Video Post: Scanning the QR Code Landscape

QR code use has been on the rise as we've seen more and more of the codes popping up all over the place. However, the question still remains as to whether or not they're effective. But a recent report by MGH should be able to shed a little light on the subject, and I take a look at the numbers in today's Daily Axioms Video Post.

No Summer Love for iPhone 5

There are a couple of parts of the tech world that we've all come to expect:

• 2-3 Android tablets will be announced every week and will immediately be compared to the iPad or iPad 2.
• Said tablet will inevitably fall short due to either lower specs or higher price (I'm looking at you Motorola Xoom).
• Apple will launch a new iPhone every summer at its Wordwide Developers Conference. 

That last point has rang especially true over the past few years, causing many to question whether or not the Verizon iPhone was worth purchasing.

However, it appears those doubts may have been for nothing considering the recent rumors that Apple will not be announcing the iPhone 5 this June, most likely waiting until the fall before announcing the next general

The reasoning behind the delay seems to boil down to two factors:

• Apple said in their WWDC announcement that the focus of the conference would be about software like Mac OS X Lion and not hardware.
• The Verizon iPhone launch was so recent that Apple apparently feels it's in its best interest to hold off a bit longer.

So although the iPhone faithful who look forward to a new installment of their favorite mobile device every year have to wait a little longer, it still looks like we'll be seeing a new iPhone around September when Apple's fiscal year begins.

#AxBrack Update: From First to Worst

Now that the first half of the Sweet Sixteen NCAA March Madness games have wrapped up, I thought I'd take the time to update you all on the standings in our 2011 Emilio Estevez #Losing Bracket Challenge office pool.

With San Diego State (my pick to win it all) getting knocked off by Connecticut and BYU losing in overtime, I by far took the biggest hit. After going 0-4 and getting zero points from last night's games, I stayed at 42 points and am now tied with Dave for last place.

As Dave and I duke it out for the Emilio Estevez #Losing trophy, it's a very close race at the top to take home some wine. Andrea catapulted into 1st place with 47 points after wins by both Florida and Connecticut.

But before Andrea gloats too much, there's a three-way tie for 2nd place between Nick, Mark and Kathleen. More importantly? With 46 points each, those three are just one point behind the current leader. In the middle of the pack, Shelly and Linel are tied for 5th place with 44 points each.

Now that wins are earning 5 points each, and increasing from here on out, the tournament is still anyone's games.

Video Post: A Fabulous February for Online Video

It's no secret that Axiom understands the importance of online video. That's why we wanted to share a recent ComScore report about how well online video did in last month. Steve and Dave crunch the numbers and share their insight in this week's Daily Axioms Video Post:

LinkedIn Breaks Through the 9-Digit Barrier

2011 has been a great year for LinkedIn, especially given yesterday's news that the professional's social network surpassed 100 million users worldwide.

Here are a few more numbers that LinkedIn released about where the social network stands right now:

• Less than half (about 44%) of users are in the U.S.
• Both Brazil and Mexico more than doubled their LinkedIn usage rates, with Brazil seeing a 428% increase in 2010.
• The Hi-Tech, Finance, Manufacturing, Medical and Education industries all have at least 5 million users on LinkedIn.

But despite those impressive numbers, there is one issue in particular that LinkedIn still faces. Because although 100 million registered users is a lot, LinkedIn admits that the number of active users is much lower. According to ComScore, LinkedIn had about 71 million unique visitors in February. Getting more users to continue to come back and use the site needs to be an immediate goal for LinkedIn.

App Store Finally Lands on Amazon

At the beginning of the year, rumors were flying that Amazon was preparing to launch an Android app market to compete with Google. At the time I was hopeful that it would be a solid addition to Amazon's other services, but of course it was all guesswork since it hadn't launched yet.

But as of today, that has changed and the Amazon Appstore is live. It's a slimmed down, but more user-friendly, collection of about 3,800 apps (compared to the Android Market's 200,000+). Setting up your device to work with the Amazon Appstore takes a few minutes, but once you do you're good to go.

You can download apps from the Amazon Apps mobile app or from the Amazon website, and then install the downloaded app from the Amazon app. It sounds a little complicated, but it's not too bad considering these are third-party apps outside of the native Android Market.

Two other features have helped Amazon get some strong early buzz:

1. You can "Test Drive" apps before you buy them to see if they are really what you are looking for.
2. Amazon will offer a "Free App of the Day" where an app you would normally pay for is available for free for 24 hours.

Since it is very early in the launch, I'm sure there are still some updates that we will see in the next couple of days. However, at first glance this does seem to be a good start for the Amazon Appstore, although the real test will be whether or not it is still used a few months from now.

Final Four Top Stories from a Maddening March Weekend

Many of us spent the weekend glued to the TV while sweating out the health of our March Madness brackets. For me, it was about pulling ahead in the 2011 Emilio Estevez #Losing Bracket Challenge office pool.

Obviously this weekend's basketball obsession meant a lot of us couldn't keep up on what turned out to be an incredibly newsworthy few days. Keeping with the NCAA theme, here's the Final Four top social media stories from this past weekend:

• No. 1 Seed - AT&T-Mobile: Hands down, the biggest story of the weekend (if not the entire month) was Sunday's news of AT&T acquiring T-Mobile for $39 billion. This merger will catapult AT&T past the current top mobile carrier Verizon's 100 million U.S. subscribers with a combined 130 million subscribers. There are sure to be some major mobile shakeups in the coming months, including a possible T-Mobile iPhone in the future (although it's apparently not in the immediate plans).
• No. 2 Seed - Kevin Rose Ditches Digg: Kevin Rose's resignation from Digg shouldn't come as too much of a surprise considering I, like many social media pundits, wrote Digg off over a month ago. However, Rose had still established himself as the face of Digg and became bigger than just his startup like Mark Zuckerberg and Dennis Crowley, so it's still strange to see them part ways.
• No. 3 Seed - AP Stylebook Finally De-hyphenates Email: Okay, this may not seem like a huge deal, but any of us who use the AP Stylebook day in and day out can finally stop arguing with the big ol' book of grammatical rules everytime it told us to hyphenate 'email' when spelling it out.
• No. 4 Seed - Android-ifying Amazon: A New York Times post surfaced on Friday that points out the slew of recent Android programmer hirings by Amazon over the past few months, and ponders the likelihood of Amazon releasing a more tablet-style Amazon Kindle that would feature full color and multi-touch controls.

So there are your Final Four top social media and tech stories from a very busy weekend. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a March Madness bracket to double-check.

March Madness Hits The Axiom Office

With the weather getting nicer and nicer, you would think that spring fever would be running rampant through the Axiom office. And although we are all looking forward to sunnier days, what we've really all caught is March Madness.

We've started an office bracket pool with pride (a few bottles of wine) on the line, and we're calling it the 2011 Emilio Estevez #Losing Bracket Challenge. Curious about the name? Check out the video below, and follow along on Twitter with the hashtag #axbrack to see updates about how well we're doing.

Video Post: Teenage Wasteland for Brands on Facebook

It seems like a simple question: If brands like interacting with consumers online and teens spend a majority of their time on Facebook and other social media platforms, then brands marketing to teens should have the easiest time interacting with their target demographic, right? Unfortunately for those companies, a recent Forrester report points otherwise. I look into the numbers and what they mean on today's Daily Axiom's Video Blog post.

Ides of March and Social Media

By Dave Sniadak

It was on this day, 2,055 years ago in ancient Rome, Julius Caesar was assassinated by Brutus. It’s alleged that before the fatal blow that fell the Roman leader, Caesar uttered the famous line, Et tu, Brute? (You too, Brutus?)

You see, Brutus wasn’t just a rogue assassin. He and Caesar were actually fairly close. And while there were personal motivations for Brutus to dislike Julius Caesar, both men shared a political passion for making Rome the greatest empire of its’ time.

But Brutus’ political ambitions weren’t isolated. A group of forty Roman Senators, called the Liberatores, had become disgruntled with the status quo, and felt that Brutus was just the man to rise to the challenge of shifting powers. A mob of men bent on changing Rome’s direction decided that on the Ides of March in 44 B.C., Caesar would fall.

The uprising didn’t end well for Brutus or his co-conspirators. Two years later, after exile from Rome, Brutus and his band of supporters were defeated by Caesars successors.

Thankfully, we’ve come a long way in how we vent our frustrations with public officials. To put the recent transition in perspective, take a look at this powerful post from Mashable in September of 2010, when social media was becoming more of a hot iron in the political arena. Twitter and Facebook were becoming the sounding boards for our disdain and YouTube gave anyone with a camcorder an outlet to post their political rants.

Today, in our own modern era of the Ides of March, the ability of social media to virtually assassinate the work of public officials is off the charts. Look across the border from where we are to the Wisconsin union-busting situation as a perfect example (just Google “union-busting Wisconsin” and you get more than 2.6-million results).

Passion has its place in the world of politics. But what we’re losing sight of is that our words - as innocent and anonymous as they may seem in the social media arena - can come back to haunt us. Once you post something, it has the potential to be out there forever.

Pick your words and battles wisely, or one day, you may be asking Et tu, Followers? as the mouse clicks quickly crack away at your credibility.

An Introduction

Hello Everyone! I’m excited to be joining the amazing and talented Axiom team!

Why Axiom?

There were many things that drew me to Axiom. First off, I was wowed by the way they intentionally integrate social media and video into the programs they develop. Second, during my interviews it was apparent they encourage everyone to think out of the box. I believe ‘out side the box’ is often overused, but I have seen in a very short time, they do think outside the box and do it well. Finally, the diversity of the team at Axiom makes them well versed in many areas.

A little bit about me…

I don’t come from a traditional PR background but have other career experiences that I hope will help Axiom continue to thrive. In what seems like a former life, I was a TV reporter and meteorologist (go ahead and Google…you’ll find a few pictures of me as a blonde, but fortunately most of my years on TV were before YouTube, Facebook and Smartphones were part of everyday life). I had some amazing experiences in news but came to a point where it was time to venture to a new career and as so many TV people do, I transitioned to public relations.

I am back in the Twin Cities after spreading my wings for a bit, and I couldn’t be happier to be home. I grew up in Woodbury, MN, graduated from the University of Nebraska (and yes, I’m a Husker fan), and did the TV thing in Lincoln, NE, Fargo and Omaha.

I am thrilled to be part of the Axiom Team and look forward to blogging on Daily Axiom from time to time.

Facebook Friday: Huge Response to Crisis in Japan

The biggest news story of the morning is undoubtedly the massive earthquake and tsunami wreaking havoc on Japan and threatening other parts of the Pacific as well.

And even though the earthquake struck just this morning, the social media response has been incredible. Dozen of updates about Japan are hitting Facebook every second, as thousands upon thousands of people share news about the tragedy or try to check in with friends and family who may be in danger.

Twitter was also inundated with tweets from Tokyo, as nearly 1,200 tweets per minute were streaming in from the endangered city. But even more interesting (and useful) was the users were able to update people on the estimated time of arrival of the tsunami waves before the official warning went out from the government.

Google has also stepped up relief efforts with their Google Crisis Center, which aggregates important and relevant articles and information about the crisis in Japan. The site also features Google's People Finder tool to help people locate and connect up with their loved ones in Japan. Considering how jammed up telephone companies get during these crises, it seems to be a very useful tool.

Obviously the crisis itself and the safety of the people involved are paramount in times like this, but its good to see the level of response online.

Video Post: Mobile Gaming Not Playing Around

We've covered the prevalence of smartphones a few times already, but one area I haven't really been able to explore has been mobile gaming. But after a report by PopCap was released earlier this month, I thought it was time to dive into it. Sure mobile games seem to be popular, but just how popular are they? I look into this and other mobile gaming stats on today's Daily Axioms Video Blog.

Foursquare 3.0 Checks In

In what has become a South by Southwest tradition, Foursquare has released the third version of their location-based platform in time for the hugely popular festival.

The timing of the release was a smart move, because Foursquare was really able to hit the ground running in 2009 because of the heavy adoption and integration with SXSW.

Here's the basic breakdown of what you need to know about Foursquare 3.0:

• Exploring your options: Replacing the 'Tips' tab, a new 'Explore' tab offers recommendations to users, broken down into 5 categories: Food, coffee, nightlife, shops, and arts/entertainment. This seems to be the focal point of the upgrade because it will allow users to use Foursquare outside of the initial checkin.
• Making checkins pay off: Foursquare has partnered with American Express to make it easier to be rewarded for checking in to certain places. Basically, you register your AmEx card and then get access to automatic savings specials when the card is swiped at supported locations. The caveat here is that this is definitely experimental and will only run from this Friday to Tuesday the 15th.
• Feeling special: Lastly, Foursquare has retooled their merchant specials by segmenting and categorizing them in an effort to make it easier for merchants to get involved with the specials features. The different types of specials are:
• Flash Specials - the first person or group of people to checkin after a certain time get a discount or reward.
• Friends Specials - Checking in with a smaller group Foursquare friends gets you the deal
• Swarm Specials - Large group checkins get special discounts and rewards.
• Newbie Specials - The first time you check in at a certain venue gets you a discount.
• Mayor Specials - The classic Foursquare special where being the mayor of a place gets you a discount.

Overall, these seem like strong improvements, although Foursquare is still combating Facebook Places and generally low adoption rates for location-based services as a whole. However, I do like that Foursquare is looking beyond the checkin to get more merchants involved and attempt to establish Foursquare as more than just the service you use to check in to places to get badges.

Will The Dark Knight Light The Way For Facebook-Based Movie Rentals?

While iTunes, Netflix and Amazon continue to slug it out to establish movie streaming dominance, Facebook quietly delivered a solid right hook in the ensuing fight with last night's announcement from Warner Bros. that you can now stream The Dark Knight through Facebook.

If you fork over 30 Facebook credits, or $3, you have 48-hour access to the movie. Granted, it's only one movie, but the big question is if this is a one-time deal or a look at the future of Facebook.

There's reason for optimism. Obviously Facebook has a massive built-in audience with hundreds of millions of potential movie viewers. Add in the fact that Facebook is also one of the largest video sites with millions of videos from sites like YouTube and Vimeo being watched, and it's not a stretch to think that offering feature-length films could be successful on Facebook.

QR Codes Still Popping Up Everywhere, But Are They Being Scanned?

Daily Axioms is no stranger to covering QR codes, but it's been hard to show how much they're being utilized because it's still relatively new and the numbers just haven't been there.

However, I stumbled across an infographic from QR code startup JumpScan that revealed some pretty interesting statistics:

• 1200% increase in QR code scanning from July to December 2010: While a significant increase was expected (considering QR codes are everywhere these days), a 1200% increase is a massive jump in scanning.
• 52% have heard about or seen QR codes, 28% have scanned: Obviously a 28% scan rate isn't overwhelming, but according to those stats a little more than half of the QR codes that are seen are being scanned. That's important because the biggest obstacle with any call to action, like scanning a QR code, is getting people to actually use it.
• 57% Facebook/Twitter users scanned at least one QR code last year, 40% scanned 4 or more: This is a very telling statistic because it shows that social media integration is very important is having your QR codes gain traction. Based on these numbers, social media users are twice as likely to scan a code, and about 40% more likely to scan 4 or more codes than the general public.

So although it's always hard to tell just how accurate these stats actually are, it seems like QR codes are more prolific and being scanned more than ever before.

Facebook Friday: Social Commentary

Despite all of the iPad 2 buzz dominating the news headlines, Facebook has still had a pretty good week. Not only are the latest rumors claiming that the social networking giant is valued at $65 billion dollars, but Facebook also released a massive third-party applicable commenting plugin earlier this week as well.

The commenting plugin closely resembles what you would see on a user's wall, with threaded comments that can be liked and voted on. The comments can also be synced to the user's Facebook page, leading to two primary advantages:

1. If you're already signed in on Facebook you don't need to re-sign in to access the commenting feature, making it easier for people to comment on articles.
2. The use of people's real names should theoretically cut down on the trolling that usually plagues the blogosphere.

The system is far from perfect however, with a few major issues still in need of tweaking.

1. Because the system requires a Facebook login, anyone who works somewhere that blocks Facebook will have to wait until they're out of the office.
2. Another downside of profile syncing is that if people reply to a comment in the Facebook News Feed it could end up on other sites. This could lead to a lot of non-sensical inside jokes in commenting streams.

The other question still looming is what this move means for Disqus, the commenting plugin startup that has been very popular the last couple of years. My guess is that it will be very similar to what happened to Foursquare after the launch of Facebook Places. In that scenario, many flocked to Facebook Places because of its huge built-in user base. 

However, in the end both services have managed to coexist, and I think we'll see the same thing with Facebook Comments and Disqus within a month or two.

Apple's iPad 2 Announcement Spoiled by iPad 3 Rumors

Apple revolutionized and dominated the tablet market with the iPad, prompting a wave of competitors trying (unsuccessfully) to knock Apple off its tablet throne.

And despite the fact that no one has created that "iPad killing" device, Apple still announced out an improved iPad 2 yesterday. With Android Honeycomb-enabled tablets like the Motorola Xoom right around the corner, it was definitely time for Apple to step up their game.

But did they maybe step up too much?

The iPad 2 does answer some of the complaints people had about the iPad, and does show marked improvement of its predecessor:

• The iPad 2 is 33% thinner, and only weighs 1.3 lbs.
• It sports a custom A5 dual-core system that should make it twice as fast (with graphics speeds up to 9 times faster)
• It features built-in front and rear cameras
• The iPad 2 also has a pretty cool magnetic case available.
• It's HDMI compatible.

However, those specs aside many tech bloggers are saying they're holding off. That's because even though the iPad was just announced yesterday, there's already rumors of an iPad 3 being released as early by the end of this year or early 2012.

Those tech pundits are claiming that the iPad 3 will address some of the issues that neither the iPad or iPad 2 addressed:

• No SD card slot available
• No USB port
• It lacks the Retina Screen that was such a big hit with the iPhone 4.
• No Gorilla Glass like most competing tablets.

So while it makes no sense to me why Apple would release the iPad 3 so soon after the iPad 2 (essentially cannibalizing the iPad 2 unless there's a steep price difference between the the iPad 2 and iPad 3), they have successfully refocused the tablet spotlight back on the original poster-boy for this emerging tech market.

The New Journalism

I'm lucky enough to have gone through the Watergate era of investigative journalism as a young reporter. I remember going to junior high schools in Augusta, GA, where I worked, and explaining to the youngsters not much older than I how our government almost collapsed due to the corruption of a few individuals.

Fast forward to today, and I'm interviewing candidates for our Social Media Manager position. It's fascinating to witness the transition from traditional 'third estate' journalism to today's mom and dad bloggers, who are basically trying to live off their words through their websites, blogs, Twitter and Facebook accounts. Not an easy task.

I had been enjoying The Daily on my iPad until my free subscription ran out last week. Unfortunately, the content was less than compelling and available through other sources, although it was packaged in a very entertaining way. Although I chose not to subscribe, I hope this business model works. We need citizen journalists, but we also need professional reporters and editors who don't have to worry about where their next paycheck is coming from.