Are tablets just mobile devices or something else?

Analytics packages often lump iPads and other tablets into the "Mobile" section of stats reports. I think they should be put in with non-mobile devices because they are more like notebook computers to me. What do you think?

Go to this link to vote: http://www.facebook.com/questions/256797307705537/?qa_ref=ns

We rocked the Google+ Hangout

As we've said time and time again, Google + has potential but it's a little late to the party. The bells and whistles are tempting, but they seem to be under used.  Well, just last night I gave Google+ Hangout a test run with a virtual baby shower.

A Google+ Baby Shower Hangout 

I invited my sister-in-law's friends from across the country to celebrate the soon-to-arrive baby boy.  At 6 pm, ladies from MN, KY, TX and LA logged on and joined the hangout.  Everyone except me was new to Google +, so it took 15 minutes or so (and a number of phone calls) to get everyone up and running. 

We played games, caught everyone up on life, had some shower-ish food and great virtual laughs. There were a few snags, like when some party-goers couldn't hear others, which lead to translators. Certain locations were stuck as the larger picture even when someone else was 'talking the loudest' and people kept getting logged out and needed to rejoin.

Overall it was a great 3 hours hanging out with friends scattered across the country...and then pictures from the shower and comments about the fun times were posted on Facebook.

How are you using Google+?

Video Post: Axiom @ Wilsonart Video Project in Bryan, OH

What do Dum Dum Suckers, an Etch-a-Sketch and huge tires have in common? They all call Bryan, Ohio, home. Dave Sniadak recently traveled to Bryan to produce another (Up)Date Night video series for Wilsonart International, and shares his experience in our latest Axiom @ video.

Wordless Wednesday: If Web Browsers Were Celebrities

Shopping Apps Offer Big Deals

I know you may cringe at the thought of the Holiday season so soon (the snow, the traffic, the mad shopping rush), but the truth is it will be here before you know it. This is especially true for all of you Black Friday shoppers. The season is expected to be very different this year, with the popularity of mobile, social and daily deals shaking things up in the marketing and commerce scene.

Tablets and smartphones have become a convenient and preferred way to shop. According to a survey conducted by the National Retail Federation, more than 50% of smartphone and tablet owners will use their devices to shop this holiday season. This includes researching products and prices, purchasing and redeeming coupons. Retailers and brands should take advantage of these statistics by making sure their mobile and tablet commerce-enabled sites are ready and able.

App developers have already recognized the power of mobile shoppers, and have come up with quite a few nice apps. One of which, Shoparazzi, developed by Geocast, allows you to track your favorite shops and brands and see when they're discounted in your area.

The Shoparazzi service (which is currently only for iPhone), draws on a database of store locations and websites and also aggregates social media feeds and email newsletters from fashion labels and retailers. The service is curated by editors who then update sales locations, says the company. Users are then sent alerts when their favorite retailers have a promotion, or when shops discount items they are looking for.

Mobile technology now allows consumers to access the best deals in a more efficient and personalized manner. Most importantly, retailers need to be prepared for the amount of customer engagement on mobile that will occur this year.

Facebook Friday: It's All in the Numbers

The average U.S. Facebook user spends 7 hours and 46 minutes per month on Facebook. Are you one of them? How about a fan of one of the top five brand pages on Facebook? If it's Coca-Cola, Disney or Starbucks you like, then consider yourself part of the club. Check out today's infographic for more Facebook facts.

Video Post: iPhone 4s Launch Opens Floodgate for Street-Level Marketing

The launch of the iPhone 4s was destined to attract media attention. How did companies like Otterbox and Gazelle.com take advantage of the Apple iPhone 4s hype? Join Steve as he breaks down the "street-level" marketing companies used to promote their product.

Zyrtec Goes Viral with YouTube

Zyrtec is doing something unprecedented in pharmaceutical marketing. They've gone viral.

Harnessing the power and entertainment of social media, Zyrtec has created quite a campaign for this fall allergy season. What's even more interesting is that they've used YouTube as their primary outlet for launching a social media game.

Zyrtec worked with a New York ad agency called JWT to launch the YouTube game, Parks Unleashed, last month. Even though allergy medicine and the gaming world are a new couple, the game is modeled on 30 year-old text-based games that present users with various scenarios where they have to make a choice. The premise of the game is that dogs have stolen their owners' tablets, and hid them all over the park. You must find them by choosing different answers, each leading down a different path. In the end, users have a chance to win an actual Samsung Galaxy Tab.

Tim Nolan, creative director at JWT comments on the decision to use YouTube as the main platform,

“We took this approach to talk to our consumers using media that they already engage in, at a destination they spend their time, leveraging behaviors we know they love.”

And their efforts are paying off. The Zyrtec YouTube Channel now has 2.2 million total views, almost all of which were drawn by the game. The average player spent more than seven minutes playing the game, and some returning players were on for 30 minutes or more.

The campaign was also integrated throughout other brand sites, including an online ad campaign promoting the game, a Yahoo Mail takeover and Facebook display ads. The brand also tagged a TV spot with a prompt to visit their YouTube page, which ran for about a week.

Zyrtec is undoubtedly an innovator in the pharmaceutical social media sphere. They have also proven the often overlooked power of YouTube for gaming. It won't be long now until other pharmaceutical brands jump in.

95% brands of Facebook don't respond to posts

Brand proliferation on Facebook is a fact of online life nowadays. Practically every company out there has a Facebook page, and many spend thousands of dollars in advertising trying to get customers to visit them.

Obviously, the reason for any corporate Facebook page is to elicit some form of engagement with your audience and key customer base.

However, according to a recent survey from Socialbakers, 95% of wall posts from users on brand pages go unanswered. 

It's a staggering statistic, and frankly an egregious error on the companies that are guilty of this. Engagement is the currency that dring ives social media, especially on a brand identity level. Ignoring that engagement is practically like shunning a customer who walks into your store with a handful of cash.

I find it interesting that while these companies spend so much time and money hiring social media teams and creating various SM channels and pages, the basic principles of social engagement get lost in the shuffle.

The takeaway here is that Facebook marketing is more than just creating a page and populating it with content, you also need to monitor and respond to your fans when they engage you.

Free Microsoft phones try to capitalize on iOS and RIM woes

The two biggest stories in the smartphone world right now revolve around RIM and Apple. RIM is suffering from outages for millions of Blackberry users all over the world. Apple, on the other hand, released its massive iOS 5 update yesterday, only to see millions of users experience problems with the update.

Amid all of this drama, Microsoft has been relatively quiet. But in an attempt to capitalize on the frustrations of RIM and Apple users, one Microsoft Evangelist is giving away 25 free Windows phones to people who tweet his Twitter account.

It's an interesting move by Microsoft, and while I doubt they will woo Apple fans away from their iPhones, there is some legitimate growth opportunity with Blackberry users.

The truth is, RIM has garnered as many users as it has due to its heavy presence in the corporate sector. Businesses have used Blackberrys (Blackberries?) as their go-to phone to issue to employees, thus exposing them to the Blackberry ecosystem.

Business that have stuck with RIM will not jump to Apple, due to the proprietary nature of their different devices, not to mention the lack of compatibility with PC services. They also aren't likely to move to Android, because it is so open-source that there is little standardization from phone to phone when compared to other operating systems.

This leaves Microsoft's Windows OS, which is most likely the most-appealing option out of the 4 operating systems. And given the recent struggles of RIM, it wouldn't surprise me to see a few Blackberry users rethink their phone choice.

Social TV Is a Success for Discovery

Social TV has gone mainstream, and there is no better example than The Discovery Channel. With iconic shows like Shark Week, Man vs. Wild and Deadliest Catch, Discovery Communications has had tremendous success in their social media space. They are focused and deliberate in their social media strategy, and it's definitely showing. Shark Week alone was #1 on Trendrr's social TV ranking for that week. There were more than 750,000 tweets mentioning Shark Week, and their Facebook Page increased by 30,000 fans in a single day (116,000 fans throughout the week).

Gayle Weiswaser, VP of social media communications at Discovery Communications, let's us in on her strategy.

“Our philosophy on social media is to use it as a platform that enhances the viewing experience and the relationship with the viewers.”

They have 4 primary goals for their social media plan:

• Build relationships and engage with fans
• Personalize the brand
• Strengthen fan-talent relations
• Drive tune-in rate

After looking more in-depth at their social media objectives, it's easy to see that there are 2 main things that Discovery is doing especially well: content integration and content relevancy. Not only do they have an exciting mix of content throughout Facebook and Twitter, but also individual show pages, network pages, vertical pages and blogs. These are not treated as separate entities, but all of their platforms are integrated. For example, many of their Facebook and Twitter links go directly to original content on Discovery.com. Their holistic approach treats them all as one unit with many parts that build on and enhance the others.

Content relevancy is how Discovery excels at keeping their conversations going. "We serve as a curator of topics for our fans," says Weiswasser. Content may not directly relate to the show, but it still is relevant to the topic, which makes it interesting and engaging. For example, on the What Not To Wear page, you'll find links to the fall's top fashion trends. This keeps fans and followers in the conversation, and offers itself as not just an entertainment site, but a resource for related information.

All in all, it's most important to remember that content quality is top priority. More people should follow Weisman as she says, "We want the content to speak for itself. If it's compelling, people will want it-that's how we got this footprint." Stop obsessing about hitting a certain number of likes or followers and make sure your content is still king.

One small click for man, one giant leap backwards for PR/blogger relations

One of the biggest shifts we've seen in public relations over the last couple of years has been the rise of blogs and bloggers, and the more prominent role they now play in a brand's online reputation.

But with change comes controversy, and bloggers have faced a lot of criticism over their journalistic credibility. However, companies need to realize that just because bloggers aren't journalists in the traditional sense, that doesn't mean they can be treated as less worthy or less important.

Case in point: on Friday the Internet was buzzing over a blogger who was insulted by the VP of a PR firm. I won't get into the specifics, but it started when a VP accidentally clicked "reply all" to an email about the blogger, who had refused to review a product the brand represented. In the email, he referred to her by a less-than-flattering term (to say the least).

However, as with every juicy PR blunder, the story doesn't end there. After being called out by the insulted blogger, the VP replied that the blogger should just feel lucky that she was pitched at all.

From a PR perspective, that is more damaging than the name-calling. Sure, there may have been a time when the PR firms had the leverage, but the blogger community has evolved and PR needs to reflect that. The journalist/blogger paradigm is outdated, and we can't continue to just look at bloggers through the journalistic lens.

Bloggers don't serve the same purpose as traditional journalists...and that's okay! Bloggers and journalists are two separate entities, which require two separate strategies when approaching them. More importantly, we need to keep in mind that, while different, they are equally important and need to be treated as such.

Will Quora Hit Another Growth Spurt?

It's been quite a while since the Q&A site Quora was making headlines. After becoming a media darling in late 2010, the site saw a massive spike in new users.

But then things got quiet for Quora.

In a classic "middle child" scenario, Quora struggled to steal attention away from the successful older brother (Facebook) and the new baby sister (Google Plus). The latter two continued to horde the social media spotlight in 2011, with launches and updates throughout the spring and summer.

Quora's look-at-me moment came last week with the release of an official iOS app. The app itself has been received quite well actually, taking full advantage of a new "shuffle" feature that pulls up random questions from the site.

It's a great StumbleUpon-like time waster, and should lead to a lot more time spent on the site...if users can find it.

Not only was the feature itself not heavily promoted on Quora's end, but they buried it far down on the bottom of both their app and their website. Hopefully they can remedy this soon to avoid losing momentum.

Regardless, its good to see the site making strides and trying to stand out in the ever-growing social media family.

The Steve Jobs Philosophy: Love what you do

I'm writing this a few hours after the world learned of the death of Steve Jobs. It hit me personally, since I am 56 and feel sad that the world has lost such a great innovator.

Jobs was obviously a visionary, not only regarding technology, but about life and work. It's often said that the current Millennial Generation is different because they have to truly enjoy what they do for a living.

Steve Jobs said the same thing while delivering a 2005 commencement address at Stanford University and it's good advice for any generation:

"Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do." 

"If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on."

Is the new iPhone 4S a phone anymore?

The quick answer is no, it's a mini iPad2. We use our 'phones' for everything BUT phone calls, so this is no surprise. As a loyal Apple fan from way back in the dark days of the 1990s, I don't believe the iPhone has lost it's 'cool' factor. HTC, Samsung and all the others including Microsoft have tried and failed miserably in competing with the iPhone.

The reason is the same as the reason Macs are better than the rest: the tight integration of the OS and the hardware. No one else has done this except for Blackberry, but they were stuck with an antiquated OS and failed. The new iPhone4S does everything you want a portable device to do, and then some. With the iPhone and iPad, I expect that some casual computer users may very well abandon their desktop PCs and their overweight laptops.

There just isn't any one else out there giving Apple reason to worry, and that includes Amazon with their new tablet. As this country continues to go through a tough economy, we can take pride in the fact that an American company shows the kind of leadership we wish our politicians had.

Will Amazon Take a Bite Out of Apple?

Last week's announcements from Amazon absolutely rocked the tablet world. But it wasn't because they introduced 2 new e-readers, or because they dropped the prices of their other e-reader, or even the release of their new Kindle Fire tablet.

The reason Amazon's announcement was so huge is that the 7" Kindle Fire will retail for just $199.

This led to a firestorm (pun intended) of activity as companies like HTC and Blackberry slashed the prices of their 7" tablets, the Flyer and Playbook respectively, by hundreds of dollars. Other companies like Samsung and Toshiba, who have similarly-sized tablets set to debut before the end of the year, are rumored to be adjusting their prices as well because of what Amazon did.

So, even though not one Kindle Fire has been shipped yet, it has already shaken the Android tablet market to its core...and rightfully so. We haven't seen any Android tablet claim that mythic "iPad killer" title, mostly due to the fact that none of the premium tablets undercut the iPad on price.

The Kindle Fire takes a different approach. Instead of trying to beat the iPad on local storage size or unique design, Amazon made a physically different device (7" versus the iPad's 10") with a different purpose (heavy cloud streaming versus heavy app usage) aimed at a different consumer (casual media consumption versus heavy media consumption and mobile computing).

While it's a different strategy, Amazon is going with the basically the same approach as Apple when it comes to tablets. Both Apple and Amazon have spent years building up services like iTunes and Amazon Cloud Services before releasing their tablets.

This means that while existing Android tablets continue to deal with a fledgling OS in Honeycomb, Amazon will have an extensive media library at its disposal.

More importantly, while those other tablets continue to appeal to more technically-inclined people who don't want to be "stuck" in the Apple world, Amazon will appeal to those who like the ecosystem approach that has made Apple successful.

The end result is that Amazon, regardless of intent, may have put itself in line to go head-to-head with Tim Cook and company.