4 Social Apps and Services You Need to Know More About (@socialtables, @ideaflight, @MeetMeme, @sonarme)

November 28, 2011

Introduction

The social web, mobile devices, apps, location awareness and more: it’s a great time to be an entrepreneur. And by extension, it’s a great time to be a consumer of technology. There’s an abundance of apps and web services that can bring you tremendous value, for little to no cost. Let’s take a look at four services you need to know more about.

Socialtables (@socialtables)

Socialtables provides web-based seating charts for any occasion. Event planners are provided with a simple and intuitive web-based interface. You can load guest information into the service, then drag and drop guests to particular tables. The service includes a social component, which encourages guests to share pictures, tell stories and get to know one another (e.g. with the guests you’re seated with at a wedding table).

Ideaflight (@ideaflight)

Idea Flight allows you to share ideas easily on the iPad. A “pilot” controls the flight and can provide a presentation to “passengers.” We bring our iPads to meetings today, don’t we? With Idea Flight, you can leave the projector in your desk drawer. This service would also be a great fit for college lectures and trade shows, to name a few.

MeetMeme (@MeetMeme)

I discovered MeetMeme social trading cards at JiveWorld11 in Las Vegas. For me, the “trading” of MeetMeme cards replaced conventional business card exchanges at the event. Most events have networking components (e.g. mixers, cocktail hours, dinners, etc.) and these sort of social trading cards are perfect for the occasion. I returned home with a large stack of cards, getting to meet people I would never have met without the cards.

Sonar (@sonarme)

Search engines, along with services like StumbleUpon, help us find content. But what about finding and discovering people? Check out Sonar, “a mobile application that uncovers the hidden connections you share with people nearby.” One afternoon in a pumpkin patch, I wondered whether a “people discovery app” existed. I returned home, discovered Sonar and tried it out. Wouldn’t it work great at conferences and trade shows?

Conclusion

I’ve only scratched the surface on all the neat sites and apps that are hitting the market these days. Use the comments section below to let us know about neat services that you’ve recently started using.

Related Links

  1. Blog Post: Social Networking and Seat Management with Social Tables
  2. Blog Post: Share Ideas Across iPads with Idea Flight
  3. Blog Post: Conference Networking with MeetMeme Social Trading Cards
  4. Blog Post: Turn Outings into Professional Networking Opportunities with Sonar

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Posted by Dennis Shiao

Share Ideas Across iPads with Idea Flight

July 19, 2011

Introduction

According to a blog post introducing the service, Idea Flight “is a new tool to share ideas, presentations, documents, designs, and whatever else you can think of easily from one iPad to many. It enables one person, whom we call the Pilot, to control the screens of multiple iPads, whom we call the Passengers.”

The iPad app was developed within Conde Nast, by a small team focused on creating new digital opportunities for the company. “The inability to give controlled design presentations on the iPad” was a business challenge that inspired team member Don Eschenauer (Director of Design) to create the app.

Internal Pre-Launch

Prior to launching the app in the iTunes App Store, Idea Flight underwent a pre-launch beta internally, with users representing Sales, Design and Project Management.

Juliana Stock, Senior Director, Marketing & Product Development, indicates that the pre-launch helped their “discovery and roadmap validation” and that Conde Nast colleagues “tell us they use it in their personal lives to share photos or at their kids’ schools.”

Use Cases

Stock envisions the app being used “anywhere people have a lead who wants to keep everyone on the same page.” Potential users include:

  1. Education
  2. Cultural institutions
  3. Museums
  4. Choirs
  5. Sales teams
  6. Real estate brokers
  7. Event planners
  8. Companies that license computers and tablets
  9. Small businesses

Beyond Sharing

In an insightful post about the technical considerations behind Idea Flight, Robert Tolar Haining, the team’s Technical Architect, described the scenario that led to the app’s LinkedIn integration (i.e. a new employee who, during a meeting, asked Robert whom was speaking). The “passengers” in Idea Flight sign in to their LinkedIn account and the flight “manifest” lists information pulled from passengers’ LinkedIn profiles.

So the app goes beyond sharing to also address connecting. According to Stock, “as more people rely on devices for creation, communication and connecting, this app triangulates all three” [source of quote].

My Take on: Market Fit

Currently, Idea Flight works over WiFi and Bluetooth and supports a maximum of 15 passengers. As such, it’s suited to small, in-person gatherings and is not competitive with online meeting software, such as WebEx or GoToMeeting (both of whom already have iPad apps and allow presenters to share their entire desktop).

“Improving small, face-to-face meetings” may be a good niche market to hone in on, with broader aspirations to follow later on. To achieve broader adoption, the team will want to look beyond the iPad, to support Android tablets and perhaps smaller form-factor devices (e.g. smartphones).

My Take on: Additional Use Cases

We’re sure to see many innovative uses of Idea Flight. Here are two that immediately come to mind for me.

College Lectures

For professors who are so inclined (and for schools with a high adoption of iPads among students), the whiteboard/blackboard goes away. Instead, the day’s lecture is prepared on an iPad, which enables the professors to embed hyperlinks to related content.  For instance, on the first day of class, professors often provide the list of required textbooks. These could be embedded in the PDF that is shared with passengers (students).

In addition, future revisions of Idea Flight could allow for the professor to push out exercises (e.g. quizzes, related reading, etc.) that students are asked to participate in. I’ll call this “hands on learning, enabled with a swipe”.

Conferences and Trade Shows

With iPads becoming prevalent at physical conferences and trade shows, Idea Flight could create a virtual event layered on top of the physical event.

First, attendees at the back of the room could view the presentation on their iPad, rather than squinting at faraway display monitors. Next, publishing the “manifest” to all “passengers” could allow attendees to view the LinkedIn identities of everyone else (connected to the service), enabling a stream of comments and connections.

More Efficient Meetings

New features could make all meetings more efficient. For instance, a “feedback loop” could allow passengers to vote up/down a particular slide, giving the pilot real-time feedback on the presentation.

In addition, a “raise hand” indicator could signal questions to the presenters, without having to interrupt them in mid-speech. Finally, a “leave a note” system could allow passengers to leave comment(s) on particular pages, that presenters could review during (or after) the meeting.

Conclusion

I’m interested in watching the adoption of Idea Flight, including the innovative uses that arise. Use the comments section below to let me know if you’ve tried it.

Watch a Short Video on Idea Flight

Related Resources

  1. Blog posting, “Charting the Course” (on Idea Flight)
  2. Blog posting, “Introducing Idea Flight for iPad“
  3. The technical approach behind Idea Flight
  4. The team behind Idea Flight
  5. Idea Flight brochure [PDF]

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Posted by Dennis Shiao

For Virtual Events, The Mobile Revolution Has Arrived

May 4, 2011

Introduction

In the early days of virtual events (i.e. a few years ago), we used to say that users could attend a virtual event “from anywhere.” Of course, that wasn’t entirely true, as “anywhere” usually meant at a location with “fixed” (vs. roaming) Internet connectivity and “chained” to a desktop or laptop on a desk.

Tablet devices are quickly becoming pervasive and I believe (as do the analysts) that they’ll come to dominate the enterprise in short order.  Many of the emails I receive (at work) these days are stamped with “Sent from my iPad” or “Sent from my Android device”.

The Power of the Tablet

In the enterprise, we may very well be experiencing the last cycle for desktops and laptops. When the tenure of your current laptop “expires,” your IT Department may be moving you to a tablet device, such as the iPad, or one of the many Android-based tablets.  These tablets come packed with a number of key features:

  1. A form factor that further enables mobility
  2. A form factor that encourages simultaneous, “multi person” use
  3. Location awareness
  4. Pervasive connectivity, via 3G (and other) networks

What This Means for Virtual Events

For virtual events, this truly means that one can attend “from anywhere” – on the treadmill at the gym, walking along a sandy beach or sitting on your  train commute into the city.  Mobile access to virtual events mean added convenience for attendees – and, potentially higher ROI for event organizers and exhibitors.

Why?  Because mobile can create higher attendance rates.  And, exhibitors can now staff their booth and engage with visitors from anywhere.  In fact, at a hybrid event, a marketer can staff her physical booth, walk down the show floor (with tablet in hand) and staff the virtual booth at the same time!

Location Innovation

As more users attend virtual events from tablets, expect to see innovation in how events leverage users’ location data (when users opt in to share that information, of course).  Ever enter a virtual event’s Networking Lounge and observe how users are asking where everyone else is from?

Now, imagine a Google Map that shows where all virtual attendees are located geographically.  In addition, imagine hybrid events, where on-site attendees could use a tablet application to show virtual attendees where (on the show floor) they happen to be.

Demo Time

In the video (below), my INXPO colleague John Leahy shows how you can attend a virtual trade show from the iPad.

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Posted by Dennis Shiao

New Book: Generate Sales Leads With Virtual Events

December 1, 2010

Book Cover: Generate Sales Leads With Virtual Events

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links to sites on which the book is available for purchase.

“Virtual events can be a dream for marketers. They can generate leads cost effectively and they facilitate real-time interactions with sales prospects that can lead to quicker and more efficient marketing qualification.”

That’s the premise behind my new book, “Generate Sales Leads With Virtual Events”.

Previously, I posted the introduction of the book – you can find it here:

Introduction: Generate Sales Leads With Virtual Events

And here’s what I cover in the other chapters:

Chapter Listing

  1. Get Started
  2. Assemble a Plan
  3. Build Your Virtual Booth
  4. Use Social Networks to Generate Interest and Awareness
  5. Engage with Virtual Event Attendees
  6. Score and Follow Up with Leads
  7. Conclude Your Virtual Event Campaign

The book also includes an eloquent Foreword, written by Craig Rosenberg (@Funnelholic), a lead generation expert.

Purchase for Kindle

Purchase for Kindle

“Generate Sales Leads With Virtual Events” (Kindle version) ($9.99)

Purchase for iPad, iPhone & iPod Touch

“Generate Sales Leads With Virtual Events” – via iBooks ($9.99)

Purchase for NOOK (BarnesAndNoble.com)

NOOK Reader

“Generate Sales Leads With Virtual Events” – NOOK ($9.99)

Purchase the Paperback

Purchase from FastPencil, the publisher of the book:

http://www.fastpencil.com/publications/818-Generate-Sales-Leads-With-Virtual-Events ($12.99)

Buy the paperback on Amazon ($11.69)

Buy the paperback at BarnesAndNoble.com ($11.69)

Praise for “Generate Sales Leads With Virtual Events”

“This book should be required reading for any event producer or marketer that plans on using online events to engage with customers and prospects. Done properly, using virtual events for lead generation and lead nurturing as well as sales acceleration can yield impressive ROI and drive customer relationships. Dennis is one of the few experts with real-world experience from having produced lots of virtual events across many markets.”

– Michael Doyle, Executive Director, Virtual Edge Institute (@virtualedge)

“Interacting virtually is now a must-have marketing skill.  In Generate Sales Leads With Virtual Events, Dennis Shiao shows you exactly how to run a successful virtual event from end-to-end. What’s amazing is that the opportunities to engage with leads virtually can be as productive, or more so, than attending events in person.”

– Ardath Albee, author of eMarketing Strategies for the Complex Sale (@Ardath421)

“Dennis is one of the pioneers when it comes to virtual events.  He certainly knows and understands the environment, and his information is right on target!”

– Susan Friedmann, CSP, The Tradeshow Coach (@Tradeshowcoach)

“As interactivity becomes an increasingly important element of marketing campaigns, virtual events offer marketers a cost-efficient solution to engage with prospective buyers. Dennis’ book offers real-world examples and turnkey tactics that marketers can apply to increase their success with virtual events. Whether a marketer is just getting started with virtual events or just looking for tips on improving their metrics, Dennis provides the insight marketers need and want to know to maximize lead flow from virtual events.”

– Amanda Ferrante Batista, Associate Editor, DemandGen Report (@Amanda_Ferrante)

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Posted by Dennis Shiao

How Vendors Should Evolve Their Virtual Event Platforms

July 10, 2010

The following is a collaborative posting by Miguel Arias, Steve Gogolak and Dennis Shiao.

Content creation and collaboration was facilitated by a PBworks wiki – the wiki page can be found here: http://allvirtual.pbworks.com/How-Vendors-Should-Evolve-Their-Virtual-Event-Platforms

To evolve their platforms for enhanced experiences and broader adoption, virtual event platforms should consider the following:

Make it easier to experience

Most virtual event platforms are easy to use – on a first-time visit, users tend to grasp the overall user experience and can figure out where to go (and how).  That being said, for wide scale adoption, virtual events needs to be as easy as Facebook.  That is, our grandmothers need to be able to access the site and figure things out.  On Facebook, grandmothers can update their profile, read their “friends” posts and write updates to their Walls.  Can a grandmother login to a virtual event, update her profile and participate in a group chat?  We’re not so sure.  Similarly, navigation and interactions need to be easier.  Most virtual events are intuitive to navigate (e.g. Lobby, Auditorium,  Lounge, etc.) – but may not be so intuitive with regard to message boards, chat, blogging, rating, etc.

Along with a simplification of interfaces and the use of usability and navigation conventions, many customers and users seem to be demanding more immersive environments. While presenting a brand and hosting an interactive experience in a convention centre, it seems an interesting field to add some real-time rendered environments using engines like papervision3D or Unity3D. This said, it is unlikely that avatar-based real time rendered environments will make it to a mainstream audience. Key considerations (or obstacles) are plugins or applets downloads, system performance and learning curve barriers.

Make it easier to find

The typical “location” of a virtual event is quickly becoming outdated – microsite with registration page, with no ability to experience the event prior to completing all mandatory registration fields. The registration page serves as a “wall” not only to potential attendees, but to search engines as well.  Virtual event platforms need to move “outside the wall” and expose their technology on Facebook, on blogs and on publisher web sites.  Platforms should widen their distribution via widgets, embed code and application programming interfaces (API’s).  Facebook is not limited to Facebook.com – it has Facebook Connect, Facebook Open Graph and much more.  Virtual events platforms, on the other hand, seem to be restricted to “VirtualEventPlatform.com”

Make it easier to access

The most relevant virtual event platforms will introduce, or already have, Facebook Connect and Twitter API, and they will need to move to even wider standards like OpenID.  For public events, ease of registration is a must.  Using open methods for registering and/or connecting social networks have three-fold benefits:

  1. Registration is faster because basic information can be provided by services like LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.  Shorter registration forms increase completion, period.
  2. Intelligence gathered by the platform about the user’s existing social graph can enhance the experience within the event by automatically creating connections with other attendees based on that user’s connection outside the platform.  This will lead to more networking and awareness of actual people within the environment.
  3. Users opting into connections at the point of registration allows platforms to create publishable actions that can be spit out to twitter and facebook news feeds that can increase viral awareness of the event.  Marketing automation at its best.

On the other hand, desktop or mobile widgets to control your stand usage, statistics and reporting will be a must. Lastly, the platforms will have extensive APIs to manage their integration with various social networks, corporate databases, physical event managing software, etc.

Make the experience available on more devices

Most virtual event platforms support Windows, Mac and Linux.  They need to support more platforms, especially mobile.  On the mobile front, it’s important to consider iPhone/iPad, Android, BlackBerry, Symbian, Windows 7 Phone and WebOS (listed in our order of importance).  To start, we don’t believe the entire virrual event experience needs to be “ported” to mobile devices -rather, vendors should determine the most critical features for attendees and exhibitors – and prioritize based on importance.  For instance, chat is an important element of virtual events, so why not make a mobile app that allows exhibitors to staff their booth via their smartphone.

The entire 3D environment does not need to be supported on a mobile device, but the networking tools (visit card managing, real time conversation, etc) and the reporting tools certainly do. On the other hand, it will be interesting to see what happens with Flash and Apple, and see which vendors will try to develop their platforms using HTML5.

One of the key areas where mobile can play a huge role is the “reminder” needs that come from tons of scheduled activities within virtual events.  If attendees have the ability to build out a personalized agenda before the event and opt-in to either SMS reminders or download some kind of app that will push notifications at them throughout the day, it would be much easier to create a flexible agenda.  Currently we’re cramming so much into the shortest amount of time because we’re afraid of losing people.  If only we had better planning and reminding tools, driven by devices that never leave our pocket!

Make the platform more adaptable and flexible

Related to our point about mobile support, platform vendors have important decisions to make regarding the development platforms.  Virtual event platforms today are based on Flash, Flex, Silverlight, Java and JavaFX.  Are those the “right” platform technologies for the future – or, should platforms move in the direction of HTML5?  Does a combination off HTML5, Javascript and Ajax create a more adaptable and flexible platform?  What do we “lose” by shifting away from Flash, Silverlight, etc.?  And what are the mobile implications with the chosen direction?  All good questions for the platform vendors to consider.

Make the platform more adaptable for different customer needs and different usage

There are so many different kind of virtual events: trade shows, conferences, job fairs, corporate events, webinars, congresses… that vendors should decide in which market niche they are going to play. We will see generic platforms and other vendors delivering a tailored solution for one or many of the previous choices. It will become more and more complex to provide physical event managers with the features they need to handle their hybrid events at the same time as the platform is able to cope with the extensive data handling of the virtual job fair, or the networking tools of a professional tradeshow.

Take a hint from Apple and FaceTime

Video chat will, without a doubt, increase the effectiveness of networking.  It is the one key element that can be introduced that will get critics to come around to the idea that networking in an online environment can be as effective as the cocktail hour of a physical event.

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Posted by Dennis Shiao

At A Crossroads: Where Does Second Life Go From Here?

July 2, 2010

Crossroads

June 2010 will mark an important month in the history of Linden Lab and Second Life.  On June 9th, the company announced a restructuring that included a 30% reduction of their staff.  On June 24th, the company announced that CEO Mark Kingdon was stepping down and named company founder Philip Rosedale its interim CEO.

Second Life is clearly at a crossroads – it will be crucial for Linden Lab to determine the best path forward.  To do so, they need to identify the right questions to ask and then determine the right answers to those questions.

What is your audience and customer segmentation?

Second Life takes quite a broad approach today – there are a wide assortment of communities [audience] (see their Destination Guide) and an equally wide assortment of land owners [customers].  Having cut 30% of staff, the question at this juncture is whether the company (and the platform) is well suited to cater to “anybody and everybody” or whether it’s better to narrow the focus.

One “focus area” may be in evolving the platform to cater to the hobbyists and loyalists who helped grow the Second Life community from the early days [consumer focus].  Another focus area, while unlikely, may be in catering to corporations for business use (I say “unlikely” because the Enterprise group was let go in the June staff reduction).

Yet another focus area may be in catering to particular categories (e.g. Music, Art, Education).  If Second Life focused their resources around building the #1 immersive music experience, would that have a larger impact than evolving the broader platform to meet everyone’s needs?

So the question really comes down to “narrow vs. broad” – by identifying narrower segments to target their service, can Second Life create a more rewarding and enjoyable experience for both residents and land owners?

What is the revenue model?

Today, the Second Life revenue model is based around a virtual economy, whose currency is the Linden Dollar.  Residents purchase Linden Dollars with real money (e.g. US Dollars) and can then buy land (in-world) or buy virtual goods from in-world merchants.  One of the challenges inherent in this model is its dependence on others to sustain a viable audience (community).

The model works when the audience is growing and the community is thriving; however, when the audience declines and becomes less active, purveyors of virtual land find the ROI less compelling and the audience decline snowballs (since users have fewer residents to interact with each time they login).

Are you a media company or technology platform?

Second Life can go one of two ways here – they can morph into a media company (and have direct influence over the audience) or they can move to a pure-play technology platform provider, which shifts the audience generation “burden” to licensees of the platform.  As a media company, they’d be similar to Facebook, Zynga, IMVU and Slide, with revenue being a mix of advertising, sponsorship and the sale of virtual goods.

Today, I’d say that Second Life is somewhere in between – they’re a technology platform that has no explicit and associated “force” to drive audience (like a media company does).  Resolving this “grey area” will be important.

Where do you take the technology?

To some degree, the technology vision was shared in the June 2010 restructuring announcement – the company will migrate Second Life to a web-based experience, with no software download – and, they’d look to integrate popular social networks to be more accessible and relevant.  Of course, there’s a delicate balance to manage here, since a core component of the Second Life community uses the service for the immersive experience that a downloaded client can deliver.

Here, Second Life can take a page out of OnLive’s book – if OnLive can deliver immersive, action-rich, multi-player video games from the cloud, then one would imagine that a 3D immersive virtual worlds can move to the cloud as well (though, of course, it’s not trivial to achieve).  Second Life needs to think beyond the web as well and determine the viability for apps running on iPad/iPhone, Android and related mobile operating systems.

My Answers (Recommendations)

These are obviously complex questions that require a lot of analysis – in addition, there may be other questions that need to be asked.  The answers to these questions are interrelated and need to be answered together, not individually.  Here are my high level answers / recommendations:

  1. Audience and customer segmentation: Go narrow – you’ll lose segments of your user base, but the core segments you choose to focus on will see solutions and experiences that are more targeted and relevant.  Build upon these small successes and grow outward again.
  2. Revenue model: Move to a SaaS licensing model (priced in US Dollars) – keep the Linden Dollar currency system in place for the purchase of in-world virtual goods.
  3. Media company or technology platform: Become a pure-play technology platform that partners with media companies as a sales channel.  Give media companies incentives and easy-to-use tools that foster growth in virtual real estate – encourage them to be your sales champions and bring their audiences into the community.
  4. Technology evolution: Complete the transition to a 100% web-based offering (no small task!) – and, on the journey there, have plans in place for iPad and Android apps.

Times of turmoil give companies the opportunity to throw convention out the window and reinvent themselves.  Consider another company whose original founder returned to transform them from a “has been” to the most valuable technology company on the planet:

Apple Computer.

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Posted by Dennis Shiao

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