Elon Musk Competing Wit...

Last week Mark Zuckerberg took his little Harvard project public in the largest tech IPO ever and quickly followed it up by marrying his Harvard sweetheart . However, the honeymoon was cut short as the Facebook stock has yet to impress. Meanwhile, the tech world’s equivalent of Tony Stark, announced via Twitter yesterday that the Tesla cars were approved for sale to the public after passing the necessary federal crash tests. That announcement was followed up this morning with SpaceX becoming the first privately owned company to launch a rocket destined to dock with the International Space Station. So then the question becomes whether or not launching a rocket combined with a major milestone in a separate company outshines taking Facebook public. In my book, rockets and fast cars win every time. Musk’s car company is on a tear lately. Tesla announced in early May that it was on-track to deliver the Model S to customers next month, a full month prior to the original July rollout (June 22nd according to today’s press release ). Then, a few days later, Tesla revealed that it will begin repaying the $465 million by the end of the year which would make the auto company the first startup to begin repayment. Falcon flew perfectly!! Dragon in orbit, comm locked and solar arrays active!! Feels like a giant weight just came off my back :) — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 22, 2012 Dragon spaceship opens the navigation pod bay door without hesitation. So much nicer than HAL9000 :) #DragonLaunch — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 22, 2012 SpaceX, one of Musk’s other ventures, had an impressive milestone of its own today, becoming the first privately-owned space company to launch a rocket headed for the ISS. History will no doubt forget that this event happened a few days late. The rocket was supposed to launch on Sunday, May 19th but the launch was aborted with a half a second left on the countdown clock. The rocket’s automated systems flagged abnormal pressure in one of the engines and automatically killed the launch, which would have likely caused a catastrophe.

Mark Zuckerberg Posts S...

This is awesome. At 9:30 AM ET, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted what’s bound to be a historical status update to his Facebook Timeline. The post simply reads: “ Mark Zuckerberg  listed a company on  NASDAQ . — with  Chris Cox  and  4 others .” You can read the whole story right here from the engineer who rigged up the auto-post: “How Facebook Hacked The NASDAQ Button” Since the CEO was busy actually ringing the bell from Hacker Square at Facebook’s headquarters in Menlo Park, Facebook figured it would post for him. The post went live just as Zuckerberg rang the NASDAQ Opening Bell. In the future, don’t be surprised when more physical objects get hooked into Facebook.

App Discovery By Qualit...

Today, Facebook app discovery too heavily favors the loudest apps with the most users, so Facebook today announces it will soon launch the App Center , a single, personalized hub for discovering the highest quality Facebook-integrated games and utilities from across the web and mobile. And for the first time, Facebook is beta testing  the option for developers to sell  pre-paid web and HTML5 apps . You’ll be able to access App Center via the web or mobile, and you can send apps you discover on a the web to your littler devices. App Center could be a huge boon to app growth on Facebook, especially for those that are beloved but not inherently viral.   With any luck, App Center will usher in an age where your news feed is filled with apps you actually want use, not just the spammiest ones or those with the biggest marketing budgets. Unlike the unpersonalized app directory Facebook shut down a year ago, App Center won’t list every available app, just the ones with the highest customer ratings, engagement, session length, and voluntary sharing. App Center dynamically shows you different apps depending on your habits. If you play games, that’s what you’ll see. If you think those are a waste of time and only use utility apps like BranchOut or Open Graph apps like Foodspotting, those will be what appear. Here’s a few more details on the App Center: Facebook is finalizing the App Center’s design. However, it looks like the homepage will show apps recommended based on those you already uses; apps frequently used by friends; lists of top, trending, and highest grossing apps, big “app of the week” style features, and the ability to browse by app category. Unlike the Apple App Store and other marketplaces, Facebook’s App Center won’t have objective rankings. Instead, each user will see a different set of apps, so it won’t have the same “king-maker” potential. This should lead developers to focus on general quality rather than install count or other specific metrics. The signals the cause certain apps to appear more or less frequently in App Center to any particular user include a customer ratings, session length, return visits, frequency of user shares from the app, similarity to apps you already use, usage by friends, and spam reports as well as overall user counts. App Center listings will replace the auto-generate App Pages that litter Facebook now. Developers will need to submit assets to populate their listing , which is what users will land on when they find an app through search or the App Center. Apps that following the listing guidelines and that are submitted before May 18th will receive priority for appearance when the App Center eventually launches. Developers will gain a new category of Insights metrics measuring the quality of their apps. They can monitor these to see how changes they make impact the enjoyment and engagement of their users. Facebook is not trying to compete with iOS and Android, but rather helps Facebook-connected apps on those platforms grow. Native mobile app listings in App Center will lead to the Apple App Store and Google Play marketplaces.

Study Shows Social Medi...

A surprising number of people are still confused about social media marketing. They know it’s on trend and that it’s probably good for business but logistically, it’s still a bit of a mystery for most. EPiServer recently surveyed 250 UK marketing decision makers and their thoughts on social media marketing were all over the board. On the upside, 77% of them said they were running some kind of online community and 35% said they’ve been using social media for more than a year. Of those with a social media marketing strategy, 30% said it’s increased their customer loyalty, 25% said it increased web traffic and 21% said they saw a direct increase in sales. Bravo. But only 1 in 10 said they had an effective means of measuring the benefits and that’s crazy. Imagine going to a basketball game without baskets. No means of scoring. The two teams just manipulate the ball up and down the court for two hours then everyone in the stands randomly decides which team won. How is that any different from guessing whether your social media marketing is working or not? Let’s look at a few more stats from the study. The average marketer spends an hour a day on social media but less than half (45%) said they monitor their own communities and blogs. You could read that two ways. It could mean that the majority of marketers don’t monitor at all, or it could mean that they have an outside person to do it. Probably somewhere in between given that 40% of those surveyed said they don’t have a dedicated social media person. So who is running the social media show? 22% of companies already have a social media or community manager 28% of social media activities are run by a marketing executive 14% by a PR executive 16% by the IT manager The IT manager? Is that because some people see social media as being “techy” so we throw the job to the IT guys? That’s proof that at least 16% of companies have no idea what social media marketing is all about. EPiServer says that many companies are overwhelmed by the entire process. Only 24% of those surveyed use one platform to update multiple accounts. Only 6% had their social media results centralized. That means that the majority are processing Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc. individually, by logging in and out of each account to perform updates. Yeah, that’s time consuming and brain consuming, I get it. Then, you start adding in every service that’s on trend – Pinterest, Google+, Tumblr – and it’s no wonder that 52% of companies have had to increase the time they spend on social media. I’m not against more time spent. What I’m against is time wasted. Rushing to Pinterest with your interior design company makes sense. Rushing to Pinterest with your auto parts company, not so much. And even though I frown upon simply pasting the same social media update into every profile you own, some cross-over is fine and necessary. Set your Facebook to update your Twitter or use a service like Hootsuite to schedule updates in advance. That’s the “in.” On the “out” side, monitor account activity on a regular basis with a service like Trackur. Finally, remember that the first word in all of this is “social.” Respond to comments. Seek out mentions on Twitter. Solve the problems people are posting publicly. Social media marketing is about conversation, even if all the other party is saying is I “like” you. Join the Marketing Pilgrim Facebook Community

Forecast Takes The Hass...

There are a number of different schools of thought about how useful Foursquare-like check-ins really are. Forecast , especially, is taking a very different approach from most of Foursquare’s competitors by emphasizing where you are going to be later in the day over just checking in at a location when you arrive. Now, with the latest version of its iPhone app (an update for the Android app is coming soon), the company is taking this concept a bit further. Instead of just telling people where you will be, the app will also automatically check you in when you arrive at a location (assuming you opt in for this service) and let your friends know that you have arrived. So instead of having to remember to check in when you arrive somewhere – which is also the most awkward time to fiddle around with your phone – Forecast will now do this for you. You can use the app as a stand-alone product or connect it to Facebook and Foursquare to reach a wider group of your friends. As the app already knows where you are going, Forecast can take a more conservative approach to checking where you are as you go through your day. Instead of constantly checking where you are and trying to check you in to places as you walk around, the app just checks your location periodically and once it notices that you have arrived at your forecasted location, it will just check you in. Given how unreliable location services can be in dense urban environments, this approach also helps to ensure that you are indeed checking in to the right place. Currently, about 76% of Forecast users check in when they use the app. With the auto check-in feature, the company expects that number to get close to 100%. This, as the company’s CEO and co-founder Rene Pinnell told me earlier this week, the app’s concept of “future tense check-ins” opens up a range of possibilities for the company in the long run. Once you have checked in somewhere, after all, chances are that you won’t change your plans anymore. When you tell the app where you will be in the future, though, those plans are still malleable and the right offer from the right advertiser, for example, still has the potential to make you go somewhere else instead. Pinnell also told me that quite a few Forecast users look at the app as a calendaring service. This is another avenue for future development that the company wants to explore soon.