A bit over three years ago I started a spreadsheet tracking all of the ’social and mobile services’ floating around the marketplace, which I organized into (inevitably nebulous) subcategories: location-based, standard text-to-screen, web-only social utility, photo-specific, ad-serving, etc, etc…

Needless to say, this little project has grown well beyond the bounds of a simple Excel doc over the past few years, and compartmentalization has only become messier. Trend waves ebbed and flowed; Startups were funded, bought, merged, and killed; I watched a little app called Twitter hit puberty and adulthood in the span of a month, promptly explode, and ultimately ‘grow into its nose.’

Beneath the social soup that was steeping under the names of Socializr, Attendi, Eventful, Troovy, Vibely, Planypus, Qwikker, WeHangHere, Trusted Places, PlaceShout, MoBloco, Mobango, Meetro, MingleNow, BunchBall, DodgeBall, FatDoor (and enough others to make my scroll finger weary) emerged a few winners, a sack of losers, and a whole new set of best practices.

So, are we in Mobile/Social/Local Land 2.0 yet?

The way I see it: almost.

I’ve been playing around with FourSquare and (to a lesser extent) GraffitiGeo over the past few days, and it’s clear that those of us knee-deep in this stuff have learned a few things while mucking around in the aftermath of round one:

1. Incentives are critical (prizes, badges, role hierarchies, etc). Users need a reason to keep playing other than ‘it’s hip and new.’
See above- ‘new’ isn’t unique.

2. Give users explicit instructions on what to do, but let them figure out why they’d want to. Twitter’s ‘What are you doing?’ call to action is brilliant in its own coy little way, and while FourSquare’s “Check in/Add a Tip” still needs tweaking, it’s edging closer to that magic formula.

3. Multi-modal unification needs to be clean and easy. (The iPhone experience should be seamless with the web play, and so on…)

4. While social services will always be about ego, they also need to be about fun. Even the most self-absorbed sixteen year-old tires of navel-gazing after a while. Appeal to quirkiness, appeal to whimsy, appeal to the element of surprise. Even if your target audience is 40-something corporate execs, everyone likes to undo the top button. Help them.

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Seen any apps or services that appeal to the conditions above? Leave me a comment so we all can play.
(Pssst… that’s #5: Social services make a big fat ’splat’ sound when you’re using them alone… which is why GraffitiGeo’s social mob/heatmap angle seems so promising.)

MediaPost’s Online Media Daily featured a piece this morning highlighting the fact that regular mobile phones (those “which do not have operating systems of offer the same range of functionality as smartphones”) are working to keep up with the likes of  the iPhone and BlackBerry. The article notes that while “feature phones” are slowly losing ground to smartphones, they still hold a strong lead in market share – 72%.

So we’d like to use this opportunity as a reminder to those looking to add interactivity to their digital out of home campaign: no smartphones, no custom apps, no true OS? No problem. All you need to interact with the LocaModa platform is a text messaging plan (US only…for now).

I’ll admit that the majority of LocaModa employees have iPhones (with a BlackBerry or two in the mix). But that doesn’t mean we don’t build our platform with universal compatibility in mind. We even have a few feature phones sitting around the office for testing.

Sure, writing a custom app (like Jumbli for the iPhone) to integrate into your DOOH campaign will enhance some interactive experience, perhaps providing revenue opportunities and – of course – plenty of buzz. But when it comes down to it, the good ol’ text or photo message is all you need to extend your interactive media to audiences beyond the web.

Above, LocaModa’s test cell phones. Shown with original iMac puck mouse to illustrate age of technology.

Texting is on the rise. We’ve embraced that fact. We know texting is here to stay. It’s shaping the way we communicate, pay bills, reach target audiences, and, well, simply live. The speed at which it entered our lives is pretty fascinating.

Just this week, we read headlines about the 13 year old who racked up 14,528 text messages in one month (that’s 484 messages a day!), and now it seems that LG’s US National Texting Championships may be the next national spelling bee!

The championship finals were held this week in New York and the winning prize was $50,000. 15 year Kate Moore walked away with the trophy and the prize money this year, after competing against 20 other finalists in New York these last few days. The competition required them to text a modified chorus from Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah while doing crazy tasks like jumping obstacles on a treadmill and while blindfolded. The championship started out as a PR campaign for LG in 2007, and this is its third year in action.

It would’ve been spectacular to have the contestants text Wiffiti and have a screen that displayed the results in the studio. That way everybody would get to see how fast and accurate the contestants really were. Maybe next year. :)

(via WSJ)

The snow is all kinds of serious here in Cambridge, but what better time to cozy up with a latte and some Nielson numbers? Hey, It’s New Year’s Eve, let’s get crazy…

Upon reading The Television-Internet Connection yesterday (a Time article from ‘07 that is still particularly relevant), I was struck by the stat that 37% of the U.S. population over the age of 12 use their computers while watching television at home (Solutions Research Group). Because LocaModa focuses on building products that are cross-channel (i.e. work on out-of-home signage, web, mobile), it’s not surprising that such a significant chunk of the population is already habitually multitasking their “screen viewership,” yet it is a bit surprising that it’s happening so quickly.

Read the rest of this entry

Although “mobile location-based services” carries with it an overly broad definition and a crazy boatload of ancillary concepts, the basic construct can be whittled down to a place-based technology solution accessed via mobile. From FireEagle to Whrrl, the harmony changes a bit, yet the melody remains constant: connecting people where they go… when they’re on the go.

Although LocaModa reaches far further than a straight-up mobile LBS (in that we connect consumers synchronously through the web, mobile, DOOH locations, and social networks like Facebook), our core solution can be (at least loosely) aligned with the aforementioned model.

…All that to say… HEY, CHECK OUT THESE HUGE EMARKETER GROWTH PREDICTIONS.
(Who’s glad I got to the point? Other than me…)