The Web Means the End of Forgetting - NYTimes.com

The Web Means the End of Forgetting - NYTimes.com

"According to a recent survey by Microsoft, 75 percent of U.S. recruiters and human-resource professionals report that their companies require them to do online research about candidates, and many use a range of sites when scrutinizing applicants — including search engines, social-networking sites, photo- and video-sharing sites, personal Web sites and blogs, Twitter and online-gaming sites."

Our Un-Social Social Media - Advertising Age - CMO Strategy

A good article about social media by the VP of Nielsen's digital service -

"At the end of the day, social media should be a relationship vitamin and sweetener, not a destination. It should deepen bonds, not defuse or soften them." - Pete Blackshaw

In recent weeks I've been in a state of "digital detox," or better yet, "social sobriety." Ironically, I now feel a bit more in touch and conversational.
My beautiful sister Mary Grace passed away a week ago as a result of complications from heart failure. She was only 55. The extreme shock was mitigated only slightly by spending a week with her in the hospital before she died.

From the first inkling of serious trouble to last weekend's beautiful memorial service in the San Diego area, my life's been a non-stop series of conversations. I'm talking about the real stuff -- deep, intimate, authentic, meaningful, sustaining, raw, emotional, agonizing, intense. And with a diverse cross-section of audiences: my six siblings, multiple relatives, doctors, nurses, close friends of my sister, her son, my Alzheimer's-afflicted mother and others.

Needless to say, this has given me long-overdue pause for introspection. Connecting in meaningful ways over someone you have lost, or are losing, makes everything else we deem "social" seem so ... well, unsocial. Or perhaps just a bit trivial.

Indeed, looking at the word "conversation" through the lens of social media, you almost wonder whether we've allowed it to become cheapened and commoditized.

For perspective, I've ramped up a fair share of connections, thousands of followers and gobs of reciprocating "link love" over the years. Ego gratification notwithstanding, at times it all feels rather superficial. Surely we can't consider all this "social" activity a proxy for real relationship-building.

At the end of the day, social media should be a relationship vitamin and sweetener, not a destination. It should deepen bonds, not defuse or soften them. Remember, volume doesn't always translate into intimacy. Speed doesn't guarantee meaningful connections. Retweets don't necessarily confer respect. Friending doesn't always signal friendliness.

As marketers, we're just starting to emerge from the full force of the first social-media tsunami wave. We blinked, and suddenly 550 million people joined Facebook. We turned our head, and Twitter has become a national compulsion. All the world's our friend. A kingdom for a good tweet.

Moreover, our vernacular has made radical leaps to the language of "relationship" building. "Conversational marketing" is the order of the day. We're obsessed with words like listening, authenticity, transparency and responsiveness.

All well and good, but these practices and forceful words carry real expectations. Amid the social stampede, we may want to step out of line and reflect on what it means to really fulfill our new claims and promises. Importantly, how much credibility do we lose -- both as individuals and brand marketers -- if our real behavior moves in the opposite direction?

One irresistible lure of social media is that it provides an easier gateway to "relationships." A smart paid-media trigger or well-executed word-of-mouth campaign can suddenly put a hundred-thousand incremental followers on a Facebook fan page.

But there's a big distinction between "click-through" and "stick-through." It takes real work and investment -- and even tough head-count decisions (think "community managers") -- to nurture and grow relationships, and even that's not a guarantee of success. This is why getting social media right is fundamentally an "enterprise" -- and not merely a marketing -- endeavor.

I've been a big stickler in this column for "boring basics" like customer service, especially answering the phone, because such acts hit a deeper emotional sweet spot with consumers, often triggering more profitable (or destructive) word-of-mouth activity. And so I was excited to see Best Buy's Twelpforce, one of my favorite marketing programs of the year, nab one of Cannes' top advertising prizes. But looking ahead, with novelty and awards out of the way, I'm curious how the brand will truly sustain the effort. It's really hard to scale intimacy. Relationships take work, whether by handshake or tweet.

There's yet another layer to this humbling meditation. What we also have here, amid our endless connections, is a failure to communicate -- and we barely know it. Conversational discontinuities are everywhere. Few people these days ever look up in public spaces -- on planes, on elevators, in restaurants, even while walking down the street. We're perpetually looking down or escaping into our wireless devices. Heck, "Bowling Alone" seems more social than neckless social-media cocooning. Welcome to Generation Heads Down!

In fairness to social media, I was deeply touched by the groundswell of love and support from folks who left condolences about my sister Mary Grace on Facebook. I was similarly touched when my father died several years ago, and a blog I created in his honor precipitated nearly a hundred comments and testimonials. I was so moved I wrote a column titled "Death, Social Media and Remembrance."

But in those rare instances where the fuzzy fog of social-media friendship and conversation finds authentic voice, how do we take it to the next level -- with real meaning and sustained traction?

My sister Mary Grace would probably remind us that that the shiny lure of new technology can sometimes blind us to simpler steps and more obvious truths. Like my father, she nurtured and grew relationships in ways that humbled social-media pontificators like myself. That much was obvious listening to some of her friends reflect on the depth and substance of their relationships with her during the service on Saturday.

Interestingly, Mary never forgot the simple things like birthdays, and she religiously sent the family reminders months in advance for all seven siblings, a dozen or so nieces and nephews and other relatives. I never seem to remember birthdays.

Nurturing real conversations and real relationship-building with consumers isn't necessarily difficult. It might be right under our nose. But it's very easy to get distracted or even veer off the road.

Original Post: http://adage.com/cmostrategy/article?article_id=144993

Apple Making New Push Into China - NYTimes.com

SHANGHAI — Although Apple is widely admired in China, most fans of its products here have been buying their iPhones, iPods and Mac computers from smugglers who operate through underground electronics markets. The company has few sales outlets in the country and only one Apple Store, a branch in Beijing.

But with Apple set to open a flagship Saturday in Shanghai — one of its largest stores in Asia — the company is embarking on a concerted effort to raise its profile in the world’s biggest mobile phone market and tap more directly into China’s fast-growing consumer electronics market.

Apple intends to open 25 retail stores in China over the next two years, starting with the Shanghai outlet, which it previewed for reporters Thursday.

“We view this store as a kind of launching pad,” Ron Johnson, senior vice president of retail operations at Apple, said Thursday.

By opening retail outlets in China, Apple is following other global brands eager to market to the country’s increasingly affluent consumers. While overall retail sales in the United States and Europe are weak, China’s economy is booming, and companies like Best Buy, the Gap, Nike, Starbucks, Zara and most of Europe’s big luxury brands are opening new stores in China.

Analysts who follow Apple say that China offers a huge opportunity for the a company because Apple’s market share in the country is tiny — less than 5 percent in most major categories.

“Apple plans a major invasion of China over the next 18 months to two years,” said Charles Wolf, an analyst who follows Apple for Needham & Co. and credits its retail stores with significantly bolstering Apple’s brand. “To date, Apple has not been a force in China. But it will be.”

But other analysts say Apple faces significant hurdles in China. The company’s product releases have been dogged by delays. Sales through official distributors have been weakened by prices that are substantially higher than in the United States, fueling a brisk underground trade in smuggled goods.

The iPhone, for instance, was officially released in China only late last year, nearly two years after it was introduced in the United States. By then, analysts say, more than one million iPhones had been brought into the country by tourists or smugglers.

Apple also faces stiff competition from Nokia, Motorola, HTC and other mobile phone brands that use Google’s Android operating system. Those companies have been aggressively marketing their products in China, which has more than 650 million mobile phone users.

Even Lenovo, the Chinese computer maker, has entered the smart phone market by introducing what it calls LePhone, which is priced far below the iPhone.

In an interview published Monday in The Financial Times, Liu Chuanzhi, the head of Lenovo, said Apple was missing a huge opportunity in the Chinese market because the company was spending too little time serving Chinese consumers and understanding their needs.

Apple would not comment on the Lenovo statements. But Apple executives hope that building stores in China will give the company more direct contact with its consumers and duplicate the excitement Apple has generated elsewhere. If Apple opens 25 stores by 2012, China would most likely become the company’s third-largest market after the United States and Britain.

Retail stores could also help China Unicom, a state-owned telecommunications company that now has an exclusive multiyear deal to sell the iPhone in China.

Analysts estimate that China Unicom has sold about one million iPhones since late last year. They say the company had expected to sell far more by now but that the high price of the iPhone (5,880 renminbi, or about $864 up front for the 3GS model with a complicated calling plan and refunds over a two-year period) have prevented stronger sales.

“The price of the official iPhones is too high compared to that on the grey market,” says Sandy Shen, an analyst at Gartner, a research firm based in Stamford, Connecticut. “Also, Apple has too few retail stores in China. It is inconvenient for consumers to find one when they want to buy the iPhone, iPod or Mac.”

China Unicom recently introduced a cheaper plan, and sales have improved, analysts say.

Black market sellers say that even with new Apple stores, they have an advantage because Apple has been delaying the international release of new products like the iPhone 4 and the iPad.

“They won’t have any impact on our clients,” said Yang Zijie, a vendor selling Apple products Thursday at an electronics market in Shanghai. “Their price for the iPhone 3GS is much higher. Customers who already got used to the price of smuggled goods won’t turn to them. And they don’t have the iPhone 4 or the iPad at all!”

But many analysts say consumers will flock to Apple stores. Apple products are widely and comically imitated in China, and the large number of phones smuggled into the country is an indication of pent-up demand.

Apple will get a taste of that demand on Saturday, when the Shanghai flagship store is set to open in an upscale mall in the Pudong financial district near some of the city’s gleaming new skyscrapers.

The shop is designed in Apple’s sleek, minimalist style and punctuated by a cylindrical glass shell 12 meters, or 40 feet, tall that echoes the company’s iconic Fifth Avenue store in New York.

The entrance to the store, which has about 175 workers, is through a winding staircase that takes customers into an underground area that sells computers, smartphones and accessories. It is outfitted with the company’s trademark Genius Bar (where customers can get technical support) and a “briefing room” intended for business seminars.

Mr. Johnson was beaming Thursday as he introduced the store’s features to about 100 journalists, saying that the shop offered “all the hallmarks of an Apple store experience plus a couple more.”

At the end of his briefing, even the members of the news media could not hold back their enthusiasm; the group broke into loud applause.

Bao Beibei contributed research.

Original Post: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/09/technology/09apple.html?_r=1&hp

Twitter Gets Into E-Commerce - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

By CLAIRE CAIN MILLER

Last year, we wrote that Twitter was considering e-commerce as one of its revenue models. On Tuesday it unveiled its first foray into selling products.

The company announced @earlybird Exclusive Offers, which will be time-sensitive deals on products and events that will appear on the @earlybird Twitter account. People can follow that account to get access to the deals.

The idea borrows from private and limited-time sale sites, like Gilt, Groupon and Woot (which Amazon.com recently acquired), a recent trend in online shopping. It also takes advantage of what companies like Dell, which attributes millions of dollars in sales to posting deals on Twitter, are already doing.

The deals could be on products, like iPods or diapers, or on events, like concert tickets or travel. In a post on a company blog, Twitter hinted that it could filter deals by category, like apparel or gadgets, in the future. Twitter stressed that it would be selective about which deals were offered and “try and make these deals interesting and of value to you.”

The retailers will determine the price of the items and how many are available. Twitter will earn money from the sales. It is experimenting with different models, like a cut of each sale or a fixed price per deal, said Sean Garrett, a Twitter spokesman. The retailers will collect shoppers’ credit card numbers and otherwise fulfill the transaction.

This is a different approach to e-commerce than the one we wrote about last year, in which retailers could offer transactions on the site based on what people are writing about. A running shoe retailer, for example, could offer shoes to people who asked about the best shoes for running on trails. This might still be possible with annotations, a new service that Twitter says it is rolling out soon so that people can add so-called metadata, like a way to make a purchase, to Twitter posts.

The first deal will appear soon, Mr. Garrett said. They will initially be nationwide, but Twitter is considering offering deals specific to cities or countries later on. If @earlybird takes off, Twitter could become a competitor to Groupon and the many other local daily deal sites, as well as to Woot, Gilt and others.

The tech blog ReadWriteWeb first reported on @earlybird last week, and Twitter announced the details on a company blog on Tuesday.

Original Post:
Twitter Gets Into E-Commerce - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com