Grown Up Thinking

On November 6^th, 2011, our city hosted one of the world’s greatest road races, the ING New York City Marathon. With over $600,000 in prize money, over 100,000 applicants and over two million spectators, this iconic event is one that tops the charts for many.

In its 41^st year, the Marathon went social in a variety of ways. Here are some of the latest and greatest ways spectators were able to support their runners on another level through technology:

Official ING New York City Marathon Mobile Spectator App: This app let users track up to 10 runners simultaneously, as well as watch live streams of the race and view an interactive course map. Another fantastic component of this app is that runners could use it to push out live notifications of where they were at along their five-borough journey.

TrackMyRunners via Web and SMS: This service allowed users to track up to five runners through their web browser or track up to three runners through text alerts. This service allowed tracking on race day and afterward, and there was no advance registration needed.

SupportYourMarathoner.com: Created by Asics America, this service allowed people to support their marathoners via pre-recorded videos, images and text that played over a large LCD screen triggered by the runner’s personalized RFID tag. Click here to watch the informational video of how this technology worked.

As someone who knew several runners participating, the ING New York City Marathon App made a world of difference when it came to tracking down my runners. Starting off in Brooklyn I was able to track my runners’ progress in real-time at mile 12, then headed to Manhattan where I was able to convince spectators who were already there to let me cut in front of them by showing them my app and telling them my runners would be approaching mile 18 at any moment.

It’s great to see a sport which is usually pretty isolated find ways to engage with spectators and aspiring runners alike. Which sporting events do you think would be a great fit for this type of social technology?

Mayor Bloomberg tweeted yesterday that the roadmap to make New York the number one digital city has been published. Called “Achieving New York City’s Digital Future” the report is over 60 pages of present situation, public feedback and data, and what’s in store for NYC.

I strongly encourage poring over the whole report, which is beautiful and intriguing. Not only is it inspiring to live in a city championing to be the number one digitally, it is amazing that we live in a place where social is understood and leveraged to the public and the city’s benefit.

As a social marketing agency we were particularly appreciative that the City recognizes the importance of good social strategy. The report reads, “The City’s most successful social media strategies are goal-based, aligning with agency objectives from the start, and employing social media channels appropriate to their audience and desired outcomes.” Bravo.

New York is doing a lot already to foster the development of digital tools and an open government. Here are some fun snippets I didn’t know before reading:

- New York has six official apps. One is dedicated to finding free condoms based on location, and another offers sobriety tests and info on safe rides home. Go NYC.
- The NYC Big Apps (HAH!) competition provided city data to developers to create independent applications – there were over 100 developed using public API
- The Urban Canvas competition wrapped up and features 4 finalists whose designs can be downloaded by building owners to make scaffolding more appealing
- You can use the hashtag #askmike to get your question answered by the Mayor on his Friday radio show

As for what’s next, here are some highlights of the roadmap:

- A new Facebook presence will be unveiled during Internet Week featuring apps that support the open government infrastructure
- A Foursquare badge will be introduced by the City to incentivize residents to explore public places
- Implementation of a DataMine API that gives developers access to 350+ data sets including:

- Citywide Events and Festivals
- Wi-Fi HotSpot Locations
- Map of Playgrounds
- Bicycle Parking Locations
- Tree Census
- Art Gallery Locations
- Subway Entrances
- A hub for all New York City mobile apps
- The launch of geo-targeted mobile notification services for emergencies so you know what’s happening around you

What do you want to see in New York’s future?

Key takeaways from this SXSWi panel:

Alexa Andrzejewski, Cofounder and CEO of Foodspotting: People don’t interact for the sake of people. With Instagram and Foodspotting, people interact over a photo, an object. Apps don’t engage people, people engage people.

Jake Mintz, Cofounder of Bump Technologies: It’s hard to get the information/content noise down to a level where it’s valuable.

Boris Bogatin, CEO of NearVerse: Someday, there will be (50 people with) 50 devices in a room, each with their own profile, and mobile will automatically organize and connect everyone in the room. (As for right now?) At the end of the day, apps don’t make sense for the physical world. No one app is going to fit all your needs.

Chidi Afulezi, Director of Product Management at Turner Broadcasting: We don’t need apps for news, we need platforms. Can any one app handle the onslaught of citizen journalism during an event like the Japan earthquake/tsunami?

Keys to audience engagement: 1 – Creating compelling content: that is engagement. 2 - Build a colony of experiences around a flagship. 3 - Create two-way dialogue. 4 - Mobile web. Applications are the sexy thing right now, but we need to work on getting mobile web up to par.

Simply amazing. (Yes, I had to start off that way.) Anyone who’s ever played with my phone knows that I love me a good app. I’ve seen the good, the bad and the ugly when it comes to phone applications for marketing, but I always appreciate when someone comes up with an idea that takes marketing and entertainment to the next level. I was recently made aware of an iPhone application concept for Durex Condoms that truly takes this medium to the next level. Not only does it provide for an entertaining prank to play on your friends, but forces the consumer out to retail in order to remove the crying baby that could soon dominate their lives.

If a mobile application is not fun or functional (or both) it’s doomed to fail from the start. If it can actually drive you to retail and actually get you to see the product, then it’s destined for success. Whether or not this type of application would actually be successful is debatable, but the idea behind it is magnificently unique. Check out the video below:

Last week I stumbled upon a new iPhone app called CauseWorld, which allows users to check in to places and receive Karma points. The points can then be donated to nine potential causes including Support A Classroom, Give Clean Water, and Donate A Book. The model is basically Foursquare with a charity tie-in, allowing users to gain badges while giving back to charity through small micro actions. The app is free and sponsored by Kraft Foods and Citi. There’s also a feed via Facebook Connect which allows you to publish your donations to your Facebook wall.

CauseWorld is a great example of brands connecting with causes and amplifying their message through social media. In December, Foursquare launched a cause campaign with CampInteractive sponsored by Pepsi that donated $0.04 for each check-in. While the program was a great way to bring CampInteractive’s cause into the mainstream and align Pepsi, the CauseWorld app takes it a step further by allowing consumers to choose what cause matters most to them, and amass ‘do-gooder’ badges.

Another solid example of brands aligning with causes to rally consumer participation across social media is the Chase Community Giving program, which just announced their winners (congrats to my peeps at Invisible Children, who won a $1 million donation). The program gained over two million Facebook fans, and aligned cause with 500,000 charities that participated for a chance to receive $25k, $100k, or $1 million grants. In total, Chase Community Giving handed out $5 million to a variety of worthy organizations.

The beauty of the program is it unlocked the potential of these charities’ reach through social voting, with top charities generating over 100k user votes and rallying their fans to support their cause in a central social space. Excellent use of tying together social media, cause, community and a brand under a single campaign.

One of my Twitter friends recently posted a great article by Xavier Lur, who is a 15 year old Singapore student and also the editor of TechXav. TechXav, a technology blog written by teens ranging from 11-15, was founded by Lur in 2009 and is great site which shares news and reviews on technology from a youth’s perspective.

The article that actually caught my attention was from July, but I found it too entertaining and impressive to not share. 30+ Funny & Weird Twitter Applications give us a application-by-application rundown of Twitter’s most entertaining (yet mostly useless) add-ons.  If you have a couple of minutes, I highly suggest you read through the entire list, but below you can find my favorite 4 apps taken from Lur’s list:

Track This lets you track your UPS, Fedex, USPS or DHL package via Twitter.  Each time the package changes locations, Track This will notify you of its whereabouts.  No more waiting by the door for the UPS guy to arrive!

Foamee is Twitter’s answer to online flirting.  That special someone will be notified that you have purchased them a drink, but the kicker is, you’ll have to actually meet up with them to redeem it.  The sender or receiver can then confirm they actually purchased/claimed the drink, so all of your Twitter friends can see you are a (wo)man of your word.

Overheard.it is a personal favorite of mine, as it reminds me of one of my favorite pre-Twitter/Foursquare websites, Overhead In New York. Users anonymously tweet about silly things overheard throughout their day.  Great for a giggle or to pass time waiting for the bus.

TwitterMosaic I find really fun (especially as my News Feed was recently flooded by “My Year in Status” posts).  It compiles a collage of all of your Twitter friends and lets you drop the picture onto mugs, t-shirts, bags, etc.  Next Christmas, Twitter Mosaic mouse pads for everyone!

Finally, my least favorite application.  But only because it thought I was a dude.

You can almost hear the sound of rubber balls bouncing around the walls of Mr Youth these days, as the epic battle to reign supreme in all things #Foursquare has swept the agency. Our resident mayor recently explained the craze in an earlier post, but developments over the weekend have added a new dimension to the biggest game on the social media scene today.

I was gleefully surprised to receive an email from Foursquare notifying me that I had been upgraded to “Superuser” status based on my, well, super (over)use of the service. While the lack of a VIP card, limited edition sunglasses and other self-identifying accoutrement is slightly disheartening, I was informed that I have the ability to make  edits to the game’s venue database, like de-duplicating venues and matching venues with twitter accounts. The more I exercise my Superuser status the more abilities I’ll unlock.

Foursquare is really hitting the mark when it comes to tapping into its enthusiastic fanbase to drive and improve the game. By inviting users into the fold and allowing them to affect elements of the service, they’re fostering deeper loyalties and creating layers of exclusivity that encourage would-be-Superusers to increase their usage of the game to reach the great heights of Superuser status. Lucky me. Question is…how do I translate this into a Halloween costume?

Where my other Superuser peeps at? Holler below in the comment section.

When two old acquaintances and Facebook friends sacrificed me for a lousy Whopper, I knew Burger King was onto something big… and that my feelings were just a little bit hurt. Burger King had created a successful Facebook application called the Whopper Sacrifice, which rewarded people with a free Whopper for sacrificing 10 friends. A brilliant concept that I wish I’d thought of. It’s so great because it has everything a successful Facebook app needs. It has an incentive, it has a viral component, and it’s useful.

There’s currently an oversaturation of Facebook applications out there. Many companies see that Facebook is the new thing but they haven’t figured out how to use it yet. A lot of companies force applications or features, regardless of whether people want them or not. Part of the success of the Burger King application is that it came out of necessity to let people do some spring-cleaning to their buddy lists. Using caution to not make the application seem mean spirited, it was given a lighthearted spin with the message, “Todd likes you but loves the Whopper. Todd sacrificed you for a free burger at Whopper Sacrifice.” 184,000 sacrifices later, it’s still going strong.

ADDED: 1/22 – In a sad moment for marketers, Facebook removed the Whopper Sacrifice from their website, but not before nearly 234,000 friends were scarfificed. Facebook claimed that the application violated their policy that people cannot be notified when they are unfriended. A modified version of the app is expected to go live shortly.