TheHotlist.com = a Micro-App

Okay, so I just made up a new term “micro-app.” That’s the only way I can describe TheHotlist.com — it’s a micro-app. Basically, TheHotlist uses Facebook Connect to deliver a rich interface for your Facebook events. The interface is intriguing, delivering you a map and a calendar and showing you who’s attending what, where. It’s interesting and it may highlight something we’re going to see more of: deeper web applications built as massive mash-ups using networks like LinkedIn or Facebook as their core.

Micro-Apps and TheHotlist in experimentation

TheHotlist.com is in Experimentation

It’s obvious from the traffic being generated by TheHotlist that it is in the experimentation phase of its life cycle. What’s interesting about this concept is that the Hotlist team could have built a more immersive application on the Facebook application platform. Instead, they chose to create a destination domain for their concept. I must assume that they have a larger vision than just connecting with Facebook. In fact, this  kind of micro-app might be connected with Yelp, LinkedIn, Amiando even Twitter at some point, delivering a rich, event-based experience that any one network would have trouble emulating.

Rich event experiences

Boring Facebook Events

TheHotList has tons of potential and I like the concept of aggregating specific content from a wide variety of networks. However, the more networks they integrate, the more complicated, confusing, and overwhelming TheHotList could become. I do think we’ll see more and more micro-apps like TheHotList emerge as users clamor for deeper experiences across networks. But my biggest fear is the collision of identities on channels like TheHotList. Keeping your professional and personal networks separate will be a constant challenge for applications like TheHotlist moving forward.

Watch micro-apps

Social Media Diversified Portfolio

TheHotlist is worth a visit, that’s for sure. The interface is a little clunky, and the applications seems a little buggy (that’s to be expected in the experimentation phase), and it’s too early to marry yourself to promoting or relying on TheHotList for event promotion. That being said, I think you should start looking for more micro-apps as many of these social networks collide.

About The New Media Life Cycle Analysis

The New Media Life Cycle Analysis is the brainchild of the Tippingpoint Labs strategy team. Each week, our team takes a look at a new media channel and presents its findings here, to help chief marketing officers, directors of marketing, and social media experts add some context to their social media and content marketing strategies. If there is a new platform or channel you’d like to see us evaluate, please let us know. We’re more than eager to take a look!

JetBlue, Amazon, and thousands of other companies have been forced to issue apologies for product or service issues. Some of them have used online distribution channels effectively to say “I’m sorry.” We investigate how the internet has affected apologizing.

Zeitgeist

This week, Brad takes a look at what we were searching for last year on the web: details about the unfortunate misreported shooting of Li’l Wayne.

5 Questions

Scott Loring interviews PR Pro Tammie Cayton from Cayton Marketing about corporate apologies.

The Tipping Point Podcast

The platforms where your customers are creating and consuming content are going to be the avenues they trust most. No matter what happens, a transparent, sincere “I’m Sorry” can make all the difference. Subscribe in iTunes or you can enjoy the podcasts at Blubrry.com

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Find us in iTunes

Each podcast journeys into the world wide web, exploring various aspects of what makes people successful on the internet. We’ll cover almost anything. We’ve learned all about StuffedRobots, explored Twitter, examined SpyFu, and had a lot of fun along the way.

In This Podcast

• Josh Cole
• James Cosco
• Brad Schwarzenbach
• Scott Loring

Our Take

Dominoes Pizza delivers … a big apology recently. Jim Cosco explores.

Read from the Web

Craig Silverman’s Regret the Error “reports on media corrections, retractions, apologies, clarifications and trends regarding accuracy and honesty in the press.” Bob Colby, Anita Roy Dobbs, and Eric Sagalyn read some interesting retractions.

The Journey

The platforms where your customers are creating and consuming content are going to be the avenues they trust most. No matter what happens, a transparent, sincere “I’m Sorry” can make all the difference.

Music

We’re proud to feature really great music from talented artists. (This is content marketing by the way.) We hope you like the tracks we pick — if you do, check out their other music.

Editing Mastery

Jim Theodore edited this podcast, and it sounds great!

I hope it doesn’t sound like I’m bashing early adopters, because I’m most certainly not. It’s just that early adopters carry a lot of weight, and if you don’t communicate your vision for the new channel well enough, early adopters can take you way off track.

Here’s what you need to consider

In the first three phases of your channel’s New Media Life Cycle, you need to remember that the quality of your content is going to determine your channel’s success. Avoid adding features and functions that do not enhance your user’s ability to create better content — especially during the experimentation phase.

You will get lots of great ideas from people who see the long-term potential of your channel. For example, the first day you go live, someone (probably this guy) will tell you that you need to integrate your new channel with Twitter. He may be right. You may already know this. But don’t do it until you’re confident that the content generated on your platform is of value. When it is, integrate it. Go for it.

Before your development team gets too excited about integrating a new feature or function, make sure you help them answer these questions:

1. Will this feature or function help our user base create higher-quality content on our channel?
2. Does this feature or function increase our exposure before we’re ready?
3. Why is this feature or function request being submitted? (Sometimes, integration ideas are actually a cry from users to help them bring friends they can interact with into this new channel.) Perhaps multi-channel integration is not the best way to do this.
4. Is this feature already in our development plan? (If so, is there any reason to rush its integration?)
5. How can we more clearly state the vision for our channel in the context of responding to this enhancement request?

Stay focused on the creation of valuable content

Remember, to be successful as a new media channel, you must stay focused on first adding value to the existing environment through the valuable content your users generate. Only after you’ve seen the kind of quality content you expect on the channel should you begin increasing your reach.

There are some great content concepts on the site — video with the designers, newsletters involving both the brand and Think Tankers, and updates about upcoming products.

A real opportunity

It seems to accomplish, in theory, the goal of being more participatory as a brand. If you look at the Google trends for the automotive vertical, you can see clearly that brand interaction has plateaued. Hyundai is right to try engaging customers more deeply.

The real question is whether or not the Think Tank site provides the right kind of depth, the kind that can really grow interest. One area where this is a clear yes is the way Hyundai is using the site to involve customers at the product-management level.

An echo chamber?

Hyundai is asking these core customers for ideas and opinions about what to name their upcoming products and services — even to the point of having Think Tankers vote on names for new cars. This is real participation creation if Hyundai actually uses the content generated by user interaction. Who wouldn’t tell all their friends they helped name the new Hyundai and feel a sense of ownership not just toward their own car, but also toward the brand that made it.

The Think Tank also links out to other Hyundai-oriented online communities. Connectivity is key. Unfortunately, those links are buried.

Some odd choices

Overall, the Think Tank leaves much to be desired. While involving customers earlier in the process is a good play, the production values of the content, unfortunately, are a bit sketchy. Shaky, barely edited, handheld videos can work, but theirs aren’t so watchable. “Membership” style newsletters are cool, but embedding them in a fancy “Scribd-esque” flash player doesn’t add any value — especially when the content is sparse and the layout is Microsoft Word-y.

And why not just use Scribd? The answer is, apparently, security. Hyundai has an extensive wall to entry for this channel. If you don’t fit their criteria, you don’t qualify for membership. Exclusivity can elevate a brand, but excluding interested parties based on demographic profiling is heavy-handed.

User-generated definition

But even with the wall to entry, the site could really work. It seems that Hyundai is waiting on the community to define itself. Not a bad thought, but the identity doesn’t appear to be gelling just yet. Right now, most interactions are coming from Hyundai tossing out some softball questions like, “We want to know what you think of Honda and potentially others seeing Hyundai’s headlights now in their rearview mirror?” The enthusiastic response from a community of Hyundai owners and enthusiasts wasn’t too hard to predict on that one. Besides, what overall value will Hyundai get from that kind of question?

Reaching out and community building

The way to build value from the channel would be to attract participation via targeted outreach to niche communities. Hyundai is doing a bit of this. That’s actually how I found out about the site. When music industry pundit Bob Lefsetz wrote about a good experience with a Hyundai a while back, his readers responded in droves with positive Hyundai love.

Heather Shin, a Market Research Analyst for Hyundai, was forwarded this response and reached out to Bob. She wrote, inviting him to publish an invitational link to the Hyundai Think Tank. He published her letter, and that’s how I heard about it.

How to do it

How about a nicer picture, Dean Macko, Manager of Brand Strategy?

Some suggestions? Make some videos that are more watchable and dig more into design insights — and let the community share some of them (right now, the videos are not embeddable offsite). Don’t bury information. The site has a Wiki-ish feel and navigability. Take out the widgets and give us a blog feel. It’s great that you’re letting us into the Hyundai House, but take away the corporate communications feel and connect the users in a pleasant way to the content. The photography on the site seems to be trying hard to be “authentic,” but 12-year-olds take better photos with their camera phones. Putting faces on the insiders is good, but it’s more “authentic” to have good, while not outlandish, photography. You’re not a mom and pop store, you’re Hyundai.

If you’re going to link out to other communities, do it proudly and make it accessible, like bloggers do with blogrolls. These are the core customers and prosumers you hope will be evangelizing for your brand.

And most importantly, dig deeper. If you’re going to ask questions of a closed community, ask the difficult questions. Perhaps even admit some areas where you’re trying to improve things. Otherwise the think tank is just too shallow for people to fully immerse themselves in a meaningful way.

Takeaway

Overall, Hyundai is on the right track. If they improve the content, their outreach may not only drive people to the site but keep them there and get them to return. If they fix their platform and make things easier to navigate, that will help. Even if membership is closed, there’s no reason they can’t re-format some of the content and enable members easily to share content outward. A few breadcrumbs and slightly tastier loaf, and Hyundai Think Tank could be cooking with gas(oline).

Click here to view the embedded video.

However, to call the campaign a complete success would be an understatement. The TV spots changed the cultural landscapes and won awards. The Got Milk? slogan entered the vernacular. The campaign, initially local to California, was licensed to dairy boards across the United States. Got Milk? became ubiquitous.

But, most importantly, milk sales turned around. In 1994, just a year after the ads began running, California’s sales of milk saw their first increase in more than a decade.

The Advertising Educational Foundation has published a great case study of the campaign by Douglas Holt.

So, clever advertising works? We know that.

That’s not what this is about. It’s about elevating a single idea.

Realizing that milk, as a whole (no pun intended), was in decline, the dairies of California knew that in a commoditized market, the only way for anyone to build business would be to raise awareness of the benefits of the product. Packaging and unique production processes would remain within the purview of the individual dairies, but the California Milk Processor Board was created so everyone could benefit from milk’s elevated stature.

How you, too, can elevate!

While you’re probably not going to run out and partner up with your competitors, you can think about ways to elevate the ideas and subjects that surround your product, instead of just showing what it can do in your advertising.

So, for example, if you sell stereo equipment, how about a techie blog where the associated sound technologies are discussed along with what innovations are being made in the audio field.

If you’re a baker, get involved in agricultural communities to grow conversation about flours and sugars.

Are you a bank? What a great opportunity to educated consumers on the way the financial systems work.

Takeaway

Web communities and social media are channels where discussions take place. They present great opportunities for a brand to share the ideas and technologies that go into their products.

The point is, by elevating the discussion of the subjects that surround your brand, you’ll be able to gain trust and reputation as experts. This will build awareness and will ultimately influence buying decisions.

The Tipping Point Podcast

Subscribe in iTunes or you can enjoy the podcasts at Blubrry.com

Find us in iTunes

Each podcast journeys into the world wide web, exploring various aspects of what makes people successful on the internet. We’ll cover almost anything. We’ve learned about StuffedRobots, Bacon-of-the-Month, and SpyFu, and had a lot of fun along the way.

In This Podcast

• Josh Cole
• James Cosco
• Brad Schwarzenbach
• Jim Theodore

This week on The Tipping Point: Spooked

Halloween just passed and it scared us all out of our seats. As you put your costume away, dress up your content for a whole new generation of customers.

Zeitgeist

Brad takes a look at what we were talking about last year on the web.

Read From The Web

What do audiences really think about marketing success Paranormal Activity?

5 Questions

Scott Loring talks to the Garment District and Boston Costume about their move to e-commerce. Spooky!

Our Take

Jim Cosco assesses the recent controversy surrounding Rock Art Brewery’s The Vermonster beer. Scary!

The Journey

Josh Cole takes us through this week’s podcast, demonstrating that content marketing is just like Halloween.

Music

We’re proud to feature really great music from talented artists. (This is content marketing, by the way.) We hope you like the tracks we pick — if you do, check out their other music.

Editing Mastery

Jim Theodore edited this podcast and it sounds spooky, scary great!

Amiando Event Management Tools

Conferences, seminars, mixers, even fund-raising event management

On September 10, 2009, all around the world, thousands of people gathered at restaurants and bars to support a local charity. All of these events were coordinated locally and attended internationally. Of course, a bunch of smart developers could have gotten together to build a complicated ticketing and event management system to handle tickets and donations. Instead, organizers turned to Amiando. (Here’s the Twestival event I attended.)

Amiando brilliantly handles all the complicated aspects of organizing an event, and all for a nominal transaction fee. (They do have additional revenue streams as well, designed to target more involved event organizers.)

Amiando enters adoption

Amiando has huge potential, and although it was launched in late 2006, it’s still in the very early phases of its evolution. As social media opportunities expand and everyone’s online contacts blossom, the possibilities for offline (or even webinar) events explode. In addition, the fact that using a single sign-on a person can register and pay for any of more than 70,000 events (as of this month) makes a tool like Amiando extremely appealing. This kind of user-centric approach can be very powerful — as we’ve seen with GetSatisfaction and Ning.

Offline events today, online events tomorrow

Creating a payment gateway, event registration, and communication tool for the hosting and organization of an offline event is really easy using Amiando.  The user-experience is consistent from event to event, which from a user standpoint helps make event registration easy. In addition, event organizers can add their own content, including photo streams and videos from sites like Flickr or YouTube.

Today, the entire process seems focused on the creation and management of offline events. However, I have seen people use the channel to create and manage (awkwardly) the creation of a webinar, using exactly the same functionality. There is huge potential in this market, and we believe that Amiando will soon find themselves in this space as well.

If you create any events for your organization, Amiando is a perfect fit.

If you run an event, make it easy by giving Amiando a try

Diversified Distribution Portfolio for Social Media

Remember, Amiando is in the Adoption phase of its life cycle, so explore but don’t spend too much time here. Don’t spend more than 15% of your time or energy on everything in the adoption phase, but if you’re planning an event this is the right way to do it. We encourage you to give it a try if you have a chance.

About The New Media Life Cycle Analysis

The New Media Life Cycle Analysis is the brainchild of the Tippingpoint Labs strategy team. Each week, our team takes a look at a new media channel and presents its findings here, to help chief marketing officers, directors of marketing, and social media experts add some context to their social media and content marketing strategies. If there is a new platform or channel you’d like to see us evaluate, please let us know. We’re more than eager to take a look!

Pinyadda.com

I am a frequent early adopter and any invitation like this is really intriguing. Pinyadda looks promising (take a look when you have a second), but something I noticed early in my interaction on the new platform highlights one of the major concerns I have with early-phase new media channels: the integration of features that increase reach too fast, too early.

The key force at play

In the early phases of a new media channel you have to strike a balance between inviting constant and sustainable new user adoption without risking too great an exposure to an audience that is not ready to adopt your new concept. (To be honest, there are people out there who aren’t ready for your awesome new idea. These people just won’t get it, and they can do a lot of damage.)

In the experimentation phase for a new channel, it’s extremely important that you don’t invite too many people to the channel until the content and the community that’ve been created are ready to showcase its value.

Pinyadda Invite Screen

When I signed onto Pinyadda, one of the first screens I was presented with invited me to connect with people from my address books in Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail or AOL. This is the kind of overexposure and early connection that can cause high attrition.

The concerns that arise

The problem in the early phases of your start up is that your audience is extremely fickle. If their immediate reaction to the new channel isn’t positive and enthusiastic, you need to help ensure that they aren’t influencing others that may arrive later in the channel’s life cycle, when the content and user base has evolved. This means that you want to avoid some of the very early connections your channel might be able to make, but shouldn’t.

Compounding the problem is that your average early adopter is incredibly influential and has the kind of platform reach that later or mainstream adopters (usually in the escalation phase) are heavily influenced by. If the early adopters are turned off, they won’t hesitate to share their distaste for your new channel.

Let’s say that I don’t like my initial experience with Pinyadda, but I had connected with fifteen of my friends already here that really find value. It’s possible that my reaction to the channel is uneducated but highly influential. This could cause my ‘friends’ to shift their opinion rapidly.

The other fear is that my connections aren’t very active (or aren’t active at all). Immediately, my experience on the channel will be hindered and could be a big disappointment. Even if I like the channel’s potential, I’m less likely to participate until I see my friends actively engaging.

Either way, once someone has tried a new channel, if their experience isn’t positive, it’s really hard to lure them back.

The solution

Be selective about who initially participates in your new media channel. Allow users to get a real feel for it. Invite them to participate with some super-users (even if they don’t know them personally) who understand the channel and who will immediately add value. Do this before you invite your new user to ‘connect’ with friends that might already be on the channel through their web-based email accounts.

The result

At the end of the day, the goal in the experimentation phase is to create a passionate core group of users who find tremendous value in the channel’s service offering — that’s the foundation for a successful new media channel. Otherwise, you may have a tremendously large user-base that never returns and adds little value. This may impress your investors or advertisers (from a pure numbers perspective) but it most likely will not lead to long-term channel success.

About Incubator Insights

At Tippingpoint Labs our strategy team is constantly evaluating new media channels. During our analysis we see opportunities for improvement using some of the key learnings across a wide variety of new media channels.  We publish Incubator Insights every Friday to help Angel Investors, Venture Capitalists and visionary start-ups avoid some of the pitfalls we’ve seen others make. Please let us know if these are helpful and productive. We’d love to know.

Valued audience

Liebling points out that for almost every comment a fan posts on their wall, Chipotle responds personally. It seems that TGIF has gone pretty quiet. This has, predictably, raised the ire of the 900,000 plus people who became fans to get a free hamburger, and negative comments are starting to build. Here’s a recent post to their wall:

I just got an e-mail telling me to “click here” to get my coupon for the Woody’s Facebook promotion free burger. How frustrating! I was asked to download TGI Friday’s Coupon Printing Software which I really didn’t want to … do, but did. Then it told me you don’t support my printer or one of my printer settings. Starting to wonder if this is your way of keeping people from redeeming the coupons? I know there are simpler processes out there for redeeming coupons. I didn’t take any further steps to gain access to my coupon, this is too much work.

Ouch.

Here’s the 5-year Google Insights trend for Chipotle and TGI Friday’s

Google Insights 5-year trend Chipotle and TGI Friday's

TGI Friday’s big spike in early February 2009 is the result of a ‘Buy One Get One Free’ appetizer coupon they promoted online. Note that search volume fell off precipitously afterwards. They seem to be relying on free product to generate traffic, and they’re probably seeing a sales spike as well. However, not only does this kind of promotion yield little in long-term returns, it also undervalues online participation.

Why this is no surprise

It’s a question of motivation. A good number of TGIF’s Facebook fans were motivated to become fans by the promise of a free product, not because of prior allegiance to the brand. Chipotle has not, to my knowledge, backed up their Facebook presence with TV support. This leads me to believe that Chipotle’s fans are just that, fans of the brand, motivated solely — or mostly — by their love of a fresh Chipotle burrito.

You get out what you put in

That’s the key to web content distribution. It takes almost nothing for TGI Friday’s to wave free hamburgers in front of everyone’s face and realize that people will take them. The low barrier to entry — becoming a fan on Facebook takes a click or two at most — means that, if the goal is a million fans, the goal will be reached.

But that goal is completely meaningless. A million fans for your restaurant means what exactly? There might be a brief revenue spike as people head out to the restaurant to redeem their free hamburger coupon (or not, see above) and also buy appetizers, sodas, and drinks. But there’s no long-term value. A hamburger is a commodity, and the mass-produced ones at TGI Friday’s are likely no better or worse than the ones from a competitor like Ruby Tuesday.

TGI Friday’s offered a one-time engagement to fans. Predictably, the fans offered the same. They took their burger and took off. TGIF can point to their massive fan count, but at the end of the day, what’s the benefit to them?

How to do it better

Let’s start with a question: What do hamburgers have to do with Facebook?

Nothing specifically. For TGI Friday’s, it was strictly a volume play to reach a massive audience on a massive channel and deliver a spike. They could have found much more long-term value from distribution by engaging hamburger snobs in a discussion about their recent menu additions, or efforts they’ve made to craft gourmet burgers.

Provided that the product is indeed of quality, they would have reaped the benefit of the opinion and platform of an independent influencer, reaching an engaged audience to elevate its perception of the product.

Takeaway

If you’re planning a web-based promotion or content distribution strategy, consider what’s motivating users to participate or engage in the first place. Hamburgers are a commodity. Real insight or honest engagement is valuable.

No, we can’t force our planes to take off on time. But sometimes, if you use the right channels, you can get some money taken off your ticket price to compensate for poor or incompetent service. It’s hard to imagine getting this kind of immediate response 20 years ago without a lawyer or a lot of letter writing and time spent on the phone.

You — yes you — can have your very own platform

Whereas consumer advocacy used to be the bailiwick of your local news team, now — enabled by a democratic global medium (the internet) — just about anyone can air their consumer grievances. At first, brands were loath to listen to the web rabble, assuming that no one would pay any attention to the illogical rants of a woefully uninformed community of angry consumers.

Big mistake.

The ranters did not go away. And, it turns out, some of them actually had a point and could impact business. Sites like Consumerist and Elliott not only proved to be popular hubs of consumer advocacy, they also filled up with relevant advice on how to get the attention of big corporations. Thus, companies started to listen, learn, respond, and even correct. Nowadays, it’s not just damage control, either. Crowdsourcing product development or simply casing the crowd for new ideas is gaining favor online.

Efficiency of communication

Further, the online feedback channel is a much more streamlined and efficient communication channel for end users and brands alike. The conversations and interactions are now public, not isolated within a private telephone line. Public discussion might have scared big brands away before, but now a quick response can mitigate further issues and also help build a brand’s reputation within relevant communities. “Hey! [BRAND NAME] does listen to its customers.”

Be advised, find a balance

While brands continue the mass migration to social media hotspots like Facebook and Twitter, their journey has plenty of potential pitfalls. Primary among them is an unanticipated onslaught of angry consumers who finally have a forum for their frustrations. Internally, the brand had viewed this as a move to an open line of communication to more efficiently address concerns and earn some goodwill. But suddenly it’s bottlenecked with grievances, and the brand stops in its tracks. As the consumers wait for a satisfactory response, angry voices become angrier.

Not responding to your online critics is viewed as poor customer service and a tacit admission that your product is substandard and that you are unwilling to correct it.

Consumer feedback channels are now a must-have for big brands. Whether it’s Whole Foods on Get Satisfaction, Comcast on Twitter, or Starbucks’s own branded My Starbucks Idea, companies are finally tuning in to the benefit consumer voices can have for their business. We’ll be reviewing and considering these channels in forthcoming Spot On! articles.

Photo credits: Steve Rhodes, Pink Sherbet Photography

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Spot On! articles are released on Wednesdays and highlight emerging trends in web content distribution and finds examples of great distribution, efforts that just miss the mark, or utter failures, and then offers helpful suggestions or opportunities for elevating the engagement.