Top iPad Apps for 2010

Apple has released its annual “iTunes Rewind” feature, a listing of the most popular content in music, movies, TV shows and mobile applications in its iTunes marketplace. This year, Apple has placed a large focus on mobile apps, providing lists like the top free and top paid iPhone and iPad apps as well as lists of the top grossing apps on both platforms.

It’s notable that Apple has named the magazine-style social news reader Flipboard the iPad App of the Year, although it isn’t represented on any of Apple’s lists.  Instead, Flipboard joins other editorially selected award winners like Hipstamatic, a photo-filtering iPhone application that Apple chose over media darling Instagram for iPhone App of the Year, Plants vs. Zombies, which won iPhone Game of the Year and not the uber-popular Angry Birds, and finally, Osmos for iPad, the iPad Game of the Year.

I would like to note that I personally LOVE the iPad App, PageOnce.  I can manage all bills, accounts, finance stuff in one place.  Life is good.

Overall Top 10 PAID iPad Apps

1. Pages
2. GoodReader for iPad
3. Numbers
4. Angry Birds HD
5. Keynote
6. Glee Karaoke
7. WolframAlpha
8. Pinball HD
9. Friendly for Facebook
10. Star Walk for iPad

 

Overall Top 10 FREE iPad Apps

1. iBooks
2. Pandora Radio
3. Netflix
4. Google Mobile App
5. Solitaire
6. Movies by Flixster – with Rotten Tomatoes
7. IMDb Movies & TV
8. Kindle
9. Google Earth
10. Virtuoso Piano Free 2 HD

I realize Apple is not the center of the universe.  If you are interested in the other platforms, read on via Read Write Web, http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/top_mobile_apps_of_2010_according_to_apple_getjar_and_others.php

Mobile Case Study: LA County Fair

Leveraging mobile advertising for events.

http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/resources/case-studies/7900.html

How Lawyers May Use Social Media in the Future

Everyone wants to break into the social media game.  It’s harder for some. Take Attorneys for instance, they are bound by disclosures and disclaimers that make it hard to be a presence on social platforms.

Mashable has a great article with some ideas on how to stay within guidelines and still be a social whiz.

http://mashable.com/2010/10/25/lawyers-future-social-media/

Classing Up Comfort Food Sells Cheese

Thought this idea was very innovative and included lots of channels – social, search, microsites, and more – in which to promote the overall concept.

Florida has oranges and key lime pie. Maryland has crab cakes. Idaho has potatoes. And Wisconsin has cheese. Get ready for imagery guaranteed to make your mouth water, unless you’re lactose-intolerant.

If you’re a fan of reality cooking programs like “Top Chef,” then you’re familiar with a task commonly given to contestants: turning a classic comfort food into a highbrow gourmet meal.

Shine Advertising, agency of record for the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board, promoted Wisconsin cheese by reinventing the grilled cheese sandwich with the Grilled Cheese Academy.

The Web site showcases a whopping 30 grilled cheese sandwiches made with various Wisconsin cheeses. Clicking on the sandwich directory gives you the sandwich name and type of Wisconsin cheese used, but clicking on the numbers provides foodies with money shots of delicious sandwiches and detailed links to recipes. My favorites are Buffalo Bill (#5), Appleton (#13) and Lisa Marie (#19).

The site was concepted and created in three months and uses Facebook Connect so visitors can post their grilled cheese recipes to the Grilled Cheese Academy Gallery along with their Facebook pages.

The Grilled Cheese Academy is a follow-up to the Cheese & Burger Society, an equally eye-catching site created last year by Shine that pairs Wisconsin cheeses with beef patties and various accoutrements.

This year’s site is being promoted through Google AdWords, Facebook ads and a sponsorship of Tasting Table’s national, Chicago, Los Angeles and New York e-newsletters.

Members of Shine, the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board, and Chef Tory Miller created the 30 selected recipes. To date, more than 100 additional recipes have been added to the academy gallery.

“Our biggest challenge was making sure we created recipes that were interesting enough to captivate an audience — yet easy enough to make, that they are not intimidating,” said Mike Kriefski co-founder and creative director of Shine. “The ultimate goal of this site is to increase awareness of Wisconsin Cheese as being some of the best cheeses in the world. Given the newness of this site, it’s still too early to say whether this tactic has ‘moved the needle,’” concluded Kriefski.

Enrolling into College via Facebook?

How do you boost enrollment at a university in Brazil, a country that’s home to more than 2,000 universities?

Offer online enrollment through Facebook, of course.

Read Full Article on mediapost.com

Branded Dollars Spread ‘Positive’ Financial Message

Great article from MediaPost.com..

Seeding branded currency into circulation has been done before as an initiative to promote TV shows, city tourism, casinos, banks and financial Web sites.

Creative usually consists of a sticker that covers Washington’s face or sits aside it. Space is limited, so copy is short and sweet, often including a URL, a contest code or a snappy line about the promotion.

Minyanville, which creates branded business content that educates and entertains adults and children about the world of finance, is seeding thousands of specially branded dollar bills into circulation as part of its “Get Positive on Money!” campaign. The company aims to educate the public on money management, especially in this down economy.

Minyanville-branded dollar bills will circulate for six months. “Get Positive on Money,” reads copy around the Treasury seal. To the left of the seal is Minyanville’s Web address and to the right it states, “Turn $1 into $100.”

Minyanville created a microsite for those who receive a branded-Minyanville dollar, enabling users to enter the bill’s ten-digit serial number to see if their bill is worth $100. Six circulated bills are worth $100.

“Get Positive on Money is Minyanville’s way of easing people out of their economic funk by motivating them to understand what to do with their money and make them more comfortable with finance,” said Kevin Wassong, president of Minyanville Media. “People are scared and good, trusted, truthful financial insight is hard to come by. We want them to know that the beginning of a strong financial future is not that far away.”

Browse the microsite and you’ll notice a Google Map of locations where Minyanville-branded money was found. Most states have at least one entered bill. Even Hawaii has seen Minyanville money; Alaska, not so much.

“If people don’t win $100, we hope they’ll spend the bills so they will continue to circulate,” added Wassong. “Minyanville is doing its part to stimulate the economy. We will come out of this feeling ‘successful’ if we learn that even some of the Get Positive on Money participants came out of this economic turmoil a little bit more comfortable with their financial future.”

Take that, recession.

The Right Message to the Right Person at the Right Time.

Among the many advantages of online display advertising (banner ads) is its ability to deliver relevant messages to specific targets.  However, the range of available online targeting options is HUGE and becoming more and more complex.

How do you choose the right targeting mix to meet your advertising goals?

Lets shed some light on some of the major categories of targeting and focus on what they have to offer for different companies and objectives.

Demographic Targeting – Age, Gender, Geography

Online, the demographics used most often for targeting are age, gender and geography. Sometime additional factors like income will come into play.  Many times this type of targeting is based on the geral demographic profile of a site or specific info provided by users during the registration process.

When to Use It

Mass Market campaigns use demographic targeting sucessfully to meet both awareness and persuasion goals.  It is less likely to be useful for other types of categories, except when specific products are used primarily by a particular demographic.

Geographic Targeting

This type of targeting can be based on a number of different factors like a user’s IP address or registration info.   User supplied info is generally accepted as more accurate (may not always be available).  Most geo targeting is IP-based.  My company, Cox Media Group, used the Yahoo! platform for advanced targeting and I have to say the functionality is amazing.  The geo targeting used by Yahoo! is based on three  key factors:  Universal Location Manager (user identifed default location), IP (location of internet connection – not always accurate as servers are many times based in an entirely different state than the user), and Registration Location(user defined location at registration).

Contexual Targeting – Site-level, section-level or content-level)

This is a popular option for online advertisers in it’s ability to reach people who are in the market for their products.  Context based targeting includes beauty ads and beauty sites,  sporting goods ads on sports sites, tax software ads on finance sites and so on.

Contexual targeting is very common on the large Google content network – for example, a coffee ad can be place on a page in which coffee is being discussed.  Combining text-focused targeting with placement on specific sites is also possible, though this approach is more appropriate when you are more concerned about the mindset of the user rather than the website you are on.

Read more.

Yogi’s Tea And Sympathy: Well Wishes Are On The Bag

I thought this was such a creative, fun and compelling promotion.  I’m inspired and filing away to use if the right client comes along with a similiar need.

Yogi Tea launched an online campaign guaranteed to brighten the day of countless tea lovers.

Yogi created a well wishes microsite (http://www.yogiproducts.com/wellwishes)  where consumers could send online inspirational messages, written on a tea bag, to friends and loved ones. In addition to the customized e-card, recipients get a pair of Yogi tea bags in the mail.

Eight themed well-wishes tea sets are available: Healthy Glow, Rest, Energy, Immunity, Nurturing Mother, Purify, Deliciously Intriguing and Relax.

Senders can craft unique messages to friends or select from 18 existing options ranging from, “Hope you get your groove back,” “Laughter is healthy” to “Stay well” and “You’re a breath of fresh air.”

The campaign was inspired by online conversations Yogi employees followed online, namely women sharing tips, recommendations and remedies on Twitter and Facebook.

Yogi wanted to take this idea a step further by including actual tea samples with users’ well wishes.

More than 36,000 well wishes have been sent to date. Maxwell PR developed and executed the campaign.

Once users create an online greeting, they can explore a group of tea trees with clickable leaves, allowing visitors to read all well wishes.

When sending customized well wishes, however, senders are given the option to render their messages private or available to read on the trees. There’s a limit of one well wish per home address.

According to Melanie Haliburton, Director, Yogi Brand, the cost of sending tea to users has been comparable to past direct mail sampling programs used.

“Yogi wanted to raise awareness of the brand among its core LOHAS (Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability) consumers while expanding its consumer base,” said Haliburton. “Guided by Yogi’s ‘Flavor with Purpose’ brand promise, Well-Wishes was designed to drive trial, generate online buzz and showcase Yogi’s herbal and wellness expertise by featuring a variety of flavorful and functional teas.”

Here Comes The New Bridal Magazine, Laden With Mobile Technology

This  magazine  touts itself as the first bridal pub to use Microsoft Tag, Microsoft’s own barcode technology, alongside editorial content and advertisements.

You see something you like – you instantly redeem via phone.  I love it.

Full Article via MediaPost.com

Social Media Moms Sliced and Diced

Social Media Moms Diced and Sliced

According to the results of the 2010 Mom Social Influencer segmentation study by BabyCenter, five unique segments of social moms are broken down into two categories, the Influencers, Field Experts, Lifecasters and Pros, and the Influenced, labeled in the report as Butterflies and the Audience.  The Influencers make up only 18% of social moms, but they wield 78% of the influence.

Tina Sharkey, Chairman and Global President, BabyCenter says “Since 2006, the number of moms using social media has skyrocketed more than 500%… marketers (can) shift their mindset from social media to social marketing by gaining a better understanding of who the mom influencers are… “

Influence, in this study, was measured by how often social moms post or comment on social networks and the size of their networks on these platforms. All five segments of social moms have distinct characteristics and behaviors consistent across the major social media platforms.

The Influencers are described as follows:

A Field Expert is a stay-at-home mom with a topical focus on parenting. She is a young but experienced and uses social media to share parenting advice, usually focused on a specific topic with a large network of moms who look to her for her hard-earned advice and recommendations. She is most active in parenting-focused social media environments, where she shares in-depth mom-to-mom advice, wisdom and support.

Field experts make up 8% of social moms and have a 33% share of influence overall. They are most influential on parenting communities where they have a 44% share of influence.

A Lifecaster is a Millennial mom who lives her life in public. She is a mom of young children who is always connected and communicating using social media.  She loves being the center of attention, has a strong need to stay connected and participates and thrives on being recognized as the go-to person on many topics, not just parenting. She is very active in social media, with a high number of friends who look to her as an invaluable source of new ideas and recommendations.

She is most active on Facebook where she posts frequently to her huge network of readers and “likes” her favorite brands. She’s also  active on Twitter and blogs where she shares everything from everyday occurrences and stories about her children to product recommendations, deals and coupons.  Although Lifecasters produce a high amount of seemingly lighter content, they are depended on by a large audience for relevant advice and product recommendations.

Lifecasters make up 8% of social moms and 34% percent of the influence overall. They are most influential on Facebook where they command 47% of the influence.

Pros are mom bloggers who have turned their passion for social into a profession. A Pro is a self-employed Gen X mom with young children who loves giving well-thought-out advice and values recognition. She consistently pushes out entertaining and informational content to her enormous networks on Twitter and her blog, posting opinions and advice on a wide variety of topics including parenting tips and product reviews and giveaways. She does extensive research before making recommendations on a broad range of topics.  In many cases, she has been compensated in some way for writing about brands on her blog.

Pros represent 2% of moms in social media and have an 11% share of influence overall.  While they are incredibly influential individually, they account for a lower proportion of the influence overall due to their small size. Pros are most influential on blogs where they have an 89% share of influence and on Twitter with 68%.

Share of Influence by Social Medium
	Share of Influence (% of Respondents in Social Category)
	Blogs	Twitter	Facebook	BabyCenter
Influencer
Field Experts	0	1	18	44
Lifecasters	2	29	47	32
Pros	89%	68	5	2
Influenced
Butterflies	6	5	15	3
Audience	1	3	15	17
Source: BabyCenter 2010 Mom Social Influencer Study, June 2010 (percentages approximate rounded)

The Influenced are reported as:

Butterflies, who are young professionals who put the social in social networking. She is a mom-to-be expecting her first child who is very self-confident and loves social gatherings. Although she has a lot of friends online and in real life, her schedule is so tight that she tends to only post on important updates using  social media. She primarily uses social media platforms like Facebook to keep up with her many friends and be entertained.

She seeks advice about her pregnancy on parenting-focused social media networks. She shares her real life on Twitter and on blogs when she has a spare moment but generally tends to be more on the receiving end of advice and recommendations.

Although Butterflies represent 16% of moms in social media they only wield 7% of the influence overall because of their low level of activity.

The Audience is the largest group of social moms who listen and take it all in. This very large group represents the mom market, including a mix of moms at different stages, from expectant moms to moms of older children. These women have fewer online friends and comment less frequently in social media, but are still present and highly influenced by the other segments. Moms in this group use parenting-focused social media environments to find useful information, ask questions, get product recommendations or receive support. They use mainstream social sites to keep in touch with friends and for consuming entertainment. They observe and obtain information, and do not comment.

At 66% percent of moms who use social media, the audience makes up the largest group but wields little influence relative to their size at 15% overall.

Key highlights:

Pregnancy and birth triggered 94% of moms to seek out information and share opinions with others online.

• 18% of social moms wield 78% of the overall influence.
• Field Experts and Lifecasters make up 16% of audience and wield 67% of the influence.
• 91% of social moms use Facebook for socializing and 89% use BabyCenter for gathering useful information.
• Pros have 89% of influence on blogs, Lifecasters have 47% on Facebook, and Field Experts have 44% on the BabyCenter community.

For additional information from BabyCenter, please visit here.