

Attending SPARKcon, be sure to download their iPhone & Android Apps:

Complete Gallery

Photo by Warren Parsons

Repost:
Content Strategy FTW video & presentation from Kristina Halvorson halvorson presenation at SXSW 2009

During her session I sat on the front row with my Macbook Pro and a usb webcam to live stream her talk. It’s a little shaky but I think well worth a listen if you’re in the content strategy/blogging/writing for the web business. Below is the video and her slides from Content Strategy FTW session at SXSW.

The SXSW Video. FYI it’s via the lap cam.

Also check out Kristian’s book called Content Strategy http://www.contentstrategy.com

SXSW Interactive in the past has been known as THE conference to launch new startups and have conversations about what will be the next big thing. In 2006 Twitter was launched at SXSW and Foursquare was launched at SXSW 2009.  This year at SXSW 2010 some said it was over crowded and too many social media topics lacking the interactive geek flavor it once had.  There were also a lot location-based panels featuring Brightkite, Gowalla and Foursquare with Mapquest and Yelp tagging along.  Since March 2010 the location space has truly exploded and moved out of the geek tech bubble of will this work and become main stream to now everybody is trying to cash in on the check-in race.

Scanning through the panel picker for SXSW 2011 I found at least 58 geo, check-in, location-based panels submitted. Some of the panels are from founders of location-based apps such as Josh @JW from Gowalla and/or part of one such as Heather from @whrrl. Others are submitted by marketers, agencies and location-based fanboys. Knowing what happen at SXSW 2010 and despite being a location-based geek/ partner of TriOut a location-based service, I decided to skip submitting a location-based talk  and submit a talk on diversity. A topic SXSW asked for more submission on. You can vote for it here “Exploring Lack of Diversity In the Technology Industry”

If you’re planning to attend SXSW 2011 I suggest you carefully read through the 58 panels GEO/location-based panels below and vote for the ones you would like to see present at SXSW Interactive 2011.

Fueling Fun – “Checking in” to Customer Loyalty

Casey Petersen, Murphy Oil USA
With the growing popularity of Location Based Apps, how can retailers profit off of “check-ins” at t… READ MORE With the growing popularity of Location Based Apps, how can retailers profit off of “check-ins” at their locations? Restaurants and bars have found some success in specials for check-ins, but many retail stores struggle to find a way to implement Location in a meaningful way. This panel will discuss: * Success story from Murphy USA Gas Stations on uses of location to increase customer engagement, customer loyalty, and online buzz. * Which special offers work, and how to implement them in ways that actually work at the register * How Location Based Services like Whrrl are adapting to provide great offers to users, and value to Retailers * Profiting – Using LBS to continue to engage and draw in repeat business – Getting vendors and suppliers to pay to market at your locations
Branding / Marketing / Publicity location, promotions, retail

Go Here, Do This: Location + Collective Action

Sam Altman, Loopt
Grassroots movements, flash mobs and now group purchasing–they all have an intimate relationship wi… READ MORE Grassroots movements, flash mobs and now group purchasing–they all have an intimate relationship with location; it’s the linchpin that ties the movement together. For some time now, advertisers have tried to say “Go here. Buy this. Do it now.” But as consumers, we’ve been pretty reluctant to give in easily—there’s always another holiday for a car dealership to celebrate, and a liquidation sale at a furniture store just doesn’t motivate us anymore. Flash mobs, grassroots movements—they have been exceedingly difficult to create. They’re purely organic movements, born out of internet chatrooms, with a bitter reaction to rigid organization. The holy grail—a sudden influx of consumers—has always been just out of reach for most businesses. But more and more, brands are finding interesting ways to cultivate flash mobs of their own. Location based services play an important role in aiding these movements. Whether it be group purchasing sites created around local communities or mobile check in apps with flocks of users descending on a bar or restaurant, new tools continue to emerge for businesses and brands to create their own mobs. We’ll look at what tools are available for building mobs and how they are being focused towards completing a specific action. We’ll envision what tools have yet to emerge. And we’ll explore the delicate balance between pushing an action or a message while maintaining the organic feel that characterizes these movements.
Geolocation flashmob, location, Social Networking

Match.com and Foursquare… Sitting in a Tree

Andrew Weinreich, MeetMoi
Online dating has, since its inception, been primarily about people sitting in front of their comput… READ MORE Online dating has, since its inception, been primarily about people sitting in front of their computers, endlessly composing and perusing (often highly contrived) profiles, hoping to find the right combination of words and flattering photos to lead them to true love. Location-based technology in mobile phones (both browser-based and apps) means that dating can make its way back to the streets. New services like MeetMoi and others put the dating back in digital dating, facilitating introductions to like-minded singles within a certain proximity. This panel will address: 1) what privacy concerns need to be taken into consideration when people begin meeting IRL through this technology? 2) Is a check-in based model, like Foursquare, or persistent-location, like Google Latitude, the best format for mobile dating? And 3) how do daters change the way they present themselves when their potential paramour may be right around the corner? Location-based dating is the future of online dating… and it’s about more than just hookups with the new technology that increases the “intent-to-date” among users. Now that people read books on their iPhone, keep their entire music library on their BlackBerry, and use their Android to house their entire family photo collection, why wouldn’t a mobile phone become a personal matchmaker extraordinaire?
Geolocation Dating/Relationships, Social Networking

Beyond the Checkin: Transforming Geolocation into Geoexpression

Dean Terry, University of Texas at Dallas
The mobile experience is about context and to date we are “checking in” to a very limited layer … READ MORE The mobile experience is about context and to date we are “checking in” to a very limited layer of context: the consumer layer. What this panel explores is geoexpression: the imaginative layer. What are the creative uses of geotools? What new tools might allow us to express ourselves in relation to place? Fictional characters and places live in books, films, and games but what if they lived in the real world, as part of the mobile experience? What if you could “check in” to an imaginary places, characters, and story lines? How might we creatively invoke the nether-places where we spend much of our time – traffic jams, parking lots, security lines – that stand in sharp contrast to the officially sanctioned check-in spots? How might we turn locative media from gimmicky Entertainment coupon books and glorified historical guidebooks into platforms for renegotiating space and telling stories? Place-based transmedia probes real/fictional boundaries, enhancing the experience of place by creating imagined states in real world locations. This approach turns a consumer-based model of mobile computing into an authorship-based model. In this presentation we look at examples of place based storytelling, art and big picture ideas about location and place as they relate to creative expression of culture. We will map the creative side of context, navigating real, imagined, and in between spaces.
Geolocation art and technology, place, storytelling

Local Online Communities: Won’t You Be My Neighbor

Micki Krimmel, NeighborGoods
Americans are increasingly turning to high tech tools to recreate the small town experience. Join us… READ MORE Americans are increasingly turning to high tech tools to recreate the small town experience. Join us for a discussion with pioneers of local tech to learn about how location-based technologies are connecting people to create the next generation economy and a more engaged citizenry. We’ll cover tools of the trade, best practices and give you tips on how you can infuse place into your project. Finally, we’ll envision what the ideal connected neighborhood might look like in the future.
Geolocation community, location, neighborhoods

Location-Based-Services is so 2010 – Behold Context-Based-Services

Rob Gonda, SapientNitro
Defined as using large mashup of data services to enable amazing experiences through mobile devices…. READ MORE Defined as using large mashup of data services to enable amazing experiences through mobile devices. What’s not digital nowadays?! Mobile is replacing the pc and becoming that unique personal technology gadget that no one lives without — and with it, comes connectivity, content, productivity, and entertainment. The magic is that mobile links the gap between digital and real world, extending experiences, and more importantly, making is easy, simple, and intuitive. Foursquare and Gowalla gaining momentum, Twitter added Places, Facebook launched their location based service and integrate with the Open Graph, Google “Me” relies on Latitude, location-location-location. But checking-in requires too much effort… Location will evolve from a reactive engagement to a proactive engagement … background services will be always-location aware. Apps will automatically react to actual location, history, friends, places, and a new set of data source mashups such as weather, humidity, light sensitivity, noise ambiance, and more. If you want to get inspired by innovations galore, this is a session you can’t miss.
Mobile / Wireless Facebook, google, Location-based services

Beyond the Check-In: Location and the Social Web

Josh Williams, Gowalla
Location-based services (LBS) are continuing to experience exponential growth, however, mass adoptio… READ MORE Location-based services (LBS) are continuing to experience exponential growth, however, mass adoption is making the check-in ubiquitous. Sometimes lost in those discussions about technology and thousands and thousands of check-ins is the secret sauce behind these services – the basic and ever-present human desire to share. Josh Williams, co-founder and CEO of Austin-based Gowalla, will detail why he and his team have been looking beyond the concept of simply checking in at locations — and how people’s interest in sharing where they are and what they’re doing with friends, family, and the public-at-large is a stepping stone on the path to how people will continue to communicate and express themselves.
Geolocation location, sharing, social web

LatAm Mapping Re-Invented: Combining Web & Mobile Geolocation Technologies

Anderson Thees, Apontador
Proposal: to showcase how a company in Brazil aims to leverage 3 major global trends meeting in thei… READ MORE Proposal: to showcase how a company in Brazil aims to leverage 3 major global trends meeting in their backyard: i) geo-location going mainstream; ii) platforms as the model for Internet innovation; and iii) emerging markets gaining relevance globally; Goal: to enable users and businesses with the power of search and location to simplify everyday life, helping people discover what they want, where it is, and how good it is in the view of the public in general and of the people they know. Through its mission to connect people, places and information around you, Apontador puts cutting edge web and mobile technologies to work where life really happens – near you. Challenge: Today, geo-location has gained fantastic momentum, and the number of applications for the technology and data developed in the company over the last 10 years became nearly infinite, almost overnight. To fully explore this unique opportunity, the company is opening its technology and data to external developers through an open API, betting on the ecosystem model. We have a great list of projects. We’d love to do it all, but it is not feasible. So we will provide the tools and let people cherry-pick from it. More important, bright minds elsewhere will certainly come up with applications that are far more interesting an innovative than those we thought of so far. Results: the open platform will go life soon, and by March 2011 we’ll know the results and would love to share it with SXSW 2011 audience…
Geolocation geo, Latam, local

AugmentedRetail: Geo-location as a Tool for Retail

Lee Tone, Greene8
The basic function of the mobile app allows customers to see what they’re looking for as an AR point… READ MORE The basic function of the mobile app allows customers to see what they’re looking for as an AR point on the horizon, or be directed to the item by an AR compass. Customers simply type in what they’re shopping for on their smartphone and the app shows them where the item is in relation to where they’re standing and which way they’re facing. The app can even plot an efficient course through the store based on a shopping list prepared ahead of time. The app can be automatically customized by keeping track of customer’s purchase habits, their shopping path and their subjectivity to promotions. The app can change the way a person shops by making their experience customizable and convenient based on real-time interaction. The app is good for retailers (grocery stores, hardware stores, etc.) because it allows them to see what their customers are looking for and how they react to promotional materials and product placement. Ad space can be cultivated in the app’s digital space and ads can be personally customized to each customer based on their purchasing habits. For example, if a customer buys Wheaties every week a suggestion ad can be generated to suggest similar products like Kashi. The app uses Twitter API so that customers can tweet about deals and review certain products, “These apples look delicious and they’re only 5 for a $1.” These tweets are viewed visually with AR markers geo-located to the exact spot the customer tweeted from.
Mobile Applications Augmented Reality, Geo-location, iphone

Foursquare Strategy 101

Jesse Thomas, JESS3
Foursquare: sure it’s fun, useful, and addicting, but how can it really work for you? This panel inv… READ MORE Foursquare: sure it’s fun, useful, and addicting, but how can it really work for you? This panel invites foursquare insiders to share some of the secrets on how to make it work for businesses and individuals and what the future of geolocation applications hold.
Geolocation foursquare, geolocation, social media marketing

Mobile Madness: When Online Ad Optimization goes In-Store

Todd Dipaola, Checkpoints LLC
Once upon a time, interactive advertising was exclusively the domain of online ads. The analytics u… READ MORE Once upon a time, interactive advertising was exclusively the domain of online ads. The analytics unique to the Internet revolutionized marketing efficiencies and monetization rates forever. The marketing magic of A/B testing, conversion pixels and media units like CPC and CPA required tracking tools previously only available on a web-connected computer, and made in-person targeting seem as legacy as the 8-track. But the dawn of open mobile development platforms, location-based services, and codes takes marketing science on a new level. The resulting insights now put us directly into the minds of in-store shoppers, enabling us to turn bricks and mortar advertising hotter than lava. The tool to create real world mass-market experiments and game-changing advances is now literally in the hands of every US adult consumer. Mobile handsets empower permission-based data collection at every stage of purchasing behavior. Evaluating web analytics taught us how to create websites that maximize users’ interaction while minimizing their frustration. Mobile marketing allows us to display diverse offers to users passing by retail locations and immediately assess the most effective offers to get them into the store and maximize interest (and spending!). Multivariate testing in the aisles of Wal-Mart becomes not just possible, but as easy as a barcode scan by a shopper. Targeted closed loop mobile feedback fundamentally personalizes and enhances the offline customer relationship.
Advertising LBS, mobile, ROI

LBS 101: the Arrival of Ubiquitous Geolocation

Jason Finkelstein, Location Labs
LBS is still a highly relevant subject and given that people are still curious and learning about LB… READ MORE LBS is still a highly relevant subject and given that people are still curious and learning about LBS, there’s an opportunity for another LBS 101 session targeted towards beginners in the space, but this time we can dig a little bit deeper. Some of the topics I will address include: (1) Locating feature phones vs. smartphones — can all phones really be located commercially? How? What are the differences between locating different kinds of phones from a technology standpoint, a privacy standpoint, a functional standpoint? (2) The economics of locating phones — what does it cost? How are wireless carriers and handset manufacturers involved? How are advertisers involved? (3) Types of LBS apps — are downloadable iPhone/Android apps the only LBS apps? What about SMS and voice apps which have a far greater addressable market and potential for ubiquitous usage? (4) LBS app use cases — what are some compelling LBS use cases besides the obvious mobile advertising / marketing ones, e.g. fraud detection, roadside assistance, gaming compliance, security, etc. (5) The future of LBS — who’s using LBS today and who will be using LBS in the coming months/years? With always-on location becoming more pervasive, what new and compelling services will we see? (6) Privacy — how much transparency do end users have when sharing their location? What incentives are being offered to end users to share location constantly?
Geolocation Geo-location, LBS, location-based technology

How “Mocial” Apps Help Dorothy Kill The Witch

Anders Rosenquist, ZAAZ
What if Dorothy had had access to social, mobile, and location-based services on her journey to Oz?… READ MORE What if Dorothy had had access to social, mobile, and location-based services on her journey to Oz? How would that have changed her experience getting back to Kansas? This panel will explore that very question with the aid of an innovative case study from Alaska Airlines. Location-based services can build customer loyalty, provide value and support a brand. We’ll discuss how the marriage of mobile with social can integrate real world places through mapping and destination content. Connecting conversations based on location, these “mocial” apps can help people like Dorothy understand where to go and what to do during the journey while avoiding the witch, or the perils of air travel.
Mobile Applications LBS, mobile, social

Location Based Monetization: How Can Geogames Make Money?

Zach Saul, Retronyms
The location-based services market has recently expanded from location-based utilities into the loca… READ MORE The location-based services market has recently expanded from location-based utilities into the location-based entertainment space, and this emerging market provides fertile ground for experimentation with new business models. Foursquare and Gowalla have demonstrated a promising potential business model around competitive check-ins and offers in a location-based social network, but this is just the beginning of the opportunities. There are many other potential business models, including sales to users, virtual goods, technology hosting, location-based advertising, technology licensing and brand promotions. This panel will bring together experts from varied backgrounds to discuss each of these potential business models. Panelists will include developers of geogame technology and their customers: advertisers, technology licensors and brand marketers. The conversation will focus on the business models that the developers see as viable and on the needs of these big customers. We’ll make sure to cover both current and emerging business models, and everybody will make their predictions about the next big thing!
Entrepreneurism / Monetization geolocation, GPS, LBS

Killer Applications of Geo-Data

Kate Imbach, Skyhook
One zillion third party services know your location when you tweet, when you checkin, when you searc… READ MORE One zillion third party services know your location when you tweet, when you checkin, when you search. This isn’t scary – no, my friend – it’s awesome. Because companies are starting super cool projects with large scale location data. Like mapping real-time population density around events, crazy-stimulating traffic data visualizations, and tracking demographic information for advertisers. Location data analysis it will change our lives.
Geolocation LBS

Beyond Check-Ins: Location Based Game Design

John-Paul Walton, Retronyms
This dual presentation will explore common play elements in location-based games. We’ll analyze th… READ MORE This dual presentation will explore common play elements in location-based games. We’ll analyze the popular “Check-In” mechanic (used by products like FourSquare and GoWalla), and take a look at the business and social forces that have influenced its emergence as the popular geo game model. The presentation will compare current location-based products, charting their strengths and weaknesses to identify where we believe large areas of opportunity exist in the market. We’ll evaluate the challenges and untapped opportunities of Geo Games from the technological and design perspectives of the two presenters. We’ll outline how the limitations in location technology can be an elegant part of the game design itself, and how new innovations will help to create richer and more immersive parallel worlds. We’ll describe why we think its time to move beyond “social” Check-In systems, to “true games” that engage, challenge, and stimulate players.
Gaming on Mobile Devices geolocation, GPS, LBS

Local Motives: Monetizing Mobile Discovery Without Traditional Ads

Joe Stump, SimpleGeo
Location-based services (LBS) and adding location as a feature – particularly in the mobile space … READ MORE Location-based services (LBS) and adding location as a feature – particularly in the mobile space – have become mainstream for developers and consumers, growing faster than social networking services and features on most websites, pioneered by Friendster in 2002. How will all these great services use location to make money? While AdMob and a handful of other mobile ad networks have proven they can build a business by adapting a worn-out web model to mobile, they are just the beginning of a far more comprehensive LBS monetization landscape. SimpleGeo has positioned itself as the leading LBS platform, providing ready-to-use location infrastructure to the LBS rush. With the growing demand for location knowledge, both large and small companies alike are looking for ways to access location data. Instead of spending months to build their own infrastructure, SimpleGeo equips these companies with a platform overnight. Anttenna has evolved the tired, web classifieds model into a faster, smartphone-powered service with Twitter-sized listings, geo-tagging, and real-time in-app chat. Anttenna’s business model weaves together scheduled premium listings, micro-payments, and mobile payments, all of which are strengthened by location.
Entrepreneurism / Monetization LBS, Location Based Advertising, Mobile Applications

Make Your Event Pop with Location Based Services

Christina Coster, CRC Productions
Everyone goes out to events. Every Friday night is an event. How do I get people to come to my event… READ MORE Everyone goes out to events. Every Friday night is an event. How do I get people to come to my event, both offline AND online? Technology has advanced to the point that people are able to interact with your event before, during and after the event – all while on the go. Are you as a brand prepared for the oncoming wave of technologically empowered individuals? How are you embracing them at your events, your competitor’s events, your partner’s events? This panel will delve into the different types of social media services that individuals and businesses planning events can rely on. Location based services and mobile apps will be heavily looked at in conjunction with more traditional social networks like Facebook and Twitter. We will show you how you can embrace and engage your audience leading up to the event by seeding information in these mobile networks as well as pulling out the metrics and analytics after the event. Events don’t just take place the day of the event. They now take place online for a duration before and after. We’ll look into all the different mobile apps you can use for your event including, but not limited to: Foursquare, Gowalla, Scvngr, Foodspotting, Whrrl, Plancast, Hot Potato and PegShot. Don’t think that only formal events are events. If you have a house party then that’s an event. This panel is for anyone who’s ever thrown a party, impromptu or formal.
Geolocation Events, geolocation, Location-based services

Match.com and Foursquare… Sitting in a Tree

Andrew Weinreich, MeetMoi
Online dating has, since its inception, been primarily about people sitting in front of their comput… READ MORE Online dating has, since its inception, been primarily about people sitting in front of their computers, endlessly composing and perusing (often highly contrived) profiles, hoping to find the right combination of words and flattering photos to lead them to true love. Location-based technology in mobile phones (both browser-based and apps) means that dating can make its way back to the streets. New services like MeetMoi and others put the dating back in digital dating, facilitating introductions to like-minded singles within a certain proximity. This panel will address: 1) what privacy concerns need to be taken into consideration when people begin meeting IRL through this technology? 2) Is a check-in based model, like Foursquare, or persistent-location, like Google Latitude, the best format for mobile dating? And 3) how do daters change the way they present themselves when their potential paramour may be right around the corner? Location-based dating is the future of online dating… and it’s about more than just hookups with the new technology that increases the “intent-to-date” among users. Now that people read books on their iPhone, keep their entire music library on their BlackBerry, and use their Android to house their entire family photo collection, why wouldn’t a mobile phone become a personal matchmaker extraordinaire?
Geolocation Dating/Relationships, Social Networking

Mobile+Location: There’s more than just Foursquare

Jeremy Wacksman, Zillow
While location sharing check-ins and badges are all the rage of late, many traditional Web businesse… READ MORE While location sharing check-ins and badges are all the rage of late, many traditional Web businesses have been utilizing location-based services to tap into the growing number of consumers carrying pocket GPSs via their mobile phones, transforming the way people connect with their brands. Hear from category leaders (like) Fandango, Zillow, and OpenTable how they are using location to create richer, more relevant interactions for millions of users of their mobile applications, as well as from VCs, that are counting on location beyond social sharing and games to deliver favorable returns in the years ahead. Want to find out how best to integrate location into your business without cannibalizing it? My users aren’t going to check-in, why should I bother? How can location help me make money on mobile? We’ll learn lessons in development and advertising from each of these companies, and discuss how other businesses can capitalize on location in their mobile efforts to enhance the customer experience and increase value for advertisers.
Mobile Applications applications, Location Based Services, location-based technology

Foursquare Day: Realizing the Location-Based Services Revolution

Walter Elly, MicroArts
Location-based services are here and are revolutionizing the way people experience the world. Events… READ MORE Location-based services are here and are revolutionizing the way people experience the world. Events like Foursquare Day 2010 fueled the growth of this revolution, but we haven’t fully realized the future of what location-based services have to offer. See what the future holds for location-based services. Examine how Foursquare Day went from idea to grassroots international movement in 1 month and what its effects were on the growth of location-based services. Learn how to supercharge the growth of location-based services and realize their future by bringing Foursquare Day to your town or city on 4/16/11, Foursquare Day 2011.
Community / Online Community Location Based Services, mobile, Social Networking

Leveraging Mobile Marketing Methods In My Strategy

Brandon Prebynski, FKQ Marketing and Advertising
What does “Mobile Marketing” mean to you? You have undoubtedly heard the term thrown around a lot la… READ MORE What does “Mobile Marketing” mean to you? You have undoubtedly heard the term thrown around a lot lately. With success rates recently showing higher conversions than that of traditional marketing, email, and social media marketing, this is an area of your strategy that should not be ignored. This session provides an overview of the multiple methods to mobile marketing. Brandon Prebynski (@prebynski), Emerging Media Strategist at a Flordia-based agency, will outline the many ways that marketers can leverage mobile channels to increase leads, drive foot traffic, or increase sales conversions. Mobile marketing channels consist of SMS, MMS, Mobile Browser, Mobile Application, and Mobile Advertising. This presentation details the various ways to build a mobile marketing strategy, deciding which type of mobile marketing is best for your business objectives, what it takes to get started with each type of mobile marketing, and how to grow an audience through mobile marketing channels. As an additional takeaway, Prebynski will provide details on how to leverage social media mobile applications within your strategy to help achieve business objectives.
Mobile / Wireless applications, mobile, sms

Mobile Social Gaming: The Next Frontier

Volker Hirsch, Scoreloop
80% of the world population has access to mobile vs. only 23% with access to the Internet! Social in… READ MORE 80% of the world population has access to mobile vs. only 23% with access to the Internet! Social interaction has revolutionized (online) digital media as it has opened new demographics and provides for a more compelling and relevant experience for users in addition to opening new tangents for search, recommendations, etc. The transformative power of social context was especially pronounced in gaming (cf. Zynga ["Farmville"] et al. who have grown into large businesses very quickly). The mobile landscape is significantly more complex than the Internet (dozens of platforms, hundreds of distribution channels, hundreds of jurisdictions), and the medium has indeed very different underlying dynamics (screen size and general form factor, input methods, mobility, use cases, etc). It is therefore vital to gain deep understanding about the underlying dynamics of both the medium as well as the users’ approach in using that medium. It is essential to avoid a “Galapagos effect” where certain models only work on limited platforms (e.g. iPhone) or in specific territories (e.g. Japan). Only a fraction of the world’s 5bn (!) mobile subscriptions are on iPhones or are in Japan, and one needs to look to tackle the fragmentation dilemma in order to unlock the enormous potential the largest medium in the world has to offer. This session will show the rationales that need to be applied to understand the medium and will outline paths to successfully address it.
Mobile Applications gaming, mobile, social

Speed-Launching Location Web Apps

Adam DuVander, Map Scripting
Ready to make your location-based app the hit of SXSW 2012? Heck, why wait that long? Adam DuVander… READ MORE Ready to make your location-based app the hit of SXSW 2012? Heck, why wait that long? Adam DuVander, author of Map Scripting 101, will show you how to “write it tonight and launch it tomorrow.” Adam will introduce the juicy tools and services now available to turn on the “where” in any website — on desktops, laptops, tablets and phones. Learn how to find any user’s location, make sense of it, store it away or flag it on a map, and find nearby locations with APIs or from your own database. It’s all presented with Adam’s signature good humor and curious CalifOregon accent.
Mobile Applications location-based technology, mapping, mobile

Mo-Social Shopping is Here: Are Brands and Retailers?

Molly Garris, Arc Worldwide / Leo Burnett
Shoppers are getting savvier, armed phenomenal online tools that zero in on the best deals and sort … READ MORE Shoppers are getting savvier, armed phenomenal online tools that zero in on the best deals and sort through ratings and reviews from experts to peers. But now that Smartphones have reached critical mass, shoppers are empowered to seek on the go tools to help them on their shopping mission but we see many brands and retailers under delivering. Let’s examine mobile / social (mo-social, portable social) tools that are helping shoppers and where additional opportunities for brands and retailers exist to insert themselves into the decision process.
Mobile Applications mobile, Mobile Consumers, Shopping

Scan This! The Mobile Barcode Showdown

Benny Simon, 360i
Mobile barcode tech is red hot – and there are a lot of new players on the scene. Watch David Berk… READ MORE Mobile barcode tech is red hot – and there are a lot of new players on the scene. Watch David Berkowitz play referee as several start-cups duke it out in these interactive session. Which tech has the coolest features and biggest shot at mainstream love? They’ll show you some of their best stuff; you decide and vote. This is a SXSW panel you won’t want to miss.
Mobile / Wireless barcode, mobile, tech

Microtransactions, Mobile and Purchasing Power

David Marcus, www.zong.com
A variety of solutions exist to convert shoppers to purchasers from standard credit card payments to… READ MORE A variety of solutions exist to convert shoppers to purchasers from standard credit card payments to PayPal to CPA offers to mobile payments. Recent innovations within the mobile payments space include new hardware products that allow for physical purchases both from the vendor and from the end-user perspective (such as Square, VeriFone, NFC wallet, etc). Other innovations have linked mobile phone numbers to payments cards lowering the barrier to entry for vendors with smaller margins or larger ticket items. Balancing factors such as customer conversion rates, transaction size, customer demographics, user experience and user demand, the mobile payments market is constantly exploring new options that will further streamline users’ purchasing processes. As the market continues to expand and evolve, what will emerge as the best practices in the mobile payments space? Additionally, as users continue to demand ways to easily purchase digital products such as mp3s, newspaper articles and online donations, what is the next frontier in micro-payments and where does mobile commerce fit in? David Marcus, Founder & CEO Zong, will draw from online payment case studies, customer feedback and additional data, to add to this panel on the current landscape of mobile payments and discuss where the future of the space is heading.
Mobile / Wireless digital goods, mobile, payment platform

Without a Mobile Strategy You’re Screwed!

Rachel Pasqua, iCrossing
There is no such thing as mobile media – or social media for that matter. Rather, the way we use the… READ MORE There is no such thing as mobile media – or social media for that matter. Rather, the way we use the web is increasingly social and our means of accessing it and each other, increasingly mobile. For the next wave of internet users, mobile will be their first – and for many, their only – web experience. Smartphones and tablets are coloring the expectations of tomorrow’s digital generation and understanding the influence of emerging platforms is essential for any brand hoping to stay connected with its audience. Mobile Group Director, Rachel Pasqua leads a discussion designed to help attendees understand the business and technical underpinnings of a successful mobile strategy.
Mobile / Wireless applications, mobile, Strategy

Freelancing in the Future: When and Where Ever

Kevin Reeth, Outright
With the advent of geolocation and fantastic payment services such as Square, the future of freelanc… READ MORE With the advent of geolocation and fantastic payment services such as Square, the future of freelancing is about geolocation (the fastest growing freelance job industry), mobile, and cloud based business. How do you get started? How do you succeed? This panel will deal with the foundations of working on the go, including the cloud apps that allow mobile workers to get things done, accept payments and stay organized while working from anywhere. It will also touch on the legal issues, such as taxes, licenses and permits that mobile workers face. Finally, it will talk about how the rise of industries such as geolocation are allowing more and more people to work as on the go consultants.
Entrepreneurism / Monetization cloud, freelance, mobile

Mobile Apps – When New Technologies Go Mainstream

Lee Williams, Symbian
This year location-based services and augmented reality took the app world by storm. Hear from the f… READ MORE This year location-based services and augmented reality took the app world by storm. Hear from the founders of top apps in these areas on how they were able to predict the popularity of these trends several years ago and create compelling apps that leverage the still cutting-edge technology. During this session, they will discuss what’s next and how mobile app developers can capitalize on new concepts while differentiating themselves from other apps that are being developed with similar premises. These successful app developers will also provide input on how they were able to stand out in a generally crowded market and take advantage of global market opportunities based on current consumer needs and wants in different regions and cultures.
Mobile Applications application, developers, mobile

Cha-Ching! Monetizing Mobile Location-Based Service

Chris Mirabile, The Hotlist
Location-based services (LBS) mobile apps are hot this year, but even at their tipping point, they h… READ MORE Location-based services (LBS) mobile apps are hot this year, but even at their tipping point, they haven’t yet reached their monetization potential. What keeps the consumer motivation afloat to simply post their location, “check-in” or for businesses to provide location-based incentives when the novelty wears off? How can location service developers benefit from the massive increase in user activity? And, how do you maintain strong UX while monetizing? Users and businesses alike need to see tangible value in order for any LBS mobile apps to be properly monetized. Coupled with exclusive deals and discounts, special events in close proximity and info about nearby friends, the motivation for consumers to use location services appears much clearer. Additionally, LBS’s can shed insight into a business’ traffic and help capitalize on nearby customers by offering various incentives and sales to drive customers through doors. This panel will discuss the monetization opportunities available for LBS mobile apps, how revenue will be created by hyper-local retail establishments and campaigns and how commissions from retailers receiving a sale from provided incentives will drive the greatest ROI. Co-founder/President of The Hotlist Chris Mirabile will speak alongside an exec from a mobile advertising company, an exec from a brand that’s had experience in monetizing location services, an exec from a mobile app developer with a moderator who is an analyst in the mobile space.
Mobile / Wireless Location-based services, mobile, monitization

Are we there yet? Location, advertising finally converge.

Tina Unterlaender, AKQA
Location-aware applications have been the once and future king of advertising for the past 10 years … READ MORE Location-aware applications have been the once and future king of advertising for the past 10 years or so. Tech-savvy early adopters are driving the popularity of location-centric check-in apps such as Foursquare, Gowalla, and Loopt. But, the novelty has already worn off for the still small numbers of consumers using theses apps, and brands still struggle with how to leverage the power of where. The result – every major player in digital media is integrating location into preexisting products, developers continue to over-engineer location-based features and functions that consumers don’t want, need, or even like. Almost all of these location-based apps are about sharing one’s location in a clumsy and egotistical fashion, or providing basic navigation. Most importantly, the critical demographic groups necessary for real mainstream adoption still don’t know or care about these apps. Mothers, 25-50 with children, DINKY professional couples, and professional men 35-50 still don’t use these apps in numbers that are meaningful for advertisers. A big question is how these apps must evolve to get these key demos involved enough for brands to care. Our panel will explore what brands and real people want, as opposed to what developers can create. For now, consumers and advertisers are still asking, “are we there yet?” as the mobile media industry continues to struggle with how to bring brands, people, and LBS applications together in a way that works for all involved.
Advertising Advertising, geolocation, mobile

Sensing and Communication in Social Systems: Disruptive Approaches

Nadav Aharony, MIT Media Lab
Social networking, mobile communications, location based services, and data-mining-the-heck-out-of-a… READ MORE Social networking, mobile communications, location based services, and data-mining-the-heck-out-of-all-of-these are the hot topics of the day. However, many of us – as developers, policy makers, corporate executives, and especially as end users, are taking the technologies that underlie these services as a given. It is key to understand what goes on “under the hood” so that we could understand the benefits of alternatives. This talk will cover topics and emerging technologies of sensing, learning, and communication in social systems and communities. This will be approached from two directions: – The first is from “Social” to “Network”: How can we leverage human level properties for improving the way our data and communications networks work? Main discussion will address ad-hoc communications technologies that can use everyday consumer devices to augment the communications infrastructure with new capabilities,. – The second direction is from “Network” to “Social”: How we can leverage information extracted from lower layers of the communication stack and other sensor data to generate meaningful social inferences? How can we use that information to learn about social systems as well as provide actionable feedback? I will also present approaches to implement these types of systems and other data-collection architectures in a user-centric way. Such approaches could better protect the users’ privacy while still providing meaningful data and supporting viable business models.
New Technology / Next Generation mobile, Privacy, social

Socializing, Shopping and Entertaining with Location-Aware Services

Tero Ojanperä, Nokia
Ever met a friend for a spur-of-the-moment drink just because Foursquare told you he was down the bl… READ MORE Ever met a friend for a spur-of-the-moment drink just because Foursquare told you he was down the block? How about popped into a restaurant in a foreign city because your phone told you that you’d like it? Or got wind of a special product offer at the precise moment you were walking by your favorite store? If you haven’t yet, you will. And your life will be better for it. Here’s the deal: new location-aware technologies recognize where you are and connect you to the people and things that matter to you most. But you knew that already. What you don’t know is what’s next – how the next generation of mobile location-aware services are going to transform how you socialize, shop and experience entertainment in unimaginable new ways. Where a mobile device will know what you like, maybe even more than your best friend. And where you hold a virtual passport to new and spontaneous experiences in the palm of your hand. Dr. Tero Ojanperä of Nokia will lead a panel that propels you into the future of location-based services and gives you a first look at the products and services that will revolutionize how you connect with the world around you.
Geolocation Entertainment, experience, mobile

Location Footprints: Viewing Digital Crumbs through LBS

Sam Altman, Loopt, Inc.
Check In. Snap a photo. Browse some ratings. Write a tip. Comment on an update. Read a review. There… READ MORE Check In. Snap a photo. Browse some ratings. Write a tip. Comment on an update. Read a review. There are layers and layers of information about the place where you’re standing right now. Which ones can you see? Location-based services know where you are, and where you’ve been, and certain tools can give you a fascinating peek into the labyrinth of digital crumbs around you. Sometimes this information is extremely interesting, helping you discover a trendy new restaurant (or avoid a bad one); sometimes it’s not. But it’s there, ready to be consumed. These days, friends know where friends are going and where they’ve been. They can see the places they frequent regularly, or ones they’re trying for the first time. Friends trust the opinion of people they know, and businesses need to keep an eye on opinions shared by these connected groups. How much of this information is accessible to businesses and brands? What can be learned from the behavior of friends and strangers online? Can recommendations about places to go and things to do be made relevant based on what your friends do … Like “your friends like this place, you may too.” This panel will explore those digital crumbs and try to make sense of them. Which ones are important? Which ones aren’t? How much control should a business have over what their digital experience looks like? Which brands are doing the best? And how private is the information about where you’ve been?
Accessibility branding and marketing, Location Based Advertising, mobile

“Check-in is out, Check-out is in”

Matt Curtin, SocialSmack, Inc.
An engaging discussion around social mobile networks that leverage game technology to crowdsource tr… READ MORE An engaging discussion around social mobile networks that leverage game technology to crowdsource trends like location trending, brand sentiment, brand discovery, location discovery. There has been much talk about the concept of “check-in fatigue”. So where does that leave the future of “check-in”, and is that really where the value is for the consumer and the brand/location. Or is the “check-out” and capture of sentiment and the experience really what we will find is most important in the end?
Social Networking funware, mobile, social

Why Can’t More Advertisers Design Relevant Mobile Experiences?

Richard Lent, AgencyNet
Mobile is the most self aware computing platform to date. It’s location aware, time aware, context … READ MORE Mobile is the most self aware computing platform to date. It’s location aware, time aware, context aware… so why is the state of mobile advertising and app-vertising so random? Digital marketers need to take a page from the CPG industry and develop with a purpose and usage occasion in mind — such a solution would be more valuable to both consumers AND advertisers.
Mobile Applications Apps, mobile, relevancy

Shopping 2.0: Mobile Devices Reinvent Brick and Mortar

Michael Matthews, MobileBehavior
As stores lose business to eCommerce sites, mobile could be their savior—or the nail in their coff… READ MORE As stores lose business to eCommerce sites, mobile could be their savior—or the nail in their coffin. For example, a location-based service can lead someone into a store just as a price comparison app could lead them out. Mobile is also becoming increasingly significant in point of sale decision-making. According to Compete, 40 percent of smartphone owners have called someone to get an opinion on an item they are considering purchasing while in a store. And 39 percent have sent a text and 30 percent have sent a picture of the product to solicit feedback. Consumers checking their phone before they buy something will create opportunity to influence their purchase decisions. The hope is that mobile marketing — from mobile ads to shopping apps to SMS coupons – will influence each stage of the consumer journey, increase loyalty, and also bring the benefits of online marketing (specifically measurement and metrics) to brick and mortar stores. But there is a fine line between convenient or creepy, and we’re still figuring out what works in retail settings. This panel will look at how shoppers are using their phones and how business can best leverage these mobile behaviors to their advantage.
Mobile / Wireless marketing, mobile, retail

Location Nation: Blow Your Doors Off with Social

Patricia Crowell, The Agency Inside Harte-Hanks
Live whiteboard discussions with three leaders in the social-local atmosphere take us through the ne… READ MORE Live whiteboard discussions with three leaders in the social-local atmosphere take us through the next generation of localized marketing on the web. Social Commerce is happening on every street in every town. This is an engaging panel discussion with three top social commerce strategists who deliver specific technology strategies that address the local needs useful for any business (national, regional and local). Come for the insights, come for the banter or come for the enticing aroma of magic markers.
Other Localization, mobile, social

Loco for Geo-Loco: Brand Marketing Strategy Lessons & Limitations

Caesar Vielmas, IDEA
The craze for geo-location apps and games is sweeping the digital nation. FourSquare is increasing a… READ MORE The craze for geo-location apps and games is sweeping the digital nation. FourSquare is increasing at a rapid rate. Innovative, risk-taking local businesses and large brands are creating entries in Gowalla to increase visibility and interactivity with consumers on the go. However, marketers and agencies alike are still on the search for the silver bullet to monetize, or simply add value, in this space. Attendees from both the agency and marketing sides will learn successful strategies, downfalls, limitations, and lessons learned in the geo-loco space.
Geolocation geolocation, Location-based, mobile

Rockin’ the Check-in: Location Strategies for Musicians

Cindy Royal, Texas State University – San Marcos
Emerging social media platforms offer musicians unprecedented opportunities to distribute music and … READ MORE Emerging social media platforms offer musicians unprecedented opportunities to distribute music and engage fans, often circumventing the traditional models of label deals and radio airplay. Today, it is more about creating a community around your music and engaging your fan base than major label deals and platinum sales. For some artists, fan engagement has happened organically, as a result of the quality of their music, years of touring or their innovative sound. Certain bands have always had fans that followed them from city to city, meeting other fans, sharing music and stories. New social media tools, like the location-based social networks Gowalla and Foursquare, can be used as platforms for rewarding fans for desired behaviors. Currently, these platforms are in their infancy. Their focus is evolving toward event as well as location-based check-ins. Musicians can engage these services by encouraging fans to check-in at shows, offering rewards for multiple check-ins on a tour, providing a space for fans to aggregate photos and videos, and offering a way for fans to develop their own interactions, like organizing meet-ups and creating trips. The key is engaging passionate fans wherever they are in the world via mobile devices. Co-presenting will be Jonathan Carroll, Community Manager at the Austin-based company Gowalla. Jonathan will address features of the Gowalla platform that can be implemented for musicians and fans.
Music geolocation, mobile, Social Networking

Checking in with Successful Location-Based Campaigns

Dustin Jacobsen, Barkley
In this presentation we’ll discuss the different location-based services and mobile social network… READ MORE In this presentation we’ll discuss the different location-based services and mobile social networks such as Foursquare, Gowalla, Whrrl, MyTown, Brightkite & others. We’ll review some of the successful campaigns to date and discuss the different opportunities for running campaigns including game theory, incentives, paid media, badges, loyalty programs, the various API’s available and keeping consumers interested. We’ll provide some examples for required media support, such as in-store marketing and cross-pollination of campaigns across media channels. We’ll take a look at incentive based services, such as WeReward and others whereby users receive incentives for sharing location information with their social network connections. Lastly, we’ll present our predictions for where location-based services and mobile social networks are headed during the next few years as mobile devices continue to become more powerful and the barriers to location-based services becoming mainstream.
Geolocation Location-based services, mobile, retail

Do These (Virtual) Jeans Make Me Look Fat?

Tom Nawara, Acquity Group
It’s a reality that we’re living in an increasingly connected digital world, so how will always-… READ MORE It’s a reality that we’re living in an increasingly connected digital world, so how will always-on mobile, the Internet of things and multi-channel awareness impact consumer shopping of the future? What do brands and retailers have up their sleeve for the next wave of shopping? How will it become more interactive, more engaging, and how can you, the shopper, expect to connect with a brand and its products in the near future (if not right now)? Going beyond the traditional channels of today, it’s about in-store networks that push content, specials and promotions directly to your mobile device…it’s about hyper-location-aware applications that pinpoint your position in the store and direct you to where you can find that latest pair of selvage jeans in a 32 waist…it’s beyond simple catalog microsites and mobile commerce and more about socially connected, location-based “Polyvore” type functionality that allows stores to push catalog content to mobile devices so you can quickly build looks, virtually share and “try on” outfits – and buy…and it’s real-time clienteling and customer/brand engagement, with brands digitally communicating with you before your purchase, offering you the most appropriate items for you at a better price than the store across the street. Tom Nawara will leverage his deep connections with some of the top retail brands for a thought-provoking panel that discusses the digital trends that will help propel brands (and you) to the next level of shopping.
Mobile / Wireless mobile, retail, Shopping

Make Your Event Pop with Location Based Services

Christina Coster, CRC Productions
Everyone goes out to events. Every Friday night is an event. How do I get people to come to my event… READ MORE Everyone goes out to events. Every Friday night is an event. How do I get people to come to my event, both offline AND online? Technology has advanced to the point that people are able to interact with your event before, during and after the event – all while on the go. Are you as a brand prepared for the oncoming wave of technologically empowered individuals? How are you embracing them at your events, your competitor’s events, your partner’s events? This panel will delve into the different types of social media services that individuals and businesses planning events can rely on. Location based services and mobile apps will be heavily looked at in conjunction with more traditional social networks like Facebook and Twitter. We will show you how you can embrace and engage your audience leading up to the event by seeding information in these mobile networks as well as pulling out the metrics and analytics after the event. Events don’t just take place the day of the event. They now take place online for a duration before and after. We’ll look into all the different mobile apps you can use for your event including, but not limited to: Foursquare, Gowalla, Scvngr, Foodspotting, Whrrl, Plancast, Hot Potato and PegShot. Don’t think that only formal events are events. If you have a house party then that’s an event. This panel is for anyone who’s ever thrown a party, impromptu or formal.
Geolocation Events, geolocation, Location-based services

Consumer Engagement with Augmented Reality E-Commerce

Philip Rhodes, http://www.onetooneinteractive.com
Augmented reality and neuromarketing have been getting a lot of attention as cutting edge innovation… READ MORE Augmented reality and neuromarketing have been getting a lot of attention as cutting edge innovations that are available to brands to engage their customers and measure effectiveness. This panel will discuss ground breaking neuromarketing research that explores the difference between an AR e-commerce application vs. a traditional web based e-commerce application. The study will highlight perceptual changes, the level of neurological attention, and the post-purchase emotions that each experience yields. The study hypothesis is that e-commerce applications that utilize AR to enhance the buying experience will yield higher levels of positive engagement vs. traditional e-commerce applications.
Case Study Augmented Reality, ecommerce, neuromarketing

Augmented Reality for Marketers: Future of Consumer Interactions

Lynne Johnson, Advertising Research Foundation
Augmented Reality (AR), is an emerging technology that allows for digital images and information to … READ MORE Augmented Reality (AR), is an emerging technology that allows for digital images and information to be overlaid on smartphone screens or computer monitors. While still an emerging technology, many major players in retail and technology are executing successful AR campaigns that move beyond catchy 3-D graphics to deliver ROI by connecting to people’s social networks and providing clear incentives to purchase. The presenters will demonstrate how Augmented Reality (AR) provides a ‘touchstone technology’ that layers mobile commerce, social networking and location-based advertising in a seamless format for consumers and brands. This session will also cover: How brands are getting attention with Augmented Reality, How brands are seeing ROI from Augmented Reality, The multiple B2B and B2C applications for Augmented Reality, How Augmented Reality links to Location Aware Advertising and Predictive Modeling, Why Augmented Reality is not a gimmick but the future.
Mobile / Wireless AR, Augmented Reality, marketing

Brands and the Rise of Augmented Reality

Joshua Karpf, PepsiCo
From barcode-based social networking to mobile geosocial apps that share tips on any restaurant or b… READ MORE From barcode-based social networking to mobile geosocial apps that share tips on any restaurant or business within view of your phone’s camera, augmented reality is fast becoming an integral part of the new media experience. This panel provides an opportunity to hear from innovators in the field of augmented reality as they discuss game-changing milestones in the technology that have gotten us here and share insights into how users will adopt new augmented reality technology in 2011 and beyond.
New Technology / Next Generation Augmented Reality, new technology, next generation

AugmentedRetail: Geo-location as a Tool for Retail

Lee Tone, Greene8
The basic function of the mobile app allows customers to see what they’re looking for as an AR point… READ MORE The basic function of the mobile app allows customers to see what they’re looking for as an AR point on the horizon, or be directed to the item by an AR compass. Customers simply type in what they’re shopping for on their smartphone and the app shows them where the item is in relation to where they’re standing and which way they’re facing. The app can even plot an efficient course through the store based on a shopping list prepared ahead of time. The app can be automatically customized by keeping track of customer’s purchase habits, their shopping path and their subjectivity to promotions. The app can change the way a person shops by making their experience customizable and convenient based on real-time interaction. The app is good for retailers (grocery stores, hardware stores, etc.) because it allows them to see what their customers are looking for and how they react to promotional materials and product placement. Ad space can be cultivated in the app’s digital space and ads can be personally customized to each customer based on their purchasing habits. For example, if a customer buys Wheaties every week a suggestion ad can be generated to suggest similar products like Kashi. The app uses Twitter API so that customers can tweet about deals and review certain products, “These apples look delicious and they’re only 5 for a $1.” These tweets are viewed visually with AR markers geo-located to the exact spot the customer tweeted from.
Mobile Applications Augmented Reality, Geo-location, iphone

CITY AS PLATFORM:  Gameplay in the Third Space

Sara Thacher, Nonchalance
There is a growing zeitgeist of artists designing real world experiences that promote a sense of spo… READ MORE There is a growing zeitgeist of artists designing real world experiences that promote a sense of spontaneity and play throughout our urban landscapes. From epic-narrative driven adventures to casual street sports, the common interests is in taking interactivity off of the monitor and into the localized, visceral realm of our own neighborhoods. A series of case studies will be presented examining how new communities are being cultivated through these emergent forms of entertainment. The movement will be examined from a diverse range of perspectives including; Pervasive Play, Chaotic Fiction, Situationist and Performative Arts, Civic Engineering, Public Space Exploration and Reclamation. Experience-based examples will be presented from different applications (Automated Environments, Mobile Apps, Geocaching, LARPing, ARGs, Street Art, etc) and international scenes such as the Come Out & Play Festival, Hide & Seek Festival, ARG Fest-O-Con, Urban Playground Movement, and Open Engagement Conference. Presented by Sara Thacher and Jeff Hull of Nonchalance, a hybrid arts consultancy with an expertise in Situational Design. Their mission is to provoke discovery through visceral experience and pervasive play.
Visual Design art, Game Design, Geo-location

Monetizing Apps with Geofencing and Persistent Mobile Geolocation

Tasso Roumeliotis, Location Labs
Smartphones are everywhere. The market penetration of these devices is growing by leaps and bounds. … READ MORE Smartphones are everywhere. The market penetration of these devices is growing by leaps and bounds. One of the unique characteristics of smartphones is that they allow for “background processes”. From the perspective of geolocation, this means that phones can be tracked in the background nearly all the time. With ubiquitous and persistent mobile geolocation comes opportunity. If you know where someone is at all times, you can automatically trigger certain actions based on their location or even their crossing of a geographic boundary. Why is this valuable? In particular, if an end user is sent a coupon to their phone, how do you know if they “convert”. A pretty good indication would be if they walked into the store associated with the coupon. We call this a “physical click-through”. What if a user checks-in to a venue via a social game like Foursquare or Gowalla. Does the number of check-ins alone measure customer loyalty? Probably not. What if you could measure how long the end user stayed at the venue and check them out automatically when they left? Now you know that they checked-in and stayed for 1 minute or two hours. Geofencing is what makes the physical click-through and the automatic check-out possible. Want to learn more? This session is a must see…
Geolocation Geo-location, geofencing, Mobile Apps

LBS 101: the Arrival of Ubiquitous Geolocation

Jason Finkelstein, Location Labs
LBS is still a highly relevant subject and given that people are still curious and learning about LB… READ MORE LBS is still a highly relevant subject and given that people are still curious and learning about LBS, there’s an opportunity for another LBS 101 session targeted towards beginners in the space, but this time we can dig a little bit deeper. Some of the topics I will address include: (1) Locating feature phones vs. smartphones — can all phones really be located commercially? How? What are the differences between locating different kinds of phones from a technology standpoint, a privacy standpoint, a functional standpoint? (2) The economics of locating phones — what does it cost? How are wireless carriers and handset manufacturers involved? How are advertisers involved? (3) Types of LBS apps — are downloadable iPhone/Android apps the only LBS apps? What about SMS and voice apps which have a far greater addressable market and potential for ubiquitous usage? (4) LBS app use cases — what are some compelling LBS use cases besides the obvious mobile advertising / marketing ones, e.g. fraud detection, roadside assistance, gaming compliance, security, etc. (5) The future of LBS — who’s using LBS today and who will be using LBS in the coming months/years? With always-on location becoming more pervasive, what new and compelling services will we see? (6) Privacy — how much transparency do end users have when sharing their location? What incentives are being offered to end users to share location constantly?
Geolocation Geo-location, LBS, location-based technology

ReThinking Glo-cal

Joshua Karpf, PepsiCo
Technologies are simultaneously making things more global (transnational media flows via the interne… READ MORE Technologies are simultaneously making things more global (transnational media flows via the internet, World Cup fever across social media, international commerce) and more local (geolocation, Google Street View ). What does this mean for communication, cultures, media, and brands? Are the borders of the “nation” being redefined online? Is anything truly local or global or are these terms still relevant? This panel provides an opportunity to hear from a range of voices grappling with these issues, from developers to anthropologists, and get their insights on how digital tools are helping to redefine how we view and interact with each other around the world and come to understand our place within it.
Community / Online Community community, Culture, Geo-location

Location Based Monetization: How Can Geogames Make Money?

Zach Saul, Retronyms
The location-based services market has recently expanded from location-based utilities into the loca… READ MORE The location-based services market has recently expanded from location-based utilities into the location-based entertainment space, and this emerging market provides fertile ground for experimentation with new business models. Foursquare and Gowalla have demonstrated a promising potential business model around competitive check-ins and offers in a location-based social network, but this is just the beginning of the opportunities. There are many other potential business models, including sales to users, virtual goods, technology hosting, location-based advertising, technology licensing and brand promotions. This panel will bring together experts from varied backgrounds to discuss each of these potential business models. Panelists will include developers of geogame technology and their customers: advertisers, technology licensors and brand marketers. The conversation will focus on the business models that the developers see as viable and on the needs of these big customers. We’ll make sure to cover both current and emerging business models, and everybody will make their predictions about the next big thing!
Entrepreneurism / Monetization geolocation, GPS, LBS

Converting Checkin’s to Cash: Why Location Marketing Matters

Simon Salt, Incslingers
Social Location Marketing is the latest in a long line of Social Media “shiny new objects” but is it… READ MORE Social Location Marketing is the latest in a long line of Social Media “shiny new objects” but is it really relevant to marketers? Can they convert Checkin’s to cash? Which platforms work best for which markets and how does all this sharing benefit the customer? Attendees will leave knowing why they should be including this in their marketing mix, how to construct a scalable Social Location Marketing campaign and where all this is likely to go next.
Geolocation Social Location , Social Location Marketing, Social Location Sharing

The Future of Local: Foursquare, Twitter and Yelp

Eric Singley, Yelp
Local search as we once knew it has been redefined. Today consumers are increasingly relying on loca… READ MORE Local search as we once knew it has been redefined. Today consumers are increasingly relying on location based mobile apps to discover what’s around them. What does this shift in user behavior look like and how are small business owners leveraging these channels to attract new customers. The land grab for mindshare and a piece of the estimated $130+ billion local ad market* has been fast and furious. Product gurus from Foursquare, Twitter and Yelp sound off on what type of engagement they are seeing from both consumers and small businesses. (*BIA/Kelsey’s Local Media Annual Forecast, Feb 2010)
Geolocation local, Mobile Consumers, small business

Age of the Check-In: Gamification of the Real-World

Keith Lee, Booyah
As day-to-day activities become more steeped in the virtual world, more consumers are beginning to s… READ MORE As day-to-day activities become more steeped in the virtual world, more consumers are beginning to see a “gamification” of real life. This digital shift is the gateway to fully realized social worlds that integrate real-life elements, accessible at any time, even on the go. Suddenly, people are everywhere, literally, checking-in at real-life locations and broadcasting the results to online social networks, to friends and beyond. What kind of virtual rewards can marketers provide to incentivize the check-in? In this presentation, Keith Lee takes advertisers and marketers on a wild ride through new interactive experiences, exploring how social and mobile networks are bringing innovative and entertaining new experiences to consumers and marketers alike.
Gaming on Mobile Devices geolocation, location-based apps, mobile check-in

Exploring the Sweet Spot: Geolocation, Health, and Gov-data

Jeremy Vanderlan, AIDS.gov/ICF International
Location based services are increasingly important, especially when it comes to accessing health inf… READ MORE Location based services are increasingly important, especially when it comes to accessing health information and services. Over the past year and a half, AIDS.gov, a program of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of HIV/AIDS Policy, has been collaborating with other Federal agencies (CDC, HUD, SAMHSA, among others) to develop an HIV/AIDS prevention and service locator. This new tool combines key Federal HIV/AIDS programs such as HIV testing, mental health services, health centers, substance abuse clinics, and housing services. Each of these programs is run by a separate agency and pulls information from a wide range of sources. Beyond addressing what it took to get each agency to collaborate and push their data in a consumable format, this presentation will focus on the steps AIDS.gov took to create this locator service. We take a technical approach to discuss the GeoRSS standard, how we built the service using mostly JavaScript, and how we pushed this service to mobile, standard web, and native application platforms. We will also talk about the iterative design and development process, and we tie it all together with the big ticket: the sweet spot of location, mobile, and health. We cover it all, location, Health IT, and Gov 2.0.
Geolocation Government and Technology, Health

What are your favorite panels from the list above?

Live chat

Here’s a list of a few upcoming events that I’ll will be speaking on location-based services/marketing and social media.

July: Cary, NC – SAS – The core values of Social Media and personal branding for kids (not open to the public)

July, 14: Durham, NC – @TIMC_NC – Panel: Doing Business the hyper-local Social Media Way [RSVP]

Join TIMA for the July Lunch & Learn program on Wednesday, July 14th at Hotel Indigo (just off Miami & I-40 near Ruddino’s). The panel discussion will review some of the new web and mobile based applications designed for local merchants and local consumers to come together. Some programs are game based, some are “Deal of the Day” and others rely on community content building. What is all the excitement about and do the programs live up to the hype? Are they viable new sources for local advertising?

Join the expert panelists moderated by nationally recognized social media consultant Wayne Sutton. Our guests include Lawrence Ingram, creator and developer of Tri-Out, a social GPS program and Christina Gates, Community/Marketing Manager at Yelp!

July 15: Charlotte, NC – @SoFresh – Panel: The Evolution of Foursquare Marketing 7/15 [RSVP]

Foursquare and several other location based services are the new pretty girl at the party.
Join this timely panel to get the break down of how your business can begin to leverage Foursquare and other LBS platforms for your business, discover the emerging Foursquare marketing best practices, and how these technologies can improve your other marketing efforts.

Location based services, from Foursquare to Yelp to Twitter are receiving much attention as the newest channel of social media marketing. Join our panel of leading analysts and representatives of the services themselves as we discuss the value and possibilities of location based services.

July 22: Boston, MA – Panel – To Check-In or Not To Check-In? The Opportunities of Location Based Social Networking [RSVP]

Become a mayor, collect a coveted item, create a picture storyboard of where you’ve been – location based social networking (a.k.a. “LBS”) is fun, but is it more than just fun and games? Like the early stages of Twitter, LBS has its challenges (stability, adoption rates, etc.). But – whether it be lead generation, loyalty or business intelligence / data visualization and segmentation – the potential for businesses and marketers to leverage the power of location based knowledge is significant.

August 19: Raleigh, NC – Panel – @Triangleama – Location Based Marketing [more information coming soon]

Some of you may be wondering why am I talking about location so much now vs social media. We’ll I’m a partner of TriOut a location-bases service based out of Raleigh, NC were we not only provide consulting services but a service for the community and businesses. I still provide social media marketing services and more but if you or your business would like to learn how to leverage location bases services with your existing marketing efforts use the contact form on the contact page here. You can all see a list of previous speaking events here.

If you’re in the Raleigh, Charlotte or Boston area I hope you have the opportunity to attend one of the upcoming events.

Although the mall apparently had been open all night for people to start lining up at the Apple store’s front doors, I arrived at Crabtree bright and early at 5:00am, thinking that the mall wouldn’t open until 5:30am. To my surprise, we found two separate lines forming, one for those with iPhones reserved and another for those without a reservation. There were only about 50 people in the reservation line by the time we arrived at 5am, but unfortunately we found ourselves behind at least 150 others without reservations.

The lines already forming on either side of the Apple store at 5:00am

As early as it was, people were generally in good spirits and playing nice. Some were still sleeping from the overnight camp while others took the time to catch up on their laptops or iPads even though the reception and WiFi service was pretty slow. One person even brought his guitar and played it in the beach chair he brought. Everyone slowly started making friends with their neighbors in line knowing that they may be in it for the long haul.

Around 6:15am a few Apple employees brought out 10 dozen or so Dunkin Donuts to feed the early morning crowd. A good sign of things to come!

Anticipation grew as 7:00am neared. A few minutes before 7am, employees took down the black curtain that prevented us from getting a sneak peak into the preparation for all the madness that was about to ensue and the crowd cheered for the first time.

You can see how fast the donuts went!

Immediately after the curtain fell (at 7:00am on the dot), 20 or so Apple employees came rushing out of the service door, running, screaming, and high-fiving everyone in line. We were all surprised, but it seemed like a great way to get the started!

Minutes later the doors finally opened at Apple and they started letting in about 10 people from the reservation line for every 1 person in the regular line. Needless to say, the reservation line moved pretty quickly for the first few hours while us in the regular line sat in the same place (only moving perhaps a foot an hour) for those first few hours.

The beginning of the non-reservation line...not moving

But around 11am we at the middle/back of the non-reservation line started heering loud mysterious cheers from the front of our line. Ended up they were just cheering every time someone from our line got to enter the Apple store, approximately every 10-15 minutes. It was pretty motivating, to say the least. After being there for 6+ hours I think Apple realized they needed to keep us customers still in line motivated as well. They started going down the line handing out packs of pretzels and Ritz crackers, bottles of water, and then all sorts of candy just as if it were Halloween.

Apple employees handing out snacks

Not only that, but just around lunch time, Subway staff came around passing out mini ham & turkey subs! Lunch? Really? Amazing. Then more candy. Then more water. Followed by Lindt chocolate passing out those little chocolates to anyone who wanted some. In the late afternoon Bare Essentials even passed out free makeup samples to all the girls. This line wasn’t actually half bad, huh?

Subway ladies passing out free lunch!

The line was moving about 5 minutes per person in line. I calculated I wouldn’t get into the store until 4:00pm at the earliest, but I stayed optimistic that perhaps it would start moving more quickly. By 3:00 I could start feeling the finish line as there were only 40-50 people ahead of me to go. We stayed energized by our new friends that we had just gotten to know over the past 10 hours. It was as if we’d known these people for months. We were never bored, but still eager to get through the line and back to our lives.

Here we could see the end of the line ahead...

But then something amazing happened. A young man approached us in line asking how long we’d been waiting here in line (this was typical as all the regular mall-goers had been asking all day what we were

Robin Patterson (a.k.a. God for the day) of Best Buy mobile

waiting in line for). When we told him since 5am, he told us that he worked over at Best Buy mobile and had a reservation for one of the 16GB iPhones cancel and he was offering it to me. Pure luck? An act of God? Either way, I left my place in line and followed “God” to his Best Buy mobile store and promptly paid for, activated, accessorized, and left the store with my new iPhone 4 in hand.

Upon leaving the mall I walked past my new friends who were still waiting in line and showed off my new gear.

They probably waited in line for another hour. Sorry Apple, you treated me really really well for those 11 hours, but in the end Best Buy mobile man saved the day!

The @David_Ragan interview

How would you like to see NASCAR drivers use twitter/social media more?

Here are a few of the social media channels from the Mustang 1000 Lap Challenge event.

https://www.mustang1000lapchallenge.com
https://twitter.com/FordRacing
http://www.facebook.com/fordmustang
http://www.facebook.com/OfficialFordRacing
http://www.youtube.com/user/FordRacingInsideOval
http://Twitter.com/fordmustang

If you’re a Ford Mustang fan you have to enjoy the Mustang 1000 Lap Challenge at Bristol Motor Speedway. If you’re looking to buy a new 2011 Mustang you also have to be excited about the miles per gallon it has with the horsepower. The 2011 Mustang is advertised to get 31 MPG with a horsepower of 305. Check out an under the hood look from Tom Barnes and Tim Duerr as they talk about the car and the Mustang 1000 Lap Challenge .

Here’s are some more photos from the car at Bristol Motor Speedway.

The contest to enter to win the 2011 Mustang is now over and there were over 51,000 submissions! Wow!

Yesterday, I blogged about covering the Ford Mustang 1000 lap challenge taking place at the famous Bristol Motor speedway. Part of the experience included meeting Mike Hembree @mikehembree of SpeedTV.com and driving a 2011 Ford Mustang V-6 from Charlotte, NC to Bristol, TN. We left from Charlotte Douglas Airport and among laying eyes on the 2011 Mustang my first impression was wow! The Mustang was painted in the a new “racing red” color with black stripes. The interior was black/grey leather featuring the Microsoft Sync system and navigation.

I was wording if Mike wanted to drive the entire trip and let me have some of the fun and drive to Bristol. But after one quick stop in Charlotte and Mike informing me about some articles he had to post, he handed over the keys and we were off to Bristol. The Mustang handled great on the HYW and we made a few stops for lunch and snacks but not to refuel.

After we arrived at Bristol Motor Speedway we met some of the @FordRacing team who’s going to be driving the Mustang for the 1000 lap challenge. We also had a chance to drive one of the Mustang’s on the track to test out just how many MPH a Mustang can get on the track.

Here’s are a few photos of the Mustang we drove from Charlotte to Bristol.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/waynesutton/4725035291/>

Up next photos and videos of the official Mustang V6 1000 Lap Challenge car.

Also you have until 10:00 am to guess how many laps the car will make for your chance to win a 2011 Mustang V-6. To enter visit https://www.mustang1000lapchallenge.com. Good luck!

Today I’m excited to announce that SocialWayne.com will be covering the Ford Mustang 1000 lap challenge at the Bristol Motor Speedway on Wednesday June 23, 2010. What is the 1000 lap challenge? We’ll its simple, four Ford Mustang engineers, along with NASCAR driver David Ragan will attempt to drive a 2011 Mustang V-6 more than 1,000 laps, or 533 miles, at Bristol Motor Speedway on a single tank of fuel. If you’re a NASCAR fan or in other words, that’s two Bristol races on one tang of gas using a stock unmodified Mustang V-6. The challenge will start around 7:00 AM on Wednesday morning and will finish later Wednesday evening. I’ll be there to live blog, tweet and posting content from the entire event.

Photo by: Bristol Motor Speedway

By the way, in case you didn’t know, I may not be the biggest NASCAR fan but back in the early days of NASCAR my father @williesutton used to take my sister and I to Charlotte Motor Speedway to watch races in the middle of the track. Since then I’ve always kept a close ear the NASCAR and who’s winning the points race and watching the evolution of drivers such as Richard Petty to Dale Earnhardt to Tony Stewart to Jimmie Johnson. So as you can image when the opportunity to cover the Ford Mustang 1000 lap challenge at Bristol called, I was extremely excited.

To prep for the event, I’ll meet-up with Mike Hembree @mikehembree from the Speed Channel in Charlotte, NC. From there we’re going to take turns driving a 2011 Mustang V-6 from Charlotte, NC to Bristol, TN. Can you say road-trip! Being that Mike’s twitter bio reads “been covering NASCAR since 1975.” and that was the year I was born it should make for an interesting drive to Bristol. Regardless I’m looking forward to meeting Mike and driving the Mustang if he lets me.

A recent tweet from Mike:

Once Mike and I arrive at Bristol, we’ll join other journalist/media and have the oppotunity to observe some final testing for Wednesday’s 1000 lap challenge and make a few laps on the famous Bristol short track! Woot! Then Wednesday morning the Ford Mustang 1000 lap challenge begins. At that time expect hourly updates from the 1000 lap challenge here on SocialWayne.com

For more information and a chance to win a 2001 Mustang head over to https://www.mustang1000lapchallenge.com where you can guess the correct number of completed laps and be entered into a drawing to win a 2011 Mustang V-6.

You can also follow Ford and Ford Racing via their social media channels below:
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ford
Twitter: http://twitter.com/ford
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/ford
Blog: http://www.thefordstory.com/
flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fordmotorcompany/

Ford Racing
Site: http://www.fordracing.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/FordRacing
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/OfficialFordRacing
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/FordRacingInsideOval

2011 Ford Mustang Press Release: http://bit.ly/8xNrkG
The Ford Mustang 1000 lap challenge Press Release: http://bit.ly/cubPnh

Disclosure: “My travel will be covered during this event”

Jean Sexton @injeanius

The goal of the blogger outreach was to increase exposure to new audiences through the use of social media and build relationships with those invited as the Biltmore estate looks as using new tools and online technology to increase visitation and over all sales. During our visit we had a full schedule and had the opportunity to stay in the Inn on Biltmore hotel that was open in 2001. Outside of the Biltmore House tour itself some of the other scheduled plans for the bloggers were:
Blogger group dinner at Cedric’s (one of their newly open restaurants)
Biltmore House (audio tour) & Gardens
Biltmore House “Friends & Family” Specialty Tour w/Museum Services
Biltmore House Rooftop Specialty Tour for spouse/family members
Dinner at the Bistro restaurant
Land Rover Driving Experience Adventure
Lunch at the Corner Kitchen in Biltmore Village

The overall experience at the Biltmore Estate was wonderful, full of learning, history, walking, relaxation and lots of great food, especially the desserts. I learned a lot about George Vanderbilt who is the mastermind behind the famous Biltmore House, along with his vision for the house as a get away from the fast city life and how the Biltmore Estate continues to be a thriving business today. I won’t go into too much detail as I encourage you to plan a trip to Biltmore Estate if you have the opportunity. Tip, if you visit the house make sure you go on the audio tour as you’ll learn a lot more.

After one of the dinners, I had a chance to talk with Kathleen Mosher, Director of Communications of the Biltmore Estate about how they could use social media with their existing marketing efforts. We discussed the some of the challenges and opportunities the Biltmore has, as the world continues to move to become more digital/gadget friendly but yet socially connected online. Here are some of the “nuggets” from the conversation.

Some of the Challenges and Opportunities of the Biltmore House using social media/new technology for marketing:

• The Biltmore House goal is to get people to drive and visit the Biltmore house along with promote and sell their other services.
• You can not take pictures or videos inside the house
• Connect and build a relationship with the hundreds of visitors they have each day
• Find a way to tell more about the history and experience of the Biltmore House online without feeling as though you could lose sales.
• Training hundreds of employees if you implement more digital interactions and tools
• Measuring/tracking content from visitors online
• Implementing an offline social marketing plan to build a relationship with visitors online for pre and post engagement
• Find a way to connect with visitors while they’re on the property such as twitter followers and/or Facebook fans/likes, flickr friends, etc
• Encourage more user generated content and feature it on Biltmore more online properties
• Create self guided mobile tours via mobile applications and/or QR/Bar-codes

After leaving the Biltmore Estate, we had the opportunity to meet Sherida Buchanan @Foodtopia at the Corner Kitchen @CornerKitchen for lunch. During lunch we were treated to some of the best pork chops and chocolate I’ve ever tasted and learned about the http://www.brewscruise.com/in Asheville (#idontdrink). We were also told about how awesome Asheville is and how they support one another by purchasing food from local vendors.

Regardless of what happens next or the results from the Biltmore blogger outreach I believe they’re on the right track and I’m excited to see what they do next online and offline. To Jean, the entire staff from the communications department to the tour guides, thank you for an awesome experience.

FYI I took over 100 photos during the three day venture and you can see them below via flickr.

The Biltmore Company
828-225-6709
www.biltmore.com
www.facebook.com/biltmore
www.twitter.com/BiltmoreEstate
The Biltmore House on TriOut

*Disclosure: “Biltmore invited me as their guest. My travel, admission and other expenses will be covered.”

How would you like to see the Biltmore Estate use social media?

This will be my second visit to the Biltmore as my first was back in the late 90s. I’m excited to participate in the event and look forward to meeting the Biltmore staff, fellow bloggers and Asheville locals. The official hashtag for the trip is #BiltmoreNC as myself and the other bloggers will live tweet and share our experiences over the next few days at the Biltmore. A big thanks to Jean Sexton @injeanius, Biltmore’s Corporate Communications Manager for inviting me.

More about the Biltmore via biltmore.com

George Vanderbilt envisioned Biltmore in 1888, while on a short vacation to Asheville. His imagination was sparked by the area’s beauty. He felt inspired to create a relaxed country estate in the Blue Ridge Mountains that would welcome family and friends for weeks, even months.
Through Biltmore, Mr. Vanderbilt’s vision and inspiration lives to this day. We receive more than one million guests every year at our 8,000-acre estate, with more than 1,700 employees ready to make each guests visit special.

The Biltmore Company
828-225-6709
www.biltmore.com
www.facebook.com/biltmore
www.twitter.com/BiltmoreEstate

*Disclosure: “Biltmore invited me as their guest. My travel, admission and other expenses will be covered.”

Have you visited the Biltmore before and what are your thoughts about a historic landmark use of social media and blogger outreach for marketing?

This past weekend I had the chance to attend and speak at WordCamp Raleigh @WordCampRaleigh. I think this was my fourth or fifth time attending a WordCamp event and my third time speaking at one. I must say by far that WordCamp Raleigh was the best one yet. The event was organized by Steve Mortiboy @wpsmort, Michael Torbet @michaeltorbert and Craig Tuller @craigtuller, along with a great team of volunteers. During the 2 day camp I met some awesome WordPress developers and speakers such as Syed @wpbeginner, Lisa Sabin-Wilson @LisaSabinWIlson, Dave Moyer @DaveMoyer and more. Also I had a chance to catch up with a few friends who I normally don’t see unless we’re at SXSW or BlogWorld such as Patrick O’Keefe @ifroggy, Brandon Eley @Eley, Stephan Segraves @ssegraves and Aaron Brazell @technosailor. It was great seeing everyone!

One of the highlights of WordCamp Raleigh was watching and participating in the SitePoint Podcast hosted by @iFroggy and team. The podcast was live video streamed and you can watch it here: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/7124319

My topic for WordCamp Raleigh was “Using WordPress to build your brand and telling your start-up story” in which Lawrence Ingraham @LawPower, TriOut founder joined me discussing how we used WordPress and blogged the launch of TriOut. Below is the presentation and you can see the notes on SlideShare.

Here are a few more blog post about WordCamp Raleigh:
WordCamp Raleigh 2010 Pictures – Part 1
WordCamp Raleigh 2010 (Overview)
WordCamp Raleigh 2010

Thanks to WordCamp Raleigh @WordCampRaleigh for having me and planning a great event. See you next year!

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to attend WWW2010 (pronounced Dub-Dub-Dub Twenty-Ten) and take part in the FutureWeb 2010 conference. The FutureWeb 2010 conference was just one out of four mini-conferences/tracks held during WWW2010. If you’re not familiar with WWW2010 it was created by Tim Berners-Lee who’s also known as the father of the Internet back in 1989.

I was going to write a long review about both conferences called “5 reasons why WWW2010 is the most important Internet conference in the world” but my friends Bora Zivkovic @Boraz and Gwynne Murphy @GwynneMurphy have written a two awesome post summarizing both conferences. But here’s my 5 reasons why I think WWW2010 is the most important Internet conference in the world along with a brief history of the conference and links to Bora’s and Gwynne’s articles. Also a link to the wrap-up post from the Future of Social Networks panel.

5 reasons why WWW2010 the most important Internet conference in the world:

1. History
WWW2010 is the first Internet conference in the world

2. The people
Not only was Tim Berners-Lee the founder of Internet was there but so Vint Cert, Vice President at Google, Bebo White who created the first web page and representatives from Microsoft, Yahoo, Facebook, Red Hat, iContact, Ask.com, Google and more where in attendance.
3. The content/context of the sessions/panel
I’ve been to a lot of Internet conferences and I must say that the context of the sessions at WWW2010 were great and very informational.

Bebo White photo by: @TheRab

4. The Location

WWW2010 was held in Raleigh, NC, well this one is a shameless plug for NC and with both UNC & NC State helping organize the conference it was great to WWW2010 in Raleigh, NC. I keep telling the world that NC is awesome and being that WWW2010 travels across the world each year I was proud to see in held in Raleigh and I hope everyone who attended had a chance to see how awesome NC is.

5. The posters/case studies/white papers
There was a poster room at WWW2010 where students showcased cased studies from various topics such as The Framework for Trust Establishment and Assessment on the Web of Data and Finding Influentials Based on The Temporal Order of Information Adoption in Twitter are just two examples of the some awesome research on display during the conference.

History of WWW via http://www2010.org/www/about/history/

The World Wide Web was first conceived in 1989 by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland. The first conference of the series, WWW1, was held at CERN in 1994 and organized by Robert Cailliau. The IW3C2 was founded by Joseph Hardin and Robert Cailliau later in 1994 and has been responsible for the conference series ever since. Except for 1994 and 1995 when two conferences were held each year, WWWn became an annual event held in late April or early May. The location of the conference rotates among North America, Europe, and Asia. In 2001 the conference designator changed from a number (1 through 10) to the year it is held; i.e., WWW11 became known as WWW2002, and so on.
Read more..

Photo by: Elon University

FutureWeb2010, Fred Stutzman, founder of ClaimID, moderated the panel on the future of the Web and social networks. Panelists includedCHRIS DIBONA of Google, DAVE RECORDON of Facebook, HENRY COPELAND of Blogads, ZEYNEP TUFEKCI of UMBC and WAYNE SUTTON, networks consultant.
Read More: Panelists discuss the future of social networks on the Web

Bora’s Post: Public vs. Publicized: Future of the Web at WWW2010

Number 5 in my book is diversity. While the attendees as a whole seemed quite balanced and diverse, the talks and panels were quite white-male-dominated or white-male-exclusive, with just a couple of great exceptions, most notably danah boyd. The opposing goals of having the people with the greatest name recognition (which are marketing gold for a meeting) or having a diverse group in which everyone feels comfortable and “an insider” are hard to reconcile.

Read More

Gwyne’s Post: My Experience at the WWW2010 Conference

Vint Cerf’s keynote talk on Wednesday about Bandwidth, Clouds and Things, Oh My! really made me think about this 37 year old thing called the internet that keeps us all connected. As Americans we take the network’s connectivity for granted, while the internet has only reached 20% of Asia. Cerf also spoke about the many challenges that we face today through growing access methods.

Read More

Thanks:
A big thanks to the WWW2010 conference organizers and a special thanks to Paul Jones @smalljones, Bora Zivkovic @Boraz, and Fred Stutzman fstutzman for allowing me to take part in such an awesome historic event.

Photo Gallery:

Interesting enough one of the questions from the audience was, what’s the next big thing or next big social network they should pay attention too. Being that one panel member is from Google, the other from Facebook you can guess what they said, Zeynep joked and said Facebook will take over the web, Henry and I agree on a level that some new soon to be announced platform could be just as popular as Facebook and Google now. When it came to me I repeated the question and stated that I felt like the guy asking the question was trying to verify what he may have read online that a very popular location-based app may be the next big thing. I don’t agree or suggest that any one platform at this current time will be the next big thing therefor I stated the following which was tweeted by @ImagineInternet “An aggregation of social platforms around your home base is going to be the next big thing.” – @waynesutton #fw2010 #www2010″.

In other words I believe moving forward people while start creating there own social networks via their website/blog that will pull in feeds and friends from existing/new social networks around content that they find valuable to their interest.

Do you agree or do you think some new shiny social network will be the next big thing and draw users from Facebook, Twitter or others?

– Post From My iPad

Location:S Salisbury St,Raleigh,United States

Here’s a look at some of there booths at the event.

Location:W Cabarrus St,Raleigh,United States

Links on SAS Social Media Analytics product:

• The official press release of Social Media Analytics
• The product information page
• Solutions Brief PDF: How can we best apply the knowledge we glean from online conversations?

*Disclosure: “SAS invited me to their SAS Global Forum user event as their guest to attend the launch of SAS Social Media Analytics. They paid my airfare, hotel and conference registration fees and gave me access to the product for evaluation.”

I will be posting more SAS Social media Analytics product in the upcoming days.

I have more post on SAS Social Media Analytics product coming soon.

*Disclosure”SAS invited me to their SAS Global Forum user event as their guest to attend the launch of SAS Social Media Analytics. They paid my airfare, hotel and conference registration fees and gave me access to the product for evaluation.”

As a location-based app fanboy and partner of a location-based service (TriOut) I was looking forward to not only checking in at various locations at SXSWi, but also checking in at new cities and venues I have never been before.

Prior to the trip I was talking with Lawrence Ingraham (@LawPower) (TriOut founder/developer) about how cool it would be if we had a widget that could display all the check-ins from the road trip and a check-in badge for NC residents who were attending SXSWi. Lawrence said no problem or something like that and thus we have the road to SXSWi check-in map via TriOut below.

Note you can create your own TriOut widget here: http://trioutnc.com/u/widgets.php

I was told by Jay Cuthrell (@qthrul) fellow NC friend who’s awesome that there were over 218 NC residents who attended SXSW. Although I wish all 218 were TriOut users, that just wasn’t the case but we did have 7 TriOut users checked-in at the Austin Convention Center. When they checked-in, they were welcomed to SXSW with the TriOut badge above.

While in Austin for SXSW I added every venue I visited to TriOut such as the Gingerman, the Hilton, Champions Sports Bar + Restaurant, The Belmont and more. One common question I received by doing so was that if TriOut is a NC location-based social network, why check-in at SXSW or add locations from other cites? My response was that even though we require TriOut iPhone users to be in the state of North Carolina to create an account and we emphasize on “Exploring the Triangle”, NC area, TriOut is also about NC residents as well. TriOut users let their friends know where they check-in to and/or where they’re on the way to. They write reviews about locations, post photos to share their experience.
.

Note: This was cross posted on the TriOut blog.

We have a serious offer for you that involves one of our most visible assets – our front windows. As you can see from the images on our website, we’ve taken a few creative liberties with them. Now it is your turn.

Here is our offer:

The four street-level windows of our prime Fayetteville Street location in downtown Raleigh are ready and waiting for your custom design to stop pedestrians in their tracks. To win our little contest, let our edgy FRAGMENT style cut through your window design, and the winner will see their vision realized within a $250 budget.

In return for your diligence, hard work and sacrifice:

You get the opportunity to have your design executed with the help of the ridiculously clever FRAGMENT team. Furthermore, you can build your portfolio, get name recognition and earn some serious street cred. (And we all know that goes a long way.)
Oh, did we mention that the winner gets a new Apple iPad? Yeah, that’s right, a real incentive to dust off your thinking cap.

So, you may ask…Who is eligible?

Our contest is open to everyone with a creative bone in their body. Students, freelance designers, art folks, the Triangle community at-large. Describe yourself. Okay, you’re eligible (as long as you are at least 18 years old).

However, you MUST do the following to get in on this sweet offer:

• Convey FRAGMENT style in a unique and original way, even if you submit multiple entries. This is a biggie.

• Submit your design(s) online by April 6, 2010 through our specially-designed entry form.

• Run wild with the rules. This is your opportunity to create a custom window display for all of downtown Raleigh to enjoy!

• Adhere to all official rules and regulations. If you think of any other jargon we forgot, please adhere to that too.

So, you may also ask…How can I submit my stuff?

You can submit your contest entry online by filling out our snazzy form, complete with your design description, and by uploading your window design mock up.

To simplify the design process, we’ve created a nifty FRAGMENT window template that you download here.

Yes, we are serious about our windows. Now, show us what you can do. All contest entries must be submitted by April 6, 2010 at 11:59 p.m. EST . You’re running out of time.

Just in case you didn’t know I’m attending SXSW Interactive 2010 this year and I’m lucky enough to participating in 2 session.

The first session is today called the Community Innovation Summit sponsored by @paypal

	Dave Mcclure 500 Hats Dave McClure likes to hang out with entrepreneurs, and occasionally help or invest in their startups if they let him. Dave has been geeking out in Silicon Valley for over twenty years, and has worked with companies such as PayPal, Mint, Founders Fund, Facebook, LinkedIn, SlideShare, Twilio, Simply Hired, O’Reilly Media, Intel, & Microsoft. Many years ago he used to do real work like coding or marketing or running conferences, but these days he mostly does useless stuff like sending lots of email, blogging, and hanging out on Facebook and Twitter. Dave also likes to play ultimate frisbee when his knees don’t hurt.
	Wayne Sutton Fragment/TriOut Think of me as the social media lead car on the Autobahn of the Internet. For more than four years, I’ve provided counsel to business leaders ranging from founders of small start-ups and representatives of non-profit organizations to CEOs of large and small corporations. For some, understanding the social media landscape is difficult. I help industry leaders maneuver through the lanes in the ever-changing Internet environment. Be it social media strategy, Web apps, blogs or new ways to use mobile technology as both a marketing and a sales tool, I make sure that my clients receive the most up-to-date information about best-practices and industry standards for digital/online communities. Speaking engagements, arranging meetups, producing conferences and events are extensions of my capabilities.
	Evan Cohen foursquare Evan Cohen is General Manager at foursquare, where he is responsible for building operational, marketing and business development capability. Prior to foursquare, Evan worked at Bebo in London, where he managed strategy and operations. Evan’s first immersion into the internet industry was in 1996, when he joined Jupiter Research as an analyst specializing in consumer market forecasting and internet usage behavior.
	Dave Peck LSF Interactive Dave Peck is the Social Media Strategist for LSF Interactive. Active in new media & online communities since 2004, he is one the early adopters of virtual worlds where he created the online persona of Britney Mason. As the Britney character he quickly built online buzz and became a featured user by such sites as: Twitter, MySpace,PodShow, Utterz, Blip.tv, and PodcastReady among many others. He has helped build online communities for such companies such as UC Berkeley, Stella McCartney, and Wells Fargo. Dave has worked as a Social Media Strategist on projects for The Grammys, The Ozzy Osbourne Auction, George Lynch and NPR. The TV networks CNBC and Current tv have profiled him for his social media work as well as online community building. In the past few years he has: been a founding member of the Association For Downloadable Media, Founding Member of the Social Media Club Editorial Board, A Featured Blogger by Sony and a contributor to the book : Marketing In The Social Media Era. When he is not speaking at events like 140 The Twitter Conference, Community 2.0 and Netroots Nation. Most he is spending time with his wife and 5 children. Recently he has joined LSF Interactive as their Social Media Strategist.
	Naveed Anwar PayPal Inc/X Developer Network Naveed is the Sr. Director of PayPal Developer Network. He has more than 15 years of experience in identity, authentication, safety, and security products, making him the perfect person to lead PayPal’s application developer community in mobile and web based payment systems. Naveed spent the last 12 years at AOL leading many businesses including, most recently, AOL’s developer network. Some highlights as head of AOL’s developer network include: building a network of more than 3 million+ AOL developers; managing a developer network that supports a dozen AOL businesses with total annual revenues of $4 billion; and assisting developers to build 20,000+ developer applications. Naveed is also passionately active in local and international non-profits focused on education including his own family foundation called the Anwar Foundation which helps underprivileged communities around the world.

Wayne Sutton Fragment/TriOut Think of me as the social media lead car on the Autobahn of the Internet. For more than four years, I’ve provided counsel to business leaders ranging from founders of small start-ups and representatives of non-profit organizations to CEOs of large and small corporations. For some, understanding the social media landscape is difficult. I help industry leaders maneuver through the lanes in the ever-changing Internet environment. Be it social media strategy, Web apps, blogs or new ways to use mobile technology as both a marketing and a sales tool, I make sure that my clients receive the most up-to-date information about best-practices and industry standards for digital/online communities. Speaking engagements, arranging meetups, producing conferences and events are extensions of my capabilities.

If you’re at SXSW please stop by and I’m going to try to live stream one ore both sessions here: http://socialwayne.com/sxsw2010/

But little did I know I would see Mr. Steve Jobs himself walking the red carpet. Yes, the CEO of Apple walked right in front of me with a guest trying to go unnoticed on the red carpet and he almost pulled it off too. I was using one of the Kodak’s cameras to zoom in and I saw what looked liked the back of his head. Then it hit me, OMG that’s Steve Jobs! Immediately I started screaming trying to get his attention and he glanced at me out of the corner of his eye with an aww you spotted me look. Also there was security guard behind him who had a similar smirk on his face who looked at me with a yes, that’s Steve Jobs look on his face.

So before I knew it, while everyone else was yelling at Quentin Tarantino and Lenny Kravitz who was right behind Mr. Jobs I was screaming, “it’s Steve Jobs!” When I say, I was screaming, Steve Jobs I mean literally screaming. Two other red carpet friends who I just met earlier on Sunday both gave me a look and one of them said. “Why are you screaming about Steve Jobs when Quentin Tarantino is standing right there? ”

My first answer was, you know he’s the CEO of Apple right. They’re response was, yes and somewhere between seeing and screaming “It’s Steve Jobs” I snapped a far off photo of him on the red carpet with my iPhone. Then realizing that the picture may be too far off I tried to take a close up picture of Mr. Jobs with one of the Kodak cameras but it was too late. Steve Jobs vanished on the red carpet sneaking past main stream media and all of the entertainment reporters unnoticed. So I emailed the picture to my posterous site which crossed posted here on SocialWayne.com but tweeted the Posterous link.

Daniel & Carrie from the bleachers.

From there after calming down and thinking, wow I just saw Steve Jobs in real life, I was still trying to convince my red carpet bleachers friends how big of a deal it was that we just saw Steve Jobs. They brushed it off and everyone continued to take photos of other celebrities walking the red carpet. After a few minutes I checked my Twitter stream and saw that @TUAW had retweeted me, then the story was on CNet.com in which they called Apple’s PR to confirm that Steve Jobs attended the Oscars. Next I received an email from Peter Kafka senior editor of AllthingsD.com asking if he could use my photo and if I had any more information to add to the story he was working on. Soon after that, I received a few tweets that the photo was on Mashable and Apple had released a new iPad commercial during the Oscars. The rest is what you can say is history from retweets, to more blog post to even being listed on Techmeme as a source. I’ve been trying to get on Techmeme for years!

I’m not going to go into why  Steve Jobs was at the Oscars or about the iPad but even if it was for a brief second, I can say I saw Steve Jobs in real life at the Oscars and I owe it all to Kodak. Thanks Tom and Jennifer @KodakCB.

As for the media/blog frenzy here are a few of the blog post about Steve Jobs walking on the red carpet for the Oscars 2010.

1. Cnet: Steve Jobs spotted at the Oscars; iPad ad runs
2. CnnMoney.com: Steve Jobs’ big night at the Oscars
3. All Things Digital: “OMG It’s Steve Jobs! I’m the Only One Yelling at Him!”
4. Huffingtonpost.com: Steve Jobs’ Oscar Cameo: PICTURES Of Tux-Wearing Apple CEO On The Red Carpet
5. Venture Beat: Steve Jobs attends Academy Awards, Apple runs iPad commercial during the Oscars
6. Good Morning Silicon Valley: Jobs and iPad make Oscar cameos
7. theappleblog.com: Apple at the Oscars
8. Mashable: First iPad Commercial Airs During the Oscars [VIDEO]
9. Steve Jobs spotted at the Oscars; iPad ad runs
10. Thanks to Pixar, Steve Jobs Makes an Appearance at 2010 Oscars
11. The Oscars Featuring Steve Jobs and iPad Commercials
12. Market Recap: Nasdaq Composite Rises to a New 52-Week High
13. Steve Jobs Takes iPad Promotion to the Oscars
14. Apple’s iPad invasion: First stop, Hollywood
15. Steve Jobs hits the Oscars

As for the photo that started it all, here it is with one more blurry head shot of Mr. Steve Jobs.

If you had a chance to interview Steve Jobs what would you ask him?

Join us this Saturday from 4:00 – 6:00 p.m. at the Atrium Lounge at the Hilton Los Angeles/Universal City to celebrate the 2010 Oscars. This year, Kodak will be sending some of our nation’s top bloggers to report live from the Red Carpet.

Then we’ll head over to City Walk for a great night out!

You can RSVP below or go here: http://preoscarstweetup.eventbrite.com/

A big thanks to @HiltonUniversal for hosting, and we hope to see you there!

The NC Comedy Arts Festival

The NC Comedy Arts Festival is the largest comedy festival in the Southern U.S. featuring improv, standup comedy, sketch comedy and film & video.

Dates: February 11-14, 16-21, 25-27

More info: http://www.nccomedyarts.com

NC Comedy Arts Festival Tweetup

Date: Thursday February 18, 6:30 PM – 8:00 PM

More info: http://nccomedy.eventbrite.com

TriOut Launch Party – Sponsored by the Research Triangle Park

Date: Wednesday, February 17, 5:30 PM – 8:00 PM (ET)

Location: The Research Triangle Park

RSVP: http://trioutlaunchparty.eventbrite.com

NC jQuery & JavaScript Camp: Winter 2010

Date: Saturday, February 20, 2010 10:00 AM – 4:00PM

Location: Durham Arts Council

RSVP: http://ncjquerycamp2.eventbrite.com

February Triangle Social Media Club

SXSW Preview

Date: Thursday, February 25, 7:00 PM

Location: Bandwidth – http://bandwidth.com

RSVP: http://smctrianglefeb10.eventbrite.com

Triangle FreezeUp! FreezerBurns Live! @DQ

Date: Monday, March 01, 2010 7:00 PM – 10:00

Location: DQ Grill & Chill

RSVP: http://freezeup.eventbrite.com

Ignite Raleigh 2

Date: March 3, 2010

Location: Lincoln Theatre, Raleigh, NC

Now taking submissions for presentations at: http://voting.igniteraleigh.com

RSVP: http://igniteraleigh2.eventbrite.com

TedxTriangleNC

Date: March 6, 2010.

Location: RTP Headquarters

More information: http://www.tedxtrianglenc.com

Date: March 8, 2010.

Location: Six Plates Wine Bar

More information: http://www.fizzleddurham.com

Be sure to check out the full caleneder of weekly events and more at http://socialcarolina.org.

Can you say road trip! That’s right folks, Chevrolet looking to take advantage of social media by having teams from eight cities blog and participate in 50 challenges on the way to Austin, TX for SXSW. The cites included are San Diego, Detroit, Lansing, Chicago, Atlanta, South Florida, North Carolina and New York. I’ll be joining NC team North Carolina which includes:

Jason Keath @jakrose
Nicole D’Alonzo @nikisnotes
Ryan Boyles  @theRab.
Wayne Sutton @WayneSutton

Here’s more information about Chevrolet’s SXSW Road Trip Challenge via GM’s FastLane Blog: http://fastlane.gmblogs.com/archives/2010/02/chevrolets_sxsw_road_trip_challenge.html
Here’s how it works: starting today and running through February 28th, we’re asking you to submit your ideas to @chevrolet on Twitter, or to facebook.com/Chevrolet, of the challenges you’d like to see the eight teams complete on their trip. We’re selecting 10 tasks from each of five different categories: Charity (ex: stop at an animal shelter and walk the dogs), Collection (ex: collect a sample of water from a famous body of water near you), Physical Challenge (ex: climb a rock wall, or stuff your trunk full of balloons), Interaction (ex: meet up w/one of your followers and give them a test drive, or get a group of people to sing a famous song, flash-mob style), and Digital Image (ex: take a photo of a cactus or rock that looks uncannily like one of your team members). We’ll take our favorite 45 ideas that come in to @chevrolet or to the teams involved, and make them required missions for the teams on the road trip. (We’re going to pick one challenge for each category ourselves; hey, it’s our promotion, so we get to pick at least one, right?) On March 8, when the teams are starting to head off to Austin, we’ll reveal the 50 missions – and then you get to follow along and see how they’re doing!

Over the next few weeks here on (FastLane/Chevy’s Facebook page), we’ll be profiling each of the eight teams competing in this road trip challenge so you can get to know the contestants a little better. Since the teams are going to be collecting ideas for challenges from their fans and followers as well, you’re going to want to keep a close eye on them on Twitter in the next few weeks to get a sense of the kinds of things they’re coming up with. Here are the eight teams and their captains’ Twitter IDs:

Jason Keath is our team captain and we’re excited about the opportunity to work with Chevrolet @chevrolet / Christopher Barger @cbarger and to the other teams good luck but team North Carolina will win!

Photo by United Nations Development Programme / CC BY 2.0

Recently Mitch Joel and Joseph Jaffe promised to auction off keynote addresses for Haiti relief, with their services going to the highest bidder. This idea inspired me to do something similar here in the Triangle. As with all human endeavors involving more than one person, it took some time to organize, but we’ve got the participants lined up, so let’s get this started.

We will plan and present a half-day social media workshop to the Triangle-area company that makes the highest donation to Red Cross Haiti relief, with a reserve of $1000. The workshop will be held onsite at your company and tailored to your needs. I’ve lined up a solid group of social media professionals to make this a truly valuable event:

Wayne Sutton, nationally known blogger at http://socialwayne.com and social media/community strategist for Twine Interactive,

Jeff Cohen, a social media consultant and practitioner and one of the principles of SocialMediaB2B.com, one of the most active and useful sites for social media for business,

Mur Lafferty, award-winning podcasting author, writer, blogger, and speaker, co-author of Tricks of the Podcasting Masters, host of I Should Be Writing, the Tor.com Story podcast, and several fiction podcasts,

Brian McDonald, marketing director at Zencos, blogger at http://squarejawmedia.com and Social Media VP of the Triangle chapter of the American Marketing Association,

Ryan Boyles, community manager at IBM, focused on connecting with customers and partners with social media and nurturing brand advocates with engagement inside and outside the company firewall,

David B. Thomas (me), social media manager at SAS, responsible for directing SAS’ social media strategy and the practical aspects of integrating social media into the company’s operations globally.

Ready to start the bidding? We’ll do it by email. Send your bids, starting at $1000, to trianglebenefit@gmail.com. We’ll keep the bidding open until 5:00 p.m. ET on Friday, Feb. 19. The workshop will go to the company that promises by email before the deadline to make the highest donation over $1000 to the American Red Cross Haiti Relief and Development Fund. Once you’ve been notified that you’ve won the bid, you’ll be asked to provide proof of your donation before we plan the event.

A few common-sense rules: This auction is open to companies and organizations in the Triangle area of North Carolina (Raleigh, Cary, Durham, Chapel Hill and environs). We will present the workshop at the donor company’s Triangle location or a Triangle site of your choosing. The winning donor company is responsible for providing the location and facilities. Any expenses related to the facility and the event, and any required materials, as well as any refreshments you want to provide, are the responsibility of the winning donor. In other words, we’re not bringing the coffee or pads and pencils or any of that stuff, and it would be great if you could supply a projector. Any tax implications of this donation are solely the responsibility of the donor company.

We’ll work with you to find a mutually-agreeable time for the workshop before June 1, 2010.

If you know a company that would be interested, please help us by forwarding this, and sharing it with your networks.

Please note: I’m involved in this and promoting it on my blog, but this is not an official SAS-sponsored event. All of the folks involved in this event are participating on their own and not as official representatives of their respective companies.

Social Fresh Nashville is just one week away on January 11, 2010 and I’m excited to be one of  speakers for the first Social Fresh social media conference of 2010.

“ Social Fresh is a one day social media conference targeting professional marketers and focusing on case study heavy content. Jason Keath founded the Social Fresh series of conferences in early 2009. Keath saw a need in the secondary markets for conferences targeting an audience who works in marketing, advertising, PR, SEO or web development for Fortune 1000 companies or government. Social Fresh uses case studies of big ideas, success stories, and ROI of social media from a corporate and branding perspective. ”  via Techdrawl

Some of the other speakers include:

• Amber Naslund of Radian6
• Paula Berg of Southwest Airlines
• Kipp Bodnar of Howard Merrell & Partners
• Bert Dumars of Rubbermaid
• Lisa Hoffman of Duke Energy
• Jason Falls of SocialMediaExplorer.com
• Zena Weist of Embarq
• Jeff Cohen of SocialMediaB2B.com
• Nick Ayres of Home Depot
• Jason Kintzler of PitchEngine.com
• Matt Browne of Lending Tree
• Dan Zarrella of Hubspot
• Geno Church of Brains on Fire
• Tessa Horehled of THINK Interactive
• Brian Simpson of Roger Smith Hotel
• Greg Cangialosi & DJ Waldow of Blue Sky Factory
• and more!

I will be participating  on the Twitter and Facebook Success panel along with

Shashi Bellamkonda @shashib Social Media Swami  Network Solutions

Gavin Baker @gavinbaker Social Media Manager  Ruby Tuesday

Arie Ball @arie_ball VP Talent Acquisition Sodexo

Nick Ayres
@nickjayres
New Media +
Content Manager
The Home Depot

If you have any questions or topics you would like for us to discuss during the session, feel free to leave them on the Social Fresh Ning site for the panel here: http://socialfresh.ning.com/forum/topics/questions-real-twitter-and.

You can register for Social Fresh Nashville at http://socialfresh.com/nashville.  Hurry because the first social fresh  conference in Charlotte, NC  sold out.

So last night while at the Internet Summit pre-party I was chatting with Simon Cole @simonjcole, Meg Crawford @Postgrad and Tessa Horehled @tessa about what drives attendees for tech / social media conferences and what are the top conferences that people should attend in 2010. Most people would say it’s the content or the speakers that drive attendees, for me it’s networking.

As we start looking at budgets for next year people are already starting to plan what conferences they should attend in 2010. While talking last night we were listing conferences that were valuable to us such as SXSW and BlogWorld (of course) but then after that the list is wide open. I would also add my conference (The Social Media Business Forum ( http://socialmediabusinessforum.com ) #shamelessplug .

With that being said, what were your top Tech Conferences of 2009 and why?

Wrong!
You know the saying, “build it and they will come” well, we all know how that works out and now it seems there’s a new saying, call your meetup a Tweetup and they will come. Just like the first saying, businesses and people need plan accordingly and don’t expect by calling your event a Tweetup that the Twitter community will embrace your meetup and show up tweeting about your product or services.

What’s a Tweetup?
Oh, if you’re wondering what a Tweetup is, according to urbandictionary.com a Tweetup is A group of friends on Twitter (social network) that are planning to meet up, that’s it, that’s all. But with the success of Twitter in the news, TVs shows and being used by music artist and other celebrities Twitter has now caught the eyes of brands to host Tweetups as a way to reach various communities to market their services offline and locally to potential buyers. Tweetups can consist of two people and can be held anywhere from coffee shops to businesses to parks. There are sites now that focus on Tweetups such as: http://tweetups.com

Tweetup Photo by Jeff Cohen

Past Tweetup Success
You may be asking why am I posting about this now, well, in the past few weeks I have been approached by a few national brands, local malls stores and individuals about hosting a tweetup. It seems that people have started to notice the success we have had with Triangle Tweetups ( http://triangletweetup.org ) in North Carolina. Some of our past Triangle Tweetup numbers have been 150, 250 to 180 attendees with our recent partnership with the North Carolina State Fair to host a Deep Fried Triangle Tweetup at the State Fair. What’s unique about those Tweetups except for the @NCStateFair tweetup is they were not directly linked to another event/conference. There were just planned well and organized to bring the community together to learn and network with the common interest being Twitter.

Brands, Businesses and Tweetups
As I stated earlier, brands / businesses are now hosting tweetups to reach out to various communities offline to market their product and services. There’s nothing wrong with that but I would like caution companies looking to host Tweetups because it’s the new “cool” thing to do without any research. Especially if you’re trying to host a Tweetup in a different location where you may not have a local connection or network reach. But even then I would do a lot of market/Twitter research to see how the local community uses twitter and with various Twitter tools available it’s easy to find users by location now. Also look at how locations view your brand before you host a Tweetup. The last thing you want is to have a tweetup and all the attendees are showing up to complain about your product or service.

Social media event marketing 101
So you still want to plan a Tweetup? If you’re an individual and just want to meet for coffee, lunch or just to catch-up with local tweeple, have at it and enjoy. I think I’m meeting a few friends at a coffee shop in Raleigh for a #busybeetweetup in  a few weeks myself. But if you’re a company and you want to host a Tweetup to announce your grand opening or your new product / service or to show that you “get social media” I would start with the following before I decided to host a Tweetup:
1. Use a custom twitter location search or Twitter Grader to find local Twitter users and build a relationship with them.
2. Plan at least 30 to 60 days ahead to market your event.
3. Join other location based social networks such as Whrrl, brightkite, foursquare, gowalla, and Tri-Out (NC only) and connect with the community there.
4. Find the right loaction with wifi and good parking.
5. Use a Tweetup planning sites like: http://twtvite.com or http://tweetvite.com
6. Sponsor existing Tweetups held by the community that can serve as the same purpose as hosting a tweetup
7. Ask yourself the following: Why does my company want to plan a Tweetup
What is my goal for planning a Tweetup and how are we going to measure the success of the Tweetup

No guarantees
With that being said you could simply hire companies or experienced individuals to plan Tweetups for your organization and talking with these individuals you may find out that a Tweetup may not be something you should invest your time or money into at the moment just because it’s the cool thing to do. Yes, hire someone because even though Twitter is free but peoples time, network and expereince is not. Still there are no guarantees, even after you have done your market research and planned accordingly that after the doors open and tweeple arrive that you will convert a tweetup attendee to a new customer.

My experience?
I’m co-organizer of the Triangle Tweetup in Raleigh, NC ( http://triangletweetup.org ) and partner of OurHashtag where we plan community events using social media. I planned the first tweetup in North Carolina with 5 people in December of 2007 and have planned tweetups up to 250 attendees in 2009. I have also co-organized first time tweetups in Atlanta, GA, Charlotte, Raleigh Wilmington & Durham, NC & Harlem, NY.

If you would like to plan a Tweetup or use social media to plan an event email us at contact@OurhHastag.com.

A lot of the time people set unrealistic goals when attending conferences, they go with an expectation of being wowed by speakers and they will hear some grounding breaking secret that is going to tell them how to send a tweet and make a million dollars like Dell and that’s just not the case. But sometimes the over hype of attending a social media conference is to be blamed on conference organizers as they try to make the event sound awesome. Either way you should do your research and set realistic goals before you attend any conference.

Speaking of goals and getting to the ROI for attending a social media conference topic, as I mentioned defining your goals before you attend is key. While attending conferences most of the time your number one goal is simply to learn. I would say your second goal is to network for possible business leads or deals that could be profitable for you. For some, the goal for attending conferences is just a way to get out of the office and have a good time. That’s another story. One goal that I try to obtain while attending social media conferences is to create content while I’m there or afterwards via blogging therefore it becomes a resource not only for me but for my blog readers. Read a few post from David B. Thomas of SAS as an example

Now that you have your goals defined, then you measure the outcome by the following:

• Did you learn anything new?
• Did you build new relationships with possible partners?
• Did you create any new content before or after?
• Are you able to teach others about what you learned?
• Did you connect with someone new who you might be able to refer to someone else?
• Did you do more listening or talking?
• How many business cards did you pass out and obtain?
• If you’re planning a conference did you connect with a potential sponsor?
• Did you find answers to your  questions you had before you left?

These are a few ways I look at the ROI of attending not just social media conferences but any meetup or event.

Do you have any success stories from attending a social media conference? If so, please share in the comments.

Photo credit: (cc) Cameron Gawley – www.buzzshift.com

To say it has been a busy year is an understatement, all while launching a company called “OurHashtag” and planning local events in the Triangle (Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill, NC ). But last week my partners and I, along with the help of a great team of volunteers planned the Social Media Business Forum in Durham, NC at North Carolina Central University. The conference goal was to bring in national and local speakers together with businesses, marketing agencies and individuals who were looking to have conversations about using social media in their work environment. Basically to discuss “how social media is changing the way businesses communicate”. Personally another goal of the Social Media Business Forum was to bring the experiences I’ve collected while traveling to various conferences to the Triangle. Also I wanted bring in some of the industry leaders in social media marketing, Twitter, marketing, video and blogging to the area so others can learn from people who I consider my peers.

Another reason why we planned the conference is because if you look at your Facebook inbox, gmail and Twitter stream, I’m sure you see a tone of “social media” bootcamps, workshops and meetups from all types of individuals. Everyone from beginners, to copy cats, to other experienced individuals are planning events to share their knowledge on how to use social media. While there is nothing wrong with that, as Brogan would say, “you have to feed the babies” or something like that, my only caution is take a step back look at what your needs are, look at the agenda, speakers, “teachers”, your budget and other attendees to make sure you get the best ROI (return on your investment) while spending time at various “social media” events. Evaluating the ROI of attending meetups / conferences is a blog post by itself that I’ll touch on next week.

But back to the post title, why did we plan a Social Media Conference in North Carolina? Why not? Social media is about sharing, relationships, community, information, business and people; North Carolina has some of the smartest people in the technology / social web living right here in the Triangle and we wanted to bring some of them together and let everyone know it. So to all the speakers, sponsors, volunteers, my partners and attendees Thanks for making the Social Media Business Forum a success and we’ll see you next year.

Also read: Jeffrey L. Cohen Talks About the Social Media Business Forum

If you have been reading any of my recent blog post or following my tweets, then I’m sure you know that I attended BlogWorld Expo 2009. This was my first time attending and being that it was the largest expo yet, it seems like I picked a good time attend. While I enjoyed seeing and hanging with virtual friends at BlogWorld who I may have met once or twice in real-life, I was excited to met 11 other colleges for the first time offline. Here’s my list of first time in real-life encounters at Blog World Expo.

1. Chris Pirillo – @chrisPirillo – http://chris.pirillo.com

2. Cali Lewis @calilewis – http://www.geekbrief.tv

3. Ben Parr @BenParr - http://benparr.com

4. Drew Olanoff – @Drew - http://www.drewolanoff.com

5. Darren Rowse aka @ProBlogger – http://www.problogger.net

6. Kosso – @kosso – http://phreadz.com

7. Qiana Markham – @crimpshoes – http://www.beingqianamarkham.com

8. Calvin Lee – @mayhemstudios – http://mayhemstudios.com/blog

9. Giannii – @giannii – http://giannii.com/whats-your-story-g

10. Mona Nomura – @Mona – http://pixelbits.wordpress.com/about

11. Scott Monty – @ScottMonty – http://scottmonty.com

It was great meeting everyone and for others who I met for the first time it was nice to meet you too. Lets keep in touch.

If you attended Blog World Expo 2009, who did you meet for the first time in real-life and what are your thoughts on Blog World Expo 2009?

Session Description- How Twits Lay Golden Eggs: The Art of Authentic Engagement for Business Twitter has not only become an online communication phenomenon, but also an invaluable business tool. Learn how to utilize Twitter for business effectively without offending your target audience. Top tweeps will provide you with specific examples of how best to engage your network, tools and tips for sharing tweets creatively, as well as a Tweet Plan for streamlining your Twitter efforts!

Panelist: Nicole Nicolay, Jodee Rich, Chris Brogan, Nick Halstead, Laura Fitton

Video

Jason Peck @jasonpeck

Social media manager at @eWayDirect.

BlogWorld Expo 2009 Session:
Fitting It All In: Time Management Strategies for Social Media

Panelist:
Amber Naslund

Notes
Get organized, figure out where to spend your time
have tangible goals
netvibes – good way to build a dashboard for listening – twitter search, socialmention, boardtracker, google alerts, addictomatic
spend time on 2-3 tools that are valuable – don’t go chasing all of them
measuring and analyzing – it’s a must

social media maturity
Passive – listening 80%, 20% measuring
Responsive – monitoring, responding, measuring
Engaged – monitoring, research, initiating, responding, measuring
Creating – monitoring, research, initiating, responding, measuring and creating

allocating resources
listening – 1 person, 10-15 hrs per week
engaging, initiating, creating – 1-3 team members, 1-3 hrs per day
measuring – 1 person, 5-10 hrs per week

Managing disruptions – turn off twitter, turn off email

DJ Waldow @djwaldow Director of Community @BlueSkyFactory

1. Limit # of SM monitoring tools
-Radian6
-Tweetdeck/Hootsuite
2. Turn email off for a few hours a day. Don’t reply immediately
3. Get a task management program and USE IT. “Think” for Mac
-Pick 3 things you must accomplish and do nothing else until they are done
-Pick the ugliest one first
4. Routines
-Sit down for 2 hrs/day, 5 days a week and focus on blogger (or whatever)
-Allocate blocks of time
5. Give yourself permission to forget – read something and write it down.
6. Unplug – take your offline time
7. Pick a finite number of items to respond to and stick with it. It’s okay to not reply to everything. Get over it.

Amber’s blog post about Social Media Time Management

How do you manage your time using social media?

Jermine Dupri was one of the celebrities to be apart of the “The New Celebrity” keynote panel at BlogWorld Expo 2009. After the keynote I had a chance to interview Jermine Dupri about blogs, the future of the music industry, what insprires him, and social media etiquette. Take a look.

Are you following Jermaine Dupri @LTLline and do you agree with his points?

Video from session:

Notes
Microblogs are complementary not competitive
Conversations are fragmenting
You can either go where the readers are or wait for them to come to you
People will only engage with people where they are already commenting
You can go to where they are or you can wait for them to come to you
Measure what matters: Traffic != influence
Keys to building a lasting community = Content + Passion + Engagement
Success with a blog is about commenting to values
Don’t become a slave to focus on your blog without having fun

What are the keys = I control every pixel on my blog
You can personalize your blog over micro-blogs: widgets, links, theme, header,

Lead by: Louis Gray

Video from WayneSutton.TV

My Notes:
Session Introduction
Everything is moving faster even it we like it or not

More data is being creating today more than ever
What is real-time
search and discovery
transport of data
live activity with requiring refresh

Real-time search
1st friendfeed
twazzup
Collecata
searchtastic.com
Google isn’t providing real-time search like twitter and/or friendfeed

Friendfeed is like twitter search ++ and it has rich media
Real-Time search

Real-Time data export
Data is flowing everywhere
Problem is trying to get data
Pubsubhubbub = middle man form your content from your data to the networks
RSSCloud

Apps
Twitter Feed
Reader2Twitter – google reader shares to twitter
Pingie
Gnip

Eliminating the Refresh
Hitting the F5 or the refresh button shows you
Facebook is implementing the real-time web
Google Wave – massive collaboration system all at one time in real-time
LazyFeed – great way for finding information by content
Comments: Disqus & JS-Kit Echo

Real Time Summary
More Data. More Places. Faster
Real Time Enables Social Elements
Real Time Keeps Services Synched
Real Time is About Now
Real Time is Real

Best tool to manage brand in real-time
BackType
Tweetbeep

BlogWorld Notes: State of the Blogosphere keynote by Richard Jalichandra @jalichandra @blogworld #bwe09
Keynote link: http://blogworldexpo09.sched.org/event/25e08630a9d573177753f49af79d031e

Notes:
The state of the blogosphere is strong
The blogosphere is not dying or leveling off but thriving
Blogging is becoming mainstream
Mainstream is using blogging platforms and writing style
Blogs are media

Professional bloggers are keeping the blogosphere strong

Hobbyist – 72%
Professionals 28%
Professional Self-Employed
Professional Corporate
blog full-time for a company

Who are the professional bloggers?
2/3 male
60% 18-44
More affluent and educated than the general population hobbyist bloggers
2 out 3 blogging more than 2 years
Average of 4 blogs
17% say blogging is their primary source of income

Professional are even more prolific in 2009
Main stream media says bloggers are unprofessional,

Why are people blogging more:
Enjoy interacting with audience
interacting with other bloggers
valuable for promoting business
enjoy the attention

Professional bloggers and mainstream media
40% of bloggers have worked with traditional media
27% are still employed by traditional media
73 agree blogs are taken more serious
more agree newspapers won’t be around

Twitter
73% of bloggers use twitter
All bloggers #1 use of Twitter is to promote their blogs
Share links
understand what people are buzzing about
interact with readers

Style & Tone:
Hobbyist Personal, Professional Topical

Professional invest more time & resources
24-32% blog 10+ hours a week
10% blog 40+ hours
Pros invest 7x more money
The top 5,000 generate 100x more post
Professional are using tools:
a. commenting
b. search
c. trackbacks
To drive traffic
a. technorati
b. google
c. paid ads

The upside of bloggging
Success metrics
a. unquie and page views

Pros’ the benefits of credibility
a. 71% have greater visibility in their industry
b. 63% clients have purchased
c. company now a thought leader
d. asked to speak

Monetization and Revenue
Professional bloggers monetize their blogs via
a. 40% display ads
b. search ads
c. affiliate links
d. paid postings
e. self-employed bloggers are likely to sell their inventory through a blog ad network
f. 2 out of 3 part-time bloggers use self-serve ad platforms

Brands and the blogosphere
a. 70% of bloggers blog about brands

Professionals plan for the future :
Expansion and brand extension
a. blog more frequently
b. expand the topics that I blog about
c. Publish a book
d. speaking opportunities

Advice from the pros
a. Be Passionate

So…..How Many bloggers does it take to screw in a light bulb?

On Monday morning Technorati will start posting the State of the Blogosphere on Technorati.com

Panelist(s) Jeremiah Owyang (Moderator), Ted Murphy, Wendy Piersall
Panel Goal: To identify the goals of sponsored blogging. Pros and cons

What are sponsored conversations:
When a brand or advertiser give a product to a blogger to blog about it in an editorial conversations.
During the session they used the tag #sponblog

bigguyd: why not. As long as it's a product u believe in and you're not just schilling for free schwag. #bwe09

about 42 minutes ago

Thu Oct 15 23:09:32 +0000 2009

DeirdreReid: My qu, what reasons do ppl have to do it? Just make $? Seems so whorish. But it's a free country. #bwe09 #sponblog

about 45 minutes ago

Thu Oct 15 23:06:02 +0000 2009

haveAwonderful: i think folks get too bent out of shape about sponsors, disclosures, etc. everyone is always selling something. when passing…

about 52 minutes ago

Thu Oct 15 22:59:03 +0000 2009

waynesutton: Question: What are your thoughts on sponsored conversations/blog post/tweets are you in favor of it? Yes or No & why? #bwe09 #sponblog

about an hour ago

Thu Oct 15 22:49:54 +0000 2009

PS: This was a

Panelist(s)
Darren Rowse, Brian Clark, Chris Brogan

Notes:
Story behind #Tribe3

Is email marketing dead?
No, email marketing drives traffic on days
Is a great connecting point
Is good for connecting the brand
Don’t abuse your email newsletter
It’s not cool to add me to your email newsletter if you receive an email from me.

Relationships
Blogs going from your blog to “our” blog
Be a match maker and set your blog readers where they can interact with each other as much as possible
Being a part of a community is a privalge
The one sell marketing is the kiss of death
It’s all internet marketing even if you call it, content marketing, social media marketing, blog marketing
You have to have relationships with other people in your market
Sometimes having a big blog is a like a battleship
Sometimes smaller blogs having a smaller tighter community is better

What is it do you have a sell and how to find out what to sell?
Listen to your community and see what they want
Provide different type of content to sell
Ask your community before you start selling
Don’t ask for anything, then ask once
Don’t be afraid of selling (baby got to eat)
Wrong: selling is trying to get people to buy something they don’t want
Our entire economy

Audience Question:
Q. Thoughts on Google sidewiki
A. I think it’s stupid

Q. Thoughts on the FTC ruling
A. It’s OK, there are no difference between beginners and professionals selling products
B. Honesty is a great selling point
C. Don’t believe the hype

Q. How do you determine a price to sell.
A. Never ask your audience what they should pay
B. Look around for similar products
C. Check your competition

Q. How do approach and schedule your content
A. You schedule content if you don’t have time
B. Rhythm, find yours and stick
C. Create an agenda and deliver value with your content
D. Social media is great for creating something out of nothing
E. Try to get your reader to transit from a reader to a customer

Q. Discussion between social media marketing / internet marketing / marketing/ PR
A. Add social media to your existing marketing
B. Media is marketing
C. Become a media outlet

Q. How is important is video in the future conversations
A. Video takes work
B. Use videos to help build relationships
C. Video shows your personality

Announcement: 3Tribe
Inside the 3Tribe new product
Copy Blogger Email Newsletter: Internet Marketing For Smart People
Education is the best selling tool.

Notes:
Four pillars of awesomeness
ethical production
insanely great stuff
love
one more I missed

Photo: Rick Calvert aka @blogworld and Laura @Pistachio Fitton

Note: Laura @Pistachio Fitton will also be speaking in Durham, NC on October, 23 at the Social Media Business Forum http://www.socialmediabusinessforum.com/

About the Triangle Web Analytics meeting on Social Media Measurement:
The meeting will feature a Panel Discussion on Social Media Measurement featuring panelists Nathan Gilliatt of Social Target, Jeff Cohen of SocialMediaB2B.com, and Dave Harrell of Dave Harrell Advertising, moderated by Adam Covati, creator of idek.net and pici.me.Venue opens at 5:30 and the Panel Discussion will start at 6:00, followed by social / networking. This event is a chance to meet and network with web/online analytics professionals in the Triangle.

My Notes:
1. Defining social media & social media measurement
a. Blogs, wikis, social networks
b. Social Media Measurement:  Listening, monitoring,

2. Where do you draw the line between monitoring and measuring:
a. you must have a goal
b. web analytics are actions – monitoring what people are saying
c. the web gives you more tangible information on monitoring and measuring
d. Goal: not to have a big spike in traffic when you 1st start but have a goal to maintaining traffic

3. Thoughts on measuring goals of social media vs print and traditional web analytics
a. if you do social media right, it’s not “marketing’”, customer service but it’s everything about the goals of your company
b. monitoring the engagement, conversations, does the engagement lead to sells
c. make sure you can tie your social activity to some sort of marketing measurement
d. What is the pulse of the brand when using social engagement/ marketing and where it ends at a bottom line
e. It’s tough for people to see the value of social media

4. How do you measure influence
a. be aware of your goals of who you are trying to reach and content being posted. (videos, tags, links,)
b. influence = people who can make an action happen
c. What is your campaign trying to accomplish
d. Debate: trying to reach the people vs trying to market your message
e. You can measure influence and anything online

5. Anyone using Facebook trying to drive businesses to consumer (B2C) sales
a. Using Facebook for email opt-in
b. Facebook activity leading to brand awareness that leads to sales

6. Should social media analytics and web analytics be meshed together and why
a. yes, but not to many people are doing it.
b. social media measurement are meshed in with marketing and customer service

7. Thoughts on Radian6 compared to other free tools for social media monitor
a. Radian6 is a paid platform that has done a good job at branding themselves as the leader in the space
b. other tools: scout labs, filtrbox
c. Free tools are better for monitoring and measuring
d. Commercials tools do more monitoring than measuring

8. What are other social media distractions
a. Twitter, Facebook
b. What are your thoughts of organizations posting content on Facebook without any interaction
c. Make sure your goals go both ways
d. It’s hard to measure the success of other companies social media campaigns
e. The question is does the content you’re posting work good for your customers.
f. Social Networks can be great sales tools just as long as that you’re not selling
g. Regardless of the reports, find out what works best for your customers/audience

9. Why do we see a difference in social engagement between large brands and small companies
a. People connect with people and not big name brands (sometimes)

10. Interacting with Acer netbooks on Facebook
a. Customer looking for netbooks and watching customers share information when people ask questions.
b. Acer uses word of mouth marketing on Facebook with their fan page

11. Social Marketing has been the hot topic but what next?
a. More of the same, “social business”
b. Mobile use, QR codes
c. Companies will act as a filter and use apis to filter information so their employees can measure
d. Is the media business going out of business
e. location based tools
f. Make sure what you are doing is measurable

12. Transparency has gone up in the social space, you don’t really control it vs contribute to it.
a. At the end of the day , your brand is less about what you do than more of what your customer does.
b. FTC rules for bloggers will increase transparency

<hr>

What are your thoughts on my notes and Social Media Measurement?

Photo: by chrisheuer

If you listened to my podcast yesterday on the ROI in attending Social Media Conferences, then you know I just returned from IZEAFest a marketing / social media conference in Orlando, FL. organized by Ted Murphy. In my podcast I mentioned how the ROI for attending various social media conferences is relationships and from the relationships it could lead to more business deals and/or speaking opportunities. While it seems that everyone now is a social media guru or expert, or ninja or “fill in the blank”, the next social media must prove yourself thing to do is write a book or speak at various conferences. While my book is on the way, haha, I have been fortunate enough to take part in both local and national conferences / events such as SXSW, CLT WordCamp, SoFresh, Social Media Club meetings, Triangle Chapter of the American Marketing Association meetings, IZEAFest and more before the end of the year such as BlogWorld Expo, the Social Media Business Forum and Internet Summit 09.

Often I get asked how was I able to take part at various events or how can someone become a speaker at those events. While I’m no “keynote” speaker … yet  :), you can see a list of my past speaking events here on FriendWayne.com.  I still have a long ways to go, but here are a few tips on how to become a social media conference speaker that I have seen and done.

How to become a social media conference speaker:

• Start local – Be known in your own backyard before you try to go global
• Establish a personal brand / identity / voice – What will people say about you.
• Keep your social networking profiles updated (outdated info can cost you a gig)
• Attend other social media conferences – Network!
• Create valuable content to showcase your skills. No blog, no videos, no podcast = no gig. Unless you work for a major brand!
• Start your own conference / event and ask others to speak – if it works out they may return the favor… maybe.
• Have a travel budget
• Share your existing presentations on http://www.slideshare.net

Speaking Tips – As you start  becoming social media speaker, you need to do a few things such as:

• Be memorable and awesome
• Provide great content
• Provide new content (dont’ just talk about post you read on Mashable)
• Tell jokes and stories
• Rap – hat tip (Chris Brogan), I dare you! Wait, that’s Chris’s thing so …
• Don’t copy other speakers ( I know it’s hard to be creative)
• If you’re a quiet person, provide Really great content
• Practice, breath and have thick skin
• Don’t think about the tweets or “noise” that are being posted while you’re giving your talk.
• Have someone video your talks so you can post online for later.
• Ask yourself what separates you from the rest and why do you want to become a speaker.
• Be yourself.

If you have Never spoken at a conference in the past and would like to Attend the Social Media Business Forum on Friday, October 23 in Durham, NC, the first Two people who leave a comment on this post saying “I want to attend the Social Media Business Forum” will receive a free pass to the 1 day event. *Tweets or ReTweets of this post do not count.

If you’re a speaker I would love to hear any thoughts you have in the comments or if you have any speaking tips.

Last week I the opportunity to speak to a group of MBA students at NC State University about Social Media. Since the second half of 2008 I have been asked to either lead session or sit on panel covering various topics such as social networks, video blogging and using social media for journalism at Duke University and the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill (UNC). I have actually spoken at UNC 4 times in the last year and when I was asked to speak at NC State I felt as though I was completing the big 3 Triangle (Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill) university loop. (past speaking events)

I was asked to join a list of other guest speakers as part of MBA Social Media and Management class. A few of the other guest speakers includes Andy Beal, Joseph Jaffe, Katie Morse, Jeff Cohen and Polly Pearson covering various topics such as Blogging and micro-blogging, social networks, creativity, reputation management and B2B marketing using social media (schedule). My topic was social media etiquette, video and community building. The class was 1:15 long and to prepare I made a content outline and a list of questions to ask. One of the first things I told the students was that I wasn’t going to stand in-front of the class and talk for 1:15 and show them a bunch of slides. Not that there is anything wrong with having a presentation ready but if I’m leading a session on social media we’re going to be social.

A few talking points were:

• Why is video important?
• Example of video shows
• Best practices for creating online video
• Why online communities matter
• Comparing various communities
• Creating valuable content
• Conscious content posting

I’m glad I had an outline and was prepared but after an introduction from Professor Claudia Kimbrough, who introduced Chis Moody who then introduced me, I looked into the eyes of the students they all gave me that here comes another boring social media talk look. So then I decided at that moment to switch things up and as they say in the hip-hop world, freestyle it. I wanted to see what was on the students mind, what they have previously covered in social media and what was at the core using social media effectually. Therefore I asked the diverse room of students a series of questions about what happens during a period of time of online conversations between two new individuals using social media. The outcome was a relationship and trust using various tools such as Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin.

Other topics we touched on were the value of location based sites like Brightkite, uses for Linkedin and Facebook fanpages. While discussing Facebook fanpages we talked about brand engagement and why it’s important for companies not to just post / push content but really make an effort to communicate with their fans. Surprisingly we spent very little time focusing on Twitter and more time on social networking etiquette and what role students online content and behavior could affect their future in the job market.

Near the end of the class I suggested they look at creating a social media policy and I did touch briefly on how much it doesn’t cost to launch an online video show. Then I showed the students Jeff Cohen’s daughter new video blog called Grace Talks about Food to where she’s talking about a Hannan Montana Cereal in a video on YouTube. The reason I showed the class the video is because it’s a classic example of how simple it is to create videos about any topic you’re passionate about and how brands should reach out to their customers who are online posting content about their products. In other words, I’m expecting Grace to get an email or comment from Disney soon.

After the class I thanked Professor Kimbrough for having me and Chis Moody for the invite. While I was leaving I was wondering what the students thought of the session and by the way of tweets, I think they enjoyed it. Take a look.

LindsayCrawford: Thanks @waynesutton for an engaging presentation! He knows his stuff!

MacMan34: sitting in class listening to @waynesutton talk about video, social media, & communities.

lshawtter4: @waynesutton Thanks for dropping by NCSU. Informative and energetic presentation!!

Before the class started I did recved a few tweets from Paul Jones @smalljones a professor at UNC about more Social Media classes being taught by him and Fred Stutzman @fstutzman which can be found here and http://ibiblio.org/pjones/jomc449/wordpress/ and that Richward Waters @rdwaters teaches another class on social media at NC State too on Social Media and Public Relations http://ncsupublicrelations.wordpress.com

For more information on the NC State Social Media MBA class, see the links below.
Class syllabus: http://www4.ncsu.edu/~cbk/schedule.html
Class blog: http://ncstatesocialmedia.wordpress.com/
Professor: Claudia Kimbrough @calliekuhn

Again I would to thanks to Professor Kimbrough and Chis Moody for the invitation. Chris also has a blog post with a few notes from my session that can be found here: How to ACE Social Media: Alignment, Control, and Engagement

If you had the opportunity to tell college students one thing about social media what would it be?

IZEAFest organized by Ted Murphy and company, is an interactive event designed to educate, inform and connect social media enthusiasts at SeaWorld on October 1-4. I’ll be joining an awesome list of speakers by moderating the “Screen Gems” session on growing your community and increasing your reach with Sarah Austin of Pop17.com andJulia Roy JuliaRoy.com. Some of the other topics we’ll cover in our session will be video blogging, content creation and monetization in the social media space.

IZEAFest is marketed to bloggers, podcasters, tweeters, marketers & agency professionals, PR & communications practitioners. Thanks to Ted and others for invitation.

Do you have any questions you want me to ask Sarah and Julia?

Triangle Twitter users will not be confined to 140-character conversations as they experience the Fair’s offerings at the first Deep Fried Triangle Tweetup at the N.C. State Fair on Thursday, Oct. 22.

The event, co-hosted by the organizers of Triangle Tweetup, will be held in the Folk Festival Tent from 7 to 9 p.m. on Food Lion Hunger Relief Day.

“We’ve built great relationships over the past year with our social media followers, and we wanted to organize an event that would help them enjoy the Fair in a new social way,” said Wesley Wyatt, fair manager.

During the Deep Fried Triangle Tweetup, attendees will be able to sample deep-fried Fair food, interact with Fair entertainers, participate in a Twitter-themed scavenger hunt and enter to win prizes throughout the night. The event is part of a growing trend of events where participants have face-to-face gatherings with people they follow on social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook. It is also one of the first Tweetups hosted by a state fair.

The co-host, OurHashtag, has held 10 Triangle Tweetups during the past two years. The company’s partners Wayne Sutton, Jeff Cohen, Ryan Boyles and Kipp Bodnar are active members in the local social media community, and have planned several social media events including Ignite Raleigh and monthly Triangle Social Media Club meetings. Past Triangle Tweetups have included a charitable component to the main event.

“By holding the Tweetup on Hunger Relief Day, we are able to gather at the Fair without charging a registration fee, and can continue to help our community through charitable contributions,” Sutton said. Anyone who brings four cans of food to the Fair on Thursday, Oct. 22 will get in to the Fair for free.

The N.C. State Fair was the first fair to use Twitter, and currently connects with fairgoers on a variety of social media sites, including:

• Deep Fried @ the N.C. State Fair Blog: www.ncstatefair.org/blog
• Twitter: www.twitter.com/ncstatefair
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/ncstatefair
• MySpace: www.myspace.com/ncstatefair

The Deep Fried Triangle Tweetup is one of several new activities added this year to appeal to the state’s tech-savvy community. Other events include the TXT-O-LYMPIX texting competition and nightly video game contests.

Promotional video

More information about the Fair can be found at www.ncstatefair.org. Space is limited to the first 500 registrants.

So tonight MTV video music awards has gone all social media online and offline from iJustin pre-show hosting, a customize tweet all from Radian6, displaying both tweets and Facebook walls comments on their homepage MTV.com. But clearly the star stealer and news of the night is non other than Mr. Kanye West who embarrassed and insulted Taylor Swift after she won “Best Female Video” award.

If you’re not familar with Radian6 who’s created MTV’s tweet wall showing music artist, Radian6 provides the social media monitoring platform for marketing, communications and customer support professionals.

Now taking a look at the dot you can clearly see there have been a lot of tweets about Kanye’s rude behavor tonight at the VMA’s and I’m sure they are a lot of blog post about the situation too. If you’re using a social media monitoring platform such as Radian6 you would see a lot of negative content online right about now and the upcoming days. Kanye’s behavior isn’t new, from the President Bush remarks to previous MTV awards outburst but tonights incident clearly takes the cake and could be career threatening to such an artist the relies on the public to make money by selling music and performing.

So now what? Can Kanye’s personal brand overcome his latest outburst? If you were in charge of Kanye’s marketing what woud you do? Here’s a start list of a few options.

Fixing Kanye West

• A public apology to Taylor Swift online via YouTube
• Enforce a no drinking before attending an awards show rule
• Sit Kanye at least 5 rows back from the stage
• Create a song called I’m sorry Taylor
• Make video with Taylor Swift
• Take a 3 year break form the public spotlight.
• Stick to producing music
• Or you just wouldn’t was your time

Could you fix Kanye West personal brand problem? Is this the beginning of the downfall of Kanye West? Should MTV invite Kanye West ever again?

PS. Taylor Swift stay positive and continue to make great music.

If you have some ideas of who you think I should include as additional panelist, leave a comment on the SXSW voting page: http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/ideas/view/4432

Wait, you’re still reading this? Click on the button below and I hope you vote “Thumbs Up“.

Democratization of Event Planning through Social Media

Jason Keath (@sofresh), Brian Simpson (@RShotel), Jack Mardack (@eventbrite), Jennifer Van Grove (@jbruin of Mashable)

Become Immortal, Understanding the Digital Afterlife

John Romano and Evan Carroll (The Digital Beyond)

South by March Madness: Designing for .EDU

Evan Carroll (Capstrat) and Jackson Fox (Viget Labs)

Becoming a Real-Time Video Blogger in 2010

Wayne Sutton (WayneSutton.TV)

Will the Real Social Media Team Please Stand Up?

Ryan Boyles (IBM, Adam’s excellent presentation) I am the NC guy on a panel with Adam, Tiffany and Kapil

Generating B2B Leads Through Social Media: What’s Next?

Kipp Bodnar (Howard, Merrell & Partners/SocialMediaB2B.com ) and Jeff Cohen (OurHashtag)

Jack Bauer’s Guide to Managing Online Communities (Unofficial)

Patrick O’Keefe (iFroggy Network)

Film Blogs as Contagious Cinephilia: Amateur Criticism and Movie Culture

Chuck Tryon (author of Reinventing Cinema (Rutgers University Press, 2009) and The Chutry Experiment)

Too Much Text IV: A NEW HOPE

Jay Cuthrell (Managing Principal at cuthrell.com and reluctant periodic updater at fudge.org)

Have a great Labor Day Weekend!

If you have some ideas of who you think I should include as additional panelist, leave a comment on the SXSW voting page: http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/ideas/view/4432

Wait, you’re still reading this? Click on the button below and I hope you vote “Thumbs Up“.

Oh, while I’m at it, The Social Geeks is up for a SXSW panel panel too. Here’s the link and I’m sure by now you know what to do. http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/ideas/view/4942 The topic of the Social Geeks panel is Filtering and Controlling the Flow of Inbound Information.

This shameless plug post has been sponsored by Wayne Sutton, your friendly neighborhood geek. Thank you and now back to your regularly  scheduled content.

August: Raleigh, NC – Triangle AMA’s August luncheon: ‘Building Your Personal Brand Through Social Media’
Event link

August 24: Charlotte, NC – SocialFresh – Moderator: Future of Social Media Technology Panel
http://socialfresh.com

September: Chapel Hill, NC – North Carolina Literary Festival, Twitter as new form of written communication and how it is being used.
http://www.ncliteraryfestival.org

Friday, October 16 at 5 PM in Room 288 – Blog World Expo:
I’ll be participating in the “Social Media: What’s Not to Like” panel, which also features Amber Naslund; Director of Community at Radian6 and blogger at Altitude Branding, Patrick O’Keefe; Author of Managing Online Forums and Robert Scoble; Managing Director at Building43.com at Rackspace and blogger at Scobleizer.

November 4-5: Raleigh, NC – Internet Summit
http://www.internetsummit.com

November 6: Real Estate BarCampRDU
http://www.rebarcamprdu.com

Also today starts the voting process for SXSW 2010 presentation. I submitted a talk on “Becoming a Real-Time Video Blogger in 2010“ You can vote on my topic here: http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/ideas/view/4432 if you would like to see me and a selected group of individuals discuss this topic at SXSW next year. (I hope you do

Another SXSW panel to vote on that I’ll be participating with the Social Geeks is: Filtering and Controlling the Flow of Inbound Information, you can vote on the panel here: http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/ideas/view/4942

If you attend one of these events, please be sure to find me and say hello.

Thanks

Below is the video and my slides from my Ignite Raleigh presentation on 19 reasons why the Triangle is better than Silicon Valley. Let me know what you think, as I’m sure some Silcon Valley residents are sure to respond or retaliate. A big thanks to @GinnySkal for recording and posting the video on 30THREADS.com. Other Ignite Raleigh presenter videos will be posted on http://igniteraleigh.com website.

Video:

Presentation slides:

Already from Chris O’Brien @sjcobrien on Twitter

For those of you reside outside of NC we call the Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill and surrounding areas the Triangle and this week we having Triangle Tech week. Every day starting Monday August 3 thru August 8 there will be a different Technology/ social media/ geek event to attend. Also we’re going to have a few special prizes for some of the attendees who make it all six events such as an iTunes gift card and more. To verify you attended all six pick up a card starting tonight at the Triangle Tweetup at Edge Office. The card will have all events dates listed. Next find one of the OurHashtag partners which includes, Kipp Bodnar, Jeffrey L. Cohen, Ryan Boyles or myself and we’ll mark your card. On Saturday at BarCampRDU if you attended all six events we’ll have the prize for you.

If you’re tweeting about the events be sure to use the tag #TriTech short for Triangle Tech Week. Here’s the run down of the events along with the organizers and more information url for Triangle Tech Week.

Monday, August 3 – Triangle Tweetup, 7:00 P.M. at Edge Office – http://triangletweetup.org via OurHashtag

Saturday, August 8 – BarCampRDU at Red Hat via Dave Johnson aka @snoopdave on Twitter and team.

Ok, it’s going to be one long but fun, exciting week in the Triangle and remember the tag is #TriTech but some of the events have their own tag too such as #IgniteRaleigh & #barcamprdu. Be sure to check out the Social Carolina calendar as there are other events in the Triangle this week too. http://socialcarolina.org. Also be sure to look at each events website or Twitter account to see if there are any changes. Have a great week!

Other attendees met at the NCSU bell tower around 9:45 A.M. and after brief introductions we basically walked around campus and took a lot of photos from 10:00 A.M. to noon. I had been on the campus before for various events in the past but due to a recent storm some of the trees were blown down or split open which made for an interesting scene and rare photos. Some of my favorite photos from today were taken under one of the campus bridges and of the expression tunnel.

I want to say thanks to Ashley for organizing the event and Scott Kelby for creating the Worldwide photo walk idea.

What is your favorite picture?

Joining me was fellow OurHashtag partner, Jeff Cohen (Digital Papercuts). As we arrived, we were welcomed by Beck and other Museum of Life and Science employees to receive our V.I.P wrist band, and name badge. Then we were on our way to the Dinosaur Trail.

As we walked the trail we met fellow tweeple @SmallJones, @clubjuggler, @GregoryNG, @dburr10085 and blogger Kevin Davis of Bull City Rising. We also met a few other local Triangle Tweeple for the first time. Despite it being a little humid, the weather was perfect and Jeff and I started our Dinosaur photo-blogging, tweeting, brightkite-ing, Facebooking tour.

Take a look at my photos below:

A few years ago, or even a few months ago, if you would have said that a museum was having a special exhibit preview for bloggers and twitter users, some may have looked at you like you’re crazy and just laughed. But with the explosion of social media and a strong tech community in the area, having an exclusive Blogger/Tweeple preview at the Museum of Life and Science made perfect sense. Why? I would say for marketing and community engagement. Was the event a success? I would say, yes. The @lifeandscience twitter account sent out a tweet saying they had over 100 tweeple and bloggers attend the event.

The event was not only a success because of the attendance, but also for continued awareness for the Museum of Life and Science. As I walked around, I saw families on the dinosaur trail taking a lot of pictures. Adding local bloggers and tweeple to an already scheduled member preview is a great idea. It can only build excitement and generate awareness of the new exhibit. My hat’s off to Beck and the entire team for coming up with the idea. Will this work for every company looking to engage with the local community using social media? Maybe, but let’s take a look at the process of what the Museum of Life and Science did to have a successful event.

1. Hire someone who’s connected in the community.

2. Engage with the community using social media.

Their twitter account has over 1,700 followers and they have accounts on various social networks.

3. Think outside the box and be creative. Instead of trying to just pull bloggers/tweeple away from their computers and iPhones, they welcomed them with open doors, saying join us.

4. They made us feel special by including us in a sneak preview. The exhibit doesn’t open to the public until July 25th.

5. Have an engagement dinosaur. Unlike Raleigh’s Lego store. The museum had one open dinosaur for everyone to climb on. The kids were happy to play and the parents got better pictures. It was clearly the most popular dinosaur there.

6. They planned for success. They passed out Moo cards with the url http://lifeandscience.org/dinosaurs on it. The url is for collecting blog post such as this one, flickr photos and youtube videos. And not only from today, but from future attendees.

Again, great job to the Museum of Life and Science. Today was my first time visiting and I’ll be back in the near future.

PS. All of my photos and videos where taken with the iPhone 3Gs.

No dinosaurs where brought back to life during today’s event, but this one is cool and I would love to have it as an pet.

If you have been following my Brightkite updates and tweets over the past 48 hrs then you know that I was in Wilmington, NC on Thursday for a talk on Social Media. I was asked to do the talk by Ty Downing of SayitSocial, someone who I’ve only known virtually via twitter and now someone who I call a friend. I was excited about doing the talk for a few reasons, one being that Wilmington is kind of like a second home for me as I’m originally from Teachey, NC which is only 30 to 40 minutes away from Wilmington. As a youth I would make the drive down to Wilmington to hang out and as I told Ty that my prom was in Wilmington. Therefore I was humbled and nervous about the presentation as my audince would be a room of savvy SEO experts, bloggers, web designers, marketers and individuals who wanted to learn more about social media.

The meetup was called Social Media Talk With Wayne Sutton and as I kept trying to brainstorm how to cover social media in one hour… you can’t! So what I decided to do was try to facilitate a discussion on social media with the attendees along with a little history lesson of who is Wayne Sutton. You can see the presentation below via slideshare.

The attendees had questions on social media such as: What tools to use monitor their brand, how to get started with social media, what tools they should use to track urls and more. Ty along with Lori Lorusso live streamed the entire talk on Ustream.tv and uploaded a clip of the talk to youtube, both you can see below.

Ustream of my Talk on Social Media in Wilmington, NC
Webcam chat at Ustream

A Youtube video clip from Ty’s iPhone 3GS of my Talk on Social Media

I really want to thank Ty and the attendees for having me and from the comments on the meetup.com site it looks like the attendees enjoyed it.
Kimberly – “ Excellent and very informative. Thank you so much! ”

Holly Powell – “ Wayne was very informative. I enjoyed the meeting and look forward to the next event. ”

Chip Hunnicutt – “ Didn’t hear anything groundbreaking (for me anyway) but questions showed different levels of expertise in the audience and potential for future specialized gatherings. Was particularly intrigued by the “startup” weekend concept. ”

Doug Erickson – “ Wayne was a great speaker and knows his “Social Media”

It looks like to have to work on something “groundbreaking” for my next talk but honest feedback is always welcome. Also a big thanks to the great people at the C. W. Worth House who sponsored my stay on Thursday night. The C. W. Worth House is elegant and a must visit if you’re looking for a bed and breakfast in Wilmington.

PS. This has been a #shamelessplug blog post by Wayne Sutton

In 2007 Brian Russell, Anton Zuiker, Jackson Fox, myself and a few more individuals were talking about how we needed a single source to track all of the technology events in the Triangle. For those of you who are not familiar with the area, the Triangle stands for Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, and surrounding communities. Our problem was that we would miss a meetup or local confernece and there wasn’t a good way of letting others know about upcoming events being held locally. Thus Brian created a google calendar and I registered the domain name SocialCarolina.org and SocialCarolina.com, built the website and embeded the google calendar and thus SocialCarolina.org, Connecting the Community to the events was launched.

Soon after I installed a WordPress blog at the url SocialCarolina.com/blog and we started sending out events to guest post and add events to the calendar. A few months later Viget launched Refresh The Triangle and included the SocialCarolin.org calendar and we were on our way. Over time we expanded our Triangle reach to Charlotte and Greensboro, NC with a few guest blog post and events added to the calendar and now we we have around thirty individuals adding various events. Some events are blogger meetups, tweetups, startup drinks, entrepreneur meetups, ruby, java, drupel meetups, social media talks and more. But it seems due to everyone including myself working on various projects, we have found little time to blog about upcoming events or posting recaps of past events on SocialCarolian.org. Therefore I have removed the blog and redirected the blog link pointing to my site to the North Carolina category we’re I’ll post about events, technology and people in NC. Besides blogging about events in the Triangle another plan for the SocialCaroliana.org website was to have a job board. We’ll that never took off but I talked to Greg Hyer of http://www.linkingraleighnc.com who runs a successful job board on his site, therefore I’m going to link to it for the jobs link.

The ultimate goal of SocialCarolina.com was to create our own, “TechCrunch” like site covering NC. Maybe the timing was off or I was a little to early to the game. It was 2007 when we started the site before the “social” became super popular and overused with the phase “social media”. Regardless, we’ll keep the calendar updated as much as posssible and if you would like to have your event added to the site email: events at socialcarolina dot org or follow us on twitter as @RDCH and send us a tweet. We do have a facebook group and an email mailing list where we send out messages about upcoming events in the area.

For those who contributed to the blog, calendar or have continue to help promote this awesome technology / social media community we have in North Carolina. Thank You!

Wayne Sutton

Earlier this week I had a chance to spend some time with Peter Shankman. Peter was in town to speak at the Raleigh Public Relations Society (RPRSA) 50th Anniversary and Award Dinner . Peter arrived in Raleigh on Monday evening and I followed the tweets to “track” his whereabouts so we could catch up and have some dinner later that evening. When Peter arrived, Kipp Bodnar, Jeff Cohen and I took Peter to The Pit Barbecue Restaurant in downtown Raleigh. We had some laughs, talked about Peter’s HARO (Help A Reporter Out) newsletter, and conference ideas over some great food. Jeff had never met Peter before and I told him to be ready because there’s only one Peter Shankman and when you meet him, just enjoy the experience. I think Jeff did and all I’m going to say is we didn’t order any chicken. (inside joke)

On Tuesday before Peter’s PRSA speech, Kipp and I met Peter at his hotel to hang out and record a few videos. One video I didn’t record is Peter when he came storming into the conference room after his workout about a Google Alert he just received with his name in it. I’m not going to tell you what he said, you’ll have to ask him about that, but it was very funny! Here’s Kipp video with Peter on “Customer Service Killing Public Relations“.

Later that evening Peter, Kipp and I walked from the hotel to Marbles Kids Museum where he was speaking. Almost immediately after arriving at Marbles, Peter saw the some of the green fun balls and the next thing you know a tweet went out saying “BALL PIT BALL PIT BALL PIT!!!!! OMG Shiny and round!!” with the twitpic photo below.

As the night continued Peter gave his talk about HARO, his thoughts on pitching on Twitter and social media. Here are a few tweets from Peter’s talk.
@skydiver says we talk to 3% of our network daily – let’s connect people! (via @khubbard)

Same four rules from @skydiver… New context. # 1 Transparency. Got to do it. People will google your faults. Be transparent.

When a journalist needs a source…they call me. That’s power. (Via @skydiver)

@skydiver – Great speech at RPRS, Peter. Especially the focus on accountability.

You can also watch his talk via the video below.

After the talk, Peter shook hands and posed for a few pictures. Kipp and I gave Mr. Shankman a ride back to his hotel and called it a night. It was fun to see Peter again, as the last time we had a chance to hang out was at SXSW and before that was another PRSA dinner in Greensboro, NC late last year. If you’re wondering, like some of the attendees of the PR Society Awards Dinner, how do I know Peter Shankman? The answer is via Twitter early in 2007. We met offline at a Triangle Interactive Marketing Association (TIMA) event in 2007.

A few notes on what I learned from watching Peter in action.
1. Always stay connected to your mobile device checking emails.
2. Have fun
3. Be yourself and don’t try to impress someone when you find out they have a lot of followers on twitter….
4. If you don’t want to receive an email from HARO or Peter just use the (unsubscribe link) long story.
5. Be passionate about your work and think of ways to scale your products and/or services
6. Build a productive, trustworthy team around you.
7. Be careful who you offend.
8. Speak with passion about your topic when giving speeches.
9. Remember, it’s about you!

Here are a few photos after the Raleigh PR Society Awards.

A big thanks Joe Mecca to and the entire Raleigh PR Societyfor hosting the event and congrats to the winners.

I’m sure by now you know what today is, iPhone 3G S launch day and for the third year in a row I was able to catch up with an old friend and take some pictures/videos of the Apple Store opening plus the hundreds standing in line for the iPhone. When I arrived, I saw Ashton, who for three years in a row now has been first in line to buy the iPhone at the Apple Store in Crabtree Valley Mall. I first met Ashton in 2007 when he purchased the 1st generation iPhone and I was able to take this picture of him, which has been viewed over 5,000 times on flickr and I was recently told it may the first picture of a consumer with the first generation iPhone on the web.

Asthon first in line at the Appe Store 2007

Fast forward three years later, Ashton and I make our yearly routine of meeting at the Apple Store on iPhone launch day and as normal he’s first in line. I must say this year’s iPhone activation seems to have went a lot smother than last years. Ashton walked in the Apple store, told the employee he wanted a white iPhone and it was purchased and activated in about 15 minutes versus the 8 plus hours he spent in the store last year. Then in about another 15 minutes Ashton had his iPhone 3G S synced with his contacts, music and photos loaded. Great job this year by the Raleigh Apple Store team. Also it was interesting to see others who were buying the iPhone 3G S talk about what color they were buying. Most seem to have purchased the white iPhone 3G S 16 GB version, especially if they had purchased a black iPhone last year.

Asthon first in line at the Appe Store 2008

Asthon first in line at the Appe Store 2009

For those of you who are waiting to purchase an iPhone 3G S, I recommend coming in later today to avoid the line and I’m almost sure they won’t run out of iPhones. If you reserved your iPhone you have until today to come pick it up. Below are some more videos and photos from the iPhone 3G S launch at the Raleigh Apple Store in Crabtree Valley Mall.

Apple Store opening for iPhone 3Gs

Test video uploaded from iPhone 3G S to youtube.

The line waiting to enter Apple Store for iPhone 3G S

The Apple Store iPhone 3G S activation station area:

For a hands on review of the iPhone 3G S, see today’s episode of Talk Social News recorded from the Apple Store today here -> Hands on iPhone 3G S review & more AT&T upgrade fail news – episode 060

Did you stand in line for the iPhone 3G S or are you going to wait?

Is this your first iPhone if you purchased an iPhone 3G S today?

Update:
I went to meet some friends in line a few hours later at the Apple Store. The line is still long and it’s a slow process to get everyone into the store because Apple won’t let you leave without the phone being activated.

@ginnyskal & @mammalpants in waiting line

@Kitch with his new iPhone 3G S