Google+ native iPhone app wows with design

This is an interesting one. Google + have just released a well designed iPhone app that is certainly worth your attention. Whether you use Google+ or not, it’s clear this app has got everything right in terms of a mobile social network app.

Here are some features we love:

• The endless scroll that refreshes with new items in the stream is very smooth and has been compared to the experience of private social network ‘Path’ (Read more about Path here).
• There’s a clear emphasis on images and videos. Everywhere you look there are images. In fact, if there’s one criticism I have is that this has been done to such an extreme it made me feel slightly dizzy when scrolling – with all the colours and images going on I didn’t know where to look.
• It’s different to the web version – it’s an entire mobile experience not a translated one. Whilst it’s important to maintain brand consistency, the Google+ app maintains Google’s signature style but has certainly tailored this experience of their brand perfectly for the iOS device and for mobile.  If you’d like to know why this is important, read our analysis here.

Apple rumoured to be moving away from Google Maps in iOS 6

This week it was reported here that Apple was replacing Google Maps with its own inhouse product when it releases the next iteration of iOS. The new mapping experience is reported to be a “much cleaner, faster and more reliable experience” according to “trusted sources”. There is even rumours that the new product will offer a “powerful new 3D mode“, after Apple accquired 3D mapping solution provider C3 Technologies last October.

The rumour is yet to be officially confirmed, however the suggestion is definitely not outside the realm of possibility. The terms of the renewal of Apple and Google’s deal was not disclosed last year and given the current trend for many services including FourSquare to choose OpenStreetMap over Google Maps, it seems perfectly likely.

Was this Apple’s plan all along?
One interesting angle on this is to consider Apple has always wanted to move away from Google Maps. In fact, Greg Sterling wrote a great post here asking what if Apple have always restricted Google Maps features on iOS as part of a gameplan to eventually move onto their own in-house product.

“Here’s a bit of conspiracy theory: What if Apple wanted to replace Google Maps from a very early point and the company was biding its time until it could acquire and build the core assets and expertise to do so? Maybe that early point was when former CEO Steve Jobs’ attitude toward Google changed, when he began to feel that Android was “a stolen product”?”

A better Google Maps iOS app
Whatever the backstory, if this turns into reality, we may end up with the best of both worlds – a fully featured Apple Maps for iOS, plus a much improved Google Maps app for iPhone. As Sterling points out, this move would free up Google to “roll out a more full-featured mapping app with all the bells and whistles (e.g Navigation) and thus provide a better overall experience than the iPhone-Google Maps of today.” After all, that is what it has done with all its other services from Google Earth to Google+.

If you’re interested in this topic, you should read our post Beyond Google Maps by our resident mapping expert, Alex Carver. If you would like us to build you a map or help out with any of your mapping queries, just say hello.

Facebook’s Mobile Monetisation problems & what they mean for web businesses

With Facebook’s IPO coming up, there has been a lot of chatter about Facebook’s challenge on mobile. Last week we reported on Facebook’s new App Center and boldly claimed that in bringing social discovery to apps, it had solved one of the biggest problems for the mobile community. Read that here. However, this week Facebook admitted to the world that they have so far not managed to make any money from mobile and have no guarantees at the moment that they will.

The problem is manifold. As a free social experience, Facebook makes the substantial majority of its money through advertising, making $3.154 billion in 2011. Yet, 2012 is the year of mobile and Facebook have been slow to adapt to mobile advertising or mobile business models full stop.

Increasingly, over half of their 901 million userbase are accessing their service on mobile and Facebook have no clue how to monetize them. This is a BIG problem and increasing every day. But I think this problem isn’t restricted to Facebook. Read on here why I think the transition to mobile threatens to leave all web companies without a business model.

That’s it for What’s New For You this week, folks. Love to know your thoughts on any of these topics or get in touch to see how 3seven9 can help you with your mobile needs.

But, Facebook have acknowledged in its public offering prospectus the difficulties that they have with mobile advertising and mobile monetization of their services.

We do not currently directly generate any meaningful revenue from the use of Facebook mobile products, and our ability to do so successfully is unproven.

The dramatic shift in consumer behaviour and transition to mobile has left Facebook (and many other companies) standing still– with mobile Daily Active Users (DAUs) overtaking the mobile ads being distributed or created. With an ever increasing shift to ‘mobile first’ and more than half of Facebook’s 901 million users accessing their services via mobile, this could be seriously detrimental to Facebook’s revenue and its traditional advertising business model.

Facebook made $3.154 billion through advertising in 2011

But I think this issue is not restricted to Facebook. All big web companies will have to face up to the move to mobile pretty soon and face the same challenges that Facebook have admitted. This period even feels reminiscent of the decline of Print or the digitization of music that was experienced 10 years ago. The big players can’t keep up with the incredible pace of change in consumer behaviour and if they don’t take action soon, they’ll get left behind.

Why is mobile advertising different?

There are many factors at play here. Let me talk about two key areas:

• Mobile device screen size. This may seem obvious but it is a new world, one in which advertisers are not prepared for. Mobile screen sizes limit the options available and to some extent so far, the results. Across all major mobile platforms, it’s accepted that there’s a correlation between screen size and CTR; adverts on a bigger screen perform better. This is an area we hope to see significant improvement in creativity amongst both mobile ad networks and agencies – but either way, it’s a challenge.
• Consumer expectation towards mobile advertising. The fact is, demand or (the better word may be) tolerance, for adverts amongst consumers on the restricted-size mobile screen is low. This is a perception issue about where adverts fit within a consumers’ User Experience or not at all and one of the key areas for web companies to understand if they’re going to preserve an advertising model on mobile.

Compromising UX to make revenue

This is one of the biggest challenges for Facebook. Social consumer-facing experiences like Facebook– not surprisingly – face the most hostility from user bases to efforts to monetize. You can see this amongst mobile gaming. Apps that choose to go Freemium with revenue from advertising are criticised by consumers for disruptive adverts that ruin their experience.

Users wanting to connect with friends, share photos and generally have entirely social experiences do not want to be disturbed so overtly by advertising. Twitter have started treading this water gently- integrating Promoted Tweets into their stream and increasing their big corporate ad units with extra features – banner adverts, extended profiles etc. Facebook are aware of this and the process of monetization on web Facebook has been gradual; remaining relatively subtle even now compared to Google’s search advertising, with adverts relegated to the side-bar not the news stream.

However, I think this issue of perception will be a key arena for web companies to transform. Consumer expectation HAS to change if users want to be served up the best possible content and services. Consumers are starting to make these decisions in respect to mobile apps already: cope with adverts if you want to go free or choose to pay for access for a purer, more superior User Experience.

Three mobile business models

Web companies facing monetization will have a choice between the 3 business models that exist on mobile:

• Paying for access
• Mobile advertising
• Third-party sponsorship

Across the board, pay-for-access-to-content models are beginning to take shape with users beginning to understand they have to choose between paying or compromising their UX with ads – Spotify being a clear prevalent example. Spotify’s relationship with mobile and their business model is particularly interesting as they completely restrict access on mobile unless you are a paid-for Premium Spotify member. I know amongst my friends that this has encouraged many of them to pay for the service. Other media are realising this option works for them such as film subscription services LoveFilm and NetFlix.

In turn, this is opening up consumers’ to the idea of sharing in the cost of the service. Web businesses will have to prove to users that their services and content are worth paying for on mobile if they want to choose this path. This may even end up being Facebook’s route of choice down the line.

Web businesses and consumers will teach each other to adapt

It will be interesting to watch how Facebook and all the big players crack this one over the next few years. Google – although to some extent ahead of the game having acquired Admob many years ago and with far superior options for search advertising compared with Facebook – still faces the mobile problem.

When in two-three years, mobile is our dominant entrypoint to the internet, its content and its services, will they have taught us that paid content is the way forward or we must choose to settle for adverts? My thoughts are that they will have to.

Facebook are bringing Open Graph to mobile. It is open to mobile apps – be they built for web, iOS or Android – as long as they use Facebook login, as well as websites that use Facebook login that have a personalised logged-in experience. Their new App Center is going to mean one centralised app store. With 900 million Facebook users, I hardly need to point out the potential for mobile app developers. This is HUGE.

Open Graph’s Success

At the f8 conference last September, Facebook announced Open Graph apps, where actions or gestures taken within apps became heavily integrated with Facebook’s Timeline and News Feed. This enabled frictionless sharing of actions from listening to music on Spotify to reading articles on The Guardian.

These apps were officially introduced in January this year and since then they have been generating vast amounts of traffic and engagement for Facebook apps, dramatically developing the user bases of the services that had Timeline apps. In February after only a month of Open Graph integration, services such as Pinterest, Foodily and Artfinder announced a 60% increase in daily userbase and site visitors. This type of success is a tiny example of the potential of Open Graph and mobile apps.

Social App Discovery

This is going to change the way we discover apps. So far the Apple App store and Google Play organise apps based on categories, number of downloads and the lucky few who get featured. It’s well known this method just does not allow for the type of discovery necessary in app stores with over 500,000 apps available. It’s not intuitive. Everyone is missing out.

Assuming Facebook’s concept is executed well, it looks like Facebook will blow Apple and Google out of the water in regards to discovery of apps with an app store based on social connections. Facebook say that “Success through the App Center is tied to the quality of the app. We use a variety of signals, such as user ratings and engagement, to determine if an app is listed in the App Center.” Apps in the Facebook store will be organised by quality, download numbers AND how much your friends like them. The greatest recommendation that we have is the trusted, social recommendation and finally this will be integrated into the mobile ecosystem in an intuitive way.

For app developers, this will give you a chance to be discovered by a market of over 900 million users and a much higher chance of spreading virally through Facebook’s Open Graph. Plus, your chances of making money on your app may also increase as Facebook are also launching a beta payment feature to allow app developers to charge for apps on Facebook and not be limited to IAP.

While some may feel that restricting the App Store to mobile apps that authenticate with Facebook there will be a limited number of apps, I think that this will only encourage more apps to choose to use Facebook Login for the  advantages that the new Store brings – namely, greater chance for discovery. This is going to be especially true for apps that aspire to develop their own community or fit well with social (an increasing preoccupation of apps as social continues to dominate).

What’s clear is, mobile is changing INCREDIBLY fast. We can’t wait to see what changes Apple and Google implement in response. The general feeling I have is that whatever discovery mechanism they implement, it will never be able to match the power of social of Facebook. It’s great to see Facebook finally waking up to mobile and solving the biggest problem of the mobile world. Who knows? This may even finally lead to the many-times-rumoured-then-dismissed elusive Facebook phone. Everything would fit very neatly.

Facebook App Detail Page – Complete one before May 18th to be eligible for launch

If you’re a developer or app owner, here’s the link for what you need to do exactly to be included in the Launch. You’ll need to create an app detail page before May 18th if you want to be included in the App Center launch.

If you’re an app developer and want help getting to grips with the new changes – whether it be development work, your UI, design or marketing, we’d love to get involved. Just say hello.

1. Encourage your employees to use LinkedIn

So you’ve filled in your company profile and included up-to-date information in the overview and about the services of your company. What next? Well, as your employees make up the company, it’s time to get them involved.

Your employees are a great way to create an online presence and showcase your expertise. On social media, they represent the human side to your company and their active profiles are a great way to enhance your company’s visibility. But this does not have to be a burden for them. One incredibly easy way to get them involved passively is for them to add a LinkedIn blog application to import the RSS feed of your company blog onto their profile. Anyone who visits their page will also be aware of your business.

2. Join groups relevant to you and your business

There is a wealth of information and content out there, and LinkedIn allows you to connect with others within your relevant industry and discuss provoking and relevant news to your business (so the more you add, the easier it is for others to connect to you). You can also toggle your settings in a group to get email digests of group activity – daily or weekly.

Not only does this allow you to keep on top of news and industry change, but it offers a network of other professionals you can ask opinions from, create or join debates with and share information.

3. Engage within groups

Once you’ve joined the groups relevant to your business, you can now engage. This is a great way to network, build relationships with others in the community, and share any useful content you have.

This doesn’t mean spamming links to the group with everything on your website, but if you do have interesting or valuable information to share with the community then you should share it. As well as building up relationships with valuable content, you will be developing the inbound traffic to your website and raising your industry profile.

Remember though – you should add value to the group, so participate in discussions, offer useful information, answer questions and be an active and established member of the community.

4. Follow people and conversations

You may want to maintain updates of certain people (perhaps group influencers) or conversations. Automatically, you’ll get email updates of conversations you have participated in, but if you wanted to track any other discussion, there is a “follow” button to get updates.

By following others in a group (option can be found below their image in a conversation) you will receive their status updates on your home page. This can be useful, particularly if they share relevant information to your company.

5. Make valuable connections

Firstly you’ll want to connect with other employees of the company, and build up your professional network by searching contacts in your existing and any previous workplace, or through known email addresses. Use the ‘People You May Already Know’ tool to make it easier.

Beyond that, you may not realise how easy it can be to make new professional relationships on the social platform. It’s important to note that we are not advocating connecting with those you don’t know. However, if you’ve engaged with certain professionals of your industry within a group discussion for instance, you may want to connect with them or message them to suggest meeting up to develop the conversation further. A little known fact about LinkedIn is that you can send InMail to professionals in the same group as you. This is ideal for developing professional relationships established within debates or discussions, as long as you don’t abuse the privilege.

6. Update your status

This is a wonderful way to build your authority and awareness as you can provide an ever-present stream of relevant content on the home page of your connections. It also means that if people start following you, they will be updated by these statuses. An effective way to promote your brand is to use this feature to share company news, your latest blogs or articles.

You can also like or comment on other people’s statuses, so it is worth doing when appropriate. People are much more likely to reciprocate and advocate your content even more.

7. Make use of the Answers feature

This is another great tool to build your authority. You can answer questions (filtered by industry) and exemplify your knowledge and expertise, and you’re able to browse previous questions if you want to benefit from other expert knowledge.

We hope these 7 easy tips will help you maximise your use of LinkedIn and would love to hear your thoughts below.

If you’d be interested in social media training to learn how to get real results from use of social media, just say hello.

When you think about it, it’s a remarkably clever idea – the main problem for recruitment of organ donors is lack of awareness. It’s a major contradiction that the majority of people understand and consider it to be a good thing, but just never get around to registering. Facebook has brought the registration process directly to the user and hopefully will use its social power of “seeing your friends doing something” to transform donor registration in the U.S and the U.K and save the lives of hundreds of thousands of people who needlessly die every year, waiting for transplants.

This announcement got me thinking. It’s admirable that Facebook have really boldly decided to do this, when they didn’t need to. It’s clear it has been quite a personal decision on Mark Zuckerberg’s part – inspired by his girlfriend’s work and experience as a paediatrician and the extension of Steve Jobs’ life after his transplant. But where are the other examples of this?

A new type of corporate responsibility for technology companies

Everyday the brightest minds of our generation are hard at work figuring out the latest way that we want to take photos of each other. In America particularly, certain industries – such as healthcare – are desperate for the level of innovation displayed and created everyday by entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley and around the world. The upsetting thing is that consumer-orientated products and services have swallowed up whole swathes of engineers, developers, designers and creators all caught up in the hype and drive of a new social-media driven tech bubble.

And in many ways, that’s great. It’s incredible that we’re lucky enough to live and work in a very thriving industry and to be honest, society, where technology innovation can be seen at all levels, transforming our world and how we connect with each other.

All I’m asking is for Facebook’s decision to signal the beginning of a period where a lot more of this energy and innovation can go towards more “meaningful” endeavour; a period where entrepreneurs, business owners and individuals strive to innovate for all the same reasons but think about how to make a difference along the way. I want to see social technology revolutionise the world, but not just the trivial parts of it.

If you’re reading this, take a second to think if you could integrate corporate responsibility into the heart of your business using technology. We’d love to talk to you about making it work.

Live tweets integrated into TV ad for the first time

Last night was very interesting for TV meets social. The trailer for Ridley Scott’s new sci-fi blockbuster Prometheus premiered last night on Channel 4 during Sunday night primetime show Homeland and viewers were encouraged to tweet their thoughts on the trailer and film with the hashtag #areyouseeingthis

I then watched with awe in the next ad break as some of the best tweets were displayed on the screen, read out and zoomed in on. Live (or slightly post-live) social participation in a TV advert. Although it’s become increasingly common to see calls to action such as “Join us on Facebook”, “Follow us on Twitter” integrated into TV ads and occasionally, tweets being displayed,  this was the first time for such serious integration between the worlds of social and TV.

What’s clear is that it’s another step in the evolution of integrated marketing. It definitely validates the direction that services like Zeebox are heading and the future of an integrated offline and online user experience.

Playing can be one of the best ways to connect with your customers

One thing we can’t ignore for What’s New For You today is a brilliant and quite interesting game that Google have put together as a promotional tool for Google Maps. We absolutely love it and can’t help but tell you about it to illustrate how marketing on a social level can be fun and surprising.

In the last few weeks, we’ve written several blogposts about How and Why you should consider Gamification in your business.

Now, Google have created this fascinating game that reworks the classic “navigate a a ball around a course” game using cities laid out on a Google Maps world cube.
It’s clever and different and from a technical and design perspective, it’s really well thought out.  Take a look.

On the surface, you could say it has nothing to do with the service that Google Maps provides and some may say serves no purpose. But we think:
1. It highlights how great their service can be and what you can do with it
2. It gets people talking
3. It gets people talking – The whole point of marketing your brand should be to get people talking about who you are, about what you offer. If people are talking about your brand, spending time on whatever you’ve built and telling people about it, that’s the best marketing tool out there.

Now we’re not trying to say your business can necessarily afford to be or should be trying to be Google. We understand projects like this take time, effort and money. But what’s clear in something like this is the value that you create in making something that impresses your audience, even if it’s not directly or immediately getting you a reward.

Whatever your business is and whatever industry you’re in, increasingly marketing is about
standing out and finding a way to connect with your customer.

What’s a better way to relate to your customer than making the experience fun and memorable to them – whilst simultaneously showcasing what you can do and even better if it is inspired by your service,  like the Google cube. This is one thing that Google has got right.

Professional social network LinkedIn steps it up with new apps

Last week, LinkedIn launched new iOS and Android apps, including an incredible iPad app that impressed the techno-sphere.

My profile page on the new LinkedIn iPad app
LinkedIn is a social network that is sometimes criticised for not knowing what’s best for them. Their website is not incredibly user-friendly, with many unsure or unaware of the features it has through poor design and usability. Not so with their latest app rollouts.

The iPad app in particular feels slick and well-designed – the company have clearly prioritised the User Interface and User Experience. This week, many have been comparing it to social news magazine Flipboard (an app that has won countless awards for its innovation and been featured as Apple’s App of the Year). What’s clear is they’ve thought about the user’s interaction and habit on the social network, analysed the user behaviour data of those using their mobile site and factored this into their native app build.

For example:

• Users were using the network the most in the morning and in the evening (before work and after work, we’re guessing) so LinkedIn have designed the ‘latest activity’ and ‘news’ sections of the app with the early morning coffee break and evening day review slots in mind.

The popular Updates page on the new iPad app

• Users were doing the most searches of their contacts right before meetings so the new app has the ability to sync your calendar with the app – a simple and convenient way to see the LinkedIn information of those you’re meeting.

The reception to their apps has been fantastic. It’s a clear illustration of what can happen if a company acts on the data of its users and the insight that data can bring, especially if it’s all carried off with excellent design and usability.

It’s taken too long for the dominant social networks like LinkedIn and Facebook to release iPad apps – and to think more clearly about what their users want and need from their mobile service (an issue we’re still waiting on Facebook to resolve). In 2012, it’s no longer web first, it’s not even mobile first, it’s user experience first – whatever platform you’re accessing a service from.

The value of this user experience cannot be considered secondary; if a customer has a bad experience with your brand online – via whatever medium – it defines their entire relationship with you.

If you’d like to talk to us about connecting with your customers on the mediums and platforms they want, and the way that they want it, just say hello.

Google Adwords for video is available for your business

Considered video advertising? Google have just made it very easy as their Adwords for Video has come out of beta.

If you’re sceptical, you’ll be reassured to realise that you only have to pay when someone clicks to view your video or when they watch the entire ad, not when someone chooses to skip. It has options for targeting: by demographic according to specific keywords or by specific content.

You also get to see some great statistics that you will be used to with Adwords about how the viewers are interacting with your video and your brand:

• How many viewers watched the whole video
• How many visited your website
• How many stayed on your channel/subscribed to your channel as a consequence

(Quite similar to Youtube Analytics)

Adwords for video offers a seamless introduction to video advertising, especially for companies using Adwords already for their search advertising and the best thing is it allows you to manage all your advertising from one centralised dashboard.

You can get started here. If you’d like any help or advice with your PPC campaign, 3seven9 are a Google Adwords Certified Partner and would love to get involved. Just say hello on 01344 667 410 or email hello@3seven9.com

Facebook optimizing Analytics tool for Facebook Ads

Last week, Facebook announced new action tracking for actions taken from Facebook Ads. You will now be able to track and consequently optimize your Ads for the following actions:

• Page likes
• Page post likes
• Shares of particular page posts
• Comments
• Mentions
• Check ins
• Photo tags
• Credits spent
• App use

We think the app use statistics will be the most useful. Using Facebook Ads to advertise apps has become even more important since the advent of Facebook Timeline. Some have argued that hiding apps amongst the four thumbnail boxes has made them trickier and less user friendly to find and increasing the need for Facebook Ads, PPC or social media campaigns to draw traffic to them.

At the moment, Facebook tells you how many views your app has got through Ads, but little to no information about specific interactions. This new dashboard will track App use /App installs, showing you a clear guide as to how well your Ads directing to the app are working.

Either way – this ‘Action Measurement’ information means finally Facebook Ad users will be able to measure and break down the value of actions resulting from their paid Ads. Specific valuable goals whether they be Page Likes, Comments or App use (depending on the campaign) can be measured and Facebook Ad Campaign performance (and ultimately ROI) can be assessed.

Adobe CS6 launches today with cloud subscription option

Today Adobe launches a new version of its Creative Suite 6 and its pricing options. There are 4 different packages available, with different combinations of the 14 applications, starting at $1,299.

One of the most interesting things about the launch is the Adobe Creative Cloud subscription option. Taking advantage of cloud-based distribution and rising consumer fondness for subscription services, the Creative Cloud offers you the ability to subscribe to all CS6 apps, including Photoshop and Lightroom for a monthly fee of $74.99 a month (or $49.99 a month if you sign up for a year).

If you’re just looking for Photoshop, you can do this for as little as $29.99 a month ($19.99 if you commit), making CS6 set to be the most accessible Photoshop ever.Take a look here

If you’re curious as to how your business can make use of these new products and packages, why not give us a ring on 01344 667 410 or email hello@3seven9.com

Google+ picks the best features from Facebook & Twitter for its new look

Last week, Google released a redesign for Google+ with the intention of creating a ‘simpler, more beautiful Google.’ We’d be inclined to agree that the changes are certainly for the better.

These include:

• The navigation. Google have swapped its centralised top icons for a ribbon of applications on the left (matching Facebook’s layout). Very user friendly and the intuitive thing about Google’s is that you can personalise it however you’d like simply by dragging to reorder.
• Bigger photos/videos. This emphasis on photos & videos in the stream view feeds into what users are wanting at the moment. Conversation view allows for “full bleed” of media content like photos and videos.
• Activity drawer that gives you notifications when anyone engages with your content
• Dedicated Hangouts page. One of the  most popular features on Google+ (over its competitors) is its Hangouts. The redesign gives Hangouts a dedicated page making it far easier to see invitations from Circles & start new hangouts
• Chat list to chat to friends in real-time (inspired by Facebook)
• Updated profile picture options (similar to Facebook’s cover photo)

Google cover photo is very similar to Facebook’s cover photo

• Trending on Google+ (top right on the feed) shows ‘what’s hot’ or trending across the network. Plus a separate Explore page that Google are keen to emphasise (it’s not a coincidence that this is named similarly to Twitter’s ‘Explore’ tab)

It’s clear that at the moment none of the dominant social networks want to be outdone. News came forth today that Facebook have also updated their profile pictures to be bigger, relative to the Cover photo: A minor change that will cause havoc for those who have customised their Profile picture and cover photo to make up a design together and a clear sign that more than ever right now it’s a back and forth battle for attention between the big players.

From a usability point of view and generally as the user, I don’t object – it makes it far simpler to be able to have a presence on all three if you don’t need to remember to go to the left sidebar on one and the top bar on the other for the same task, nevermind the terminology differences of a Like, a RT or a +1.

It’ll be interesting to see whether this redesign encourages a higher take-up of Google+ – not in terms of member numbers (given they don’t have a problem there with 170 million users worldwide) but in encouraging the high volume of inactive members to really give it a chance. I have to admit that the similarity does make me more inclined – what about you?

Spotify rolls out embeddable Play Button

Big news last week as music-streaming service rolled out a Play Button in thirteen countries, letting you embed any Spotify song, album or playlist on your website. This is big news as Spotify has almost 16 million tracks available.

If your website is created on Tumblr, it’s even better news as Spotify have partnered with Tumblr to offer the Play Button within the Tumblr dashboard – you can search for the song you want & Tumblr will automatically make the widget fit with your theme.

To get it working, you need to grab the song/album/playlist URI from within Spotify & head here to get the embed link.

If you’d like us to embed any Spotify links on your site or would like to figure out how you could take advantage of this new feature, just say hello. We’d love to help.

Beautiful notebook app Paper released by FiftyThree

This app allows you to capture your sketches, illustrations, drawings, diagrams or otherwise thoughts in an intuitive, un-fussy way. It has been designed with no buttons – only gesture-based control and you simply have pages to draw on and can organise them into notebooks (you can keep these simple or customise them with your favourite image). There are 5 tools (as shown below) although unfortunately the base app comes only with the pen and you have to purchase the others for £1.99 individually or £5.99 the set.

There was a lot of hype about this app and last week FiftyThree announced that after only 2 weeks, they’d had 1.5 million downloads and over 7 million pages created.

I downloaded it… and I loved it – although after the extremely inspiring marketing about how good it is, I have to admit I temporarily forgot who I was and was slightly disappointed that I wasn’t an impressive designer simply by having the app installed.

Another downside is that the base app comes with only the one tool – hiking up the price that you have to pay to get the best out of it. Plus, some have commented that you may want a stylus (the Wacom Bamboo stylus is pushed in the Paper marketing video here.

Nonetheless, I really liked it and I’d go for it if you’re creative, as it’s a gorgeous way to take down your iPad scribbles & inspire you to make them in the first place.

Hope you enjoyed What’s New For You – let us know if you’ve got any questions or would like to know more.

Gamification is used everywhere – from in the supermarket where you shop and gain points to employee sales leaderboards – and is regularly adopted as a marketing strategy.

What is interesting is how it is used, and why particular techniques are favoured by companies over others.

Before launching into gamification, you’ll need to examine your reasons why you even want to gamify to make sure it will work for your business. Even if it does not directly relate to your product/service, will it increase user engagement and loyalty for your particular consumers or further your business goals?

If you think it is right for you, and your consumers will benefit from it, you then have many options of different gamification techniques to consider.These vary from reward systems, challenges, progress bars, achievements, competitions, badges, leaderboards to many more. Remember, the fun element of gamification does not have to be mutually exclusive to work.

Here are a few interesting uses of gamification that illustrate different approaches you can employ:

Digitalkoot

In 2011, a Finnish start-up called Microtask used gamification to digitise Finland’s National Library so that their enormous archive could be indexed making them searchable on the internet. Playing games in Digitalkoot (digital volunteers) increases accuracy of text based searches, such as identifying and writing out words where the computer misread them.

Usually this would be considered a fairly mundane task, but Digitalkoot very skilfully added a gamification element to encourage people to get involved. Players are required to type out words to “save moles” in the game, but in reality, they are authenticating words with the human eye.

iActionable

iActionable is the world’s first complete gamification of Salesforce, and unusually with gamification techniques, is employee centric. It is a way to quantify employee behaviour, using an objective approach for employers to measure their own performance and compare themselves to their co-workers (thus increasing productivity in the workplace).

Users get immediate feedback from tasks that are aligned with long term goals. All of these are tracked in real time and employees can view how other people are doing via a levelling system and leaderboard. Not only that, the tasks can be modified so a user’s focus can shift, thus awarding different amount of points for different actions. This means there can be small victories to work towards as well as a greater goal.

This use of gamification is particularly effective as it shows how much potential there is for a business to improve with a more engaged workforce, and motivates users with even the most minor tasks. It’s also fully customisable, so can be used for different business models.

Recyclebank

This is a simple concept to encourage people to act more environmentally green, such as using less water or making “greener” purchases like energy saving light bulbs over regular ones. After confirmation that an action has been fulfilled, either through a points code or by recycling, the consumer is offered Recyclebank Points.

Recyclebank Points can be turned into discounts or rewards from local and national business, which vary between discounts on groceries, entertainment, and even gift cards. We love the use of gamification here because it obviously benefits the individual by motivating them to gain their rewards as well as promoting greener living and helping the planet.

So what do you think? Can you fit a gamification mechanism around your business model? If you’re thinking about it, but would like some advice about which approach would work for you, or if you have seen some interesting uses of gamification, get in touch at hello@3seven9.com or call 01344 667 410.

The idea behind this is that every time a user reaches a goal, it is psychologically satisfying because their actions accomplish something (such as through a reward, badge or achievement). This gives the user positive reinforcement for undertaking an action, and offers an incentive to interact further.

When done well, gamification can lead to increased loyalty and user engagement with your site or brand– and it doesn’t even have to feel like a game!

In gamification, rewards can lead to higher engagement and loyalty. If your activity offers a badge or achievement system for example, it creates reasons for users to brag or compete with their peers or improve their personal best. This encourages them not only to interact more with the brand but subconsciously reinforces a positive brand-consumer identity.

Another method to promote even deeper engagement with the site is through making missions. These are a series of related activities that usually serve a greater goal.

Services based on gamification have exploded in popularity

Location-based check-in services like Foursquare (launched in 2009 and in 2011 reported at least 10 million registered users) revealed how popular gamification can be and introduced the concept mainstream. Users are encouraged to “check-in” to locations in exchange for rewards on the virtual reward system (mayorships of locations, badges for achievements or to reward repeat actions).

Since then, there have been many variants of this type of service: just one example is Shopkick, a mobile app where users are rewarded with virtual prizes for simply walking into shops or completing actions within the shop such as scanning a barcode.

These services showcase how well gamification works in platforms that combine offline and online actions, however their entire concept and business is built around gamification.

You may not realise that there are much smaller but equally as useful tactics that your business can use to take advantage of the best parts of gamification, without becoming entirely gamification-centric like services such as Foursquare or Shopkick.

You can use elements of gamification without it being the basis of your business

An example you may be familiar with is on career social network LinkedIn. Users have a “quest” to fulfil when completing their profile, and are given a percentage of how far they have completed it. This breaks down the otherwise dull process of filling in their profile into a game, with a goal/goals to complete, a progress bar that keeps them aware of their position and encourages the user on a subconscious level to improve.

Successful gamification tactics:

• Motivation – give your audience as much reason as possible to want to continue
• Measure progress – as well as showing the user what stage they’re at, you may consider comparisons to others in terms of time spent doing something, level of skill, and amount of achievements obtained
• Give feedback – this can be in terms of progress or even through rewards. You want to indicate their actions achieve something
• Make sure the activity isn’t too challenging – It’s not about putting users off or overcomplicating the user experience
• When possible, keep it fun!

Why you should consider it:

• Increased engagement on your site or with your brand
• Increased time spent interacting with your site
• Loyalty – that extra gamification element might mean your brand will be chosen over a competitor
• You may be able to influence your consumers more – for example, incentive or required gamification tasks may lead to or require brand promotion
• Especially good if your site depends on/enables user generated content – Gamification techniques can increase participation
• Metrics are easy to measure – e.g. length of visits, frequency of visits, total time on site etc
• Very successful gamification strategies have a viral element

Use it wisely

However, gamification does not always work. The motivation for a consumer to take part in an activity is not usually related to the brand, (for example if it is an entirely fun purpose), so they may have little attachment to the product or service, and loyalty is not sustained. Not only this, simple gamification tasks may be repetitive or mundane, meaning they’ll have a short user life span.

As with all strategies, it needs to be well designed and the UX needs to be good to succeed. Gamification should also be used within the context of your brand, rather than a supplementary feature.

Stay tuned for How your business can use gamification: Part 2, where we’ll be breaking down some of our favourite uses of gamification techniques & providing a walk-through of how you can begin building it into your business.

If you’d like to find out how 3seven9 can build gamification techniques into your business or create an interactive campaign say hello@3seven9.com or on +44 (0) 1344 667 410