[N2K] Announcing In-App Currency Offers
Could be the fastest growing aspect of Facebook this year.
http://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/626/
Sent to you via Google Reader
Sent from my Kindle Firegabba. create conversation.
This is the home for everything that's creating conversations in our world.
-
2012-01-06
-
[N2K] Facebook In 2012 From A Commerce Perspective
Facebook is going to be THE big mover this year, and as has been suggested by several VC’s in the US, may not go to an IPO.For a business doing the revenues it is at the valuation it currently has may seem like a big risk but the reality it’s, it still has SIGNIFICANT revenue growth to achieve.Credits are just one example of a massive money-spinner in its infancy, whilst f-commerce in a purely Facebook-hosted shop sense is at best experimental at the moment. Imagine the revenues they’d earn from a share of THAT.Add in their increasingly sophisticated, targeted and ultimately, more profitable advertising assets and you begin to see that Facebook is FAR from making the most of its revenue generation opportunities.
Sent from my iPhone so there’s a god chance of typos :-) -
Ford’s Jim Farley on the importance of putting your brand in the hands of customers
“My responsibility is to teach the organization something they’re not willing to learn. If I get fired because of it or if I don’t fit, I should not have been there any way. We live in a new paradigm…with a new opportunity.” – Jim FarleySent from my iPhone so there’s a god chance of typos :-) -
[N2K] Forget destinations. Your brand is everywhere and nowhere.
This is really, really important if content is at the heart of your website. By content, I don’t just mean social “chit-chat” kind of stuff, I mean product too. Frictionless sharing and the increasing integration of Open Graph insights into web experiences will personalise your web experience like you won’t believe.
-
[KiP] London to Get Europe’s Largest Free WiFi Zone
via thenextweb.comI don’t think we can underestimate the importance of this announcement. Far from being a tourism gimmick, this should be the template to put the rest of the country in the same situation.
-
2012-01-05
[innovation] Facebook Timeline Sends Anti-Drugs Message - The Next Web
via thenextweb.comLove this - simple and effective. I suspect that this has more effect as a stand-alone image than it does as an ongoing campaign but lets wait and see.
-
2012-01-04
[innovation] Nuts magazine publishes ‘The Interactive Issue’ | The Drum
via thedrum.co.uknice application of AR - not sure how much it progresses the technology, but I suppose if people don’t innovate, we’ll never know.
-
[worth reading] No, You Can’t Pick My Brain. It Costs Too Much - Forbes
-
2012-01-02
[worth reading] About the Windows Phone homebrew situation
Interesting how no matter what Microsoft do, there are always unfounded detractors.via The Next Web by Alex Wilhelm on 1/2/12
Writing about anything Microsoft related is always sticky, as it’s all but impossible to do so without making someone unhappy. I’ve written about this fact before, but the gist is that if you write a piece that is critical of the company, you are quite often painted as some sort of Apple fanatic, and if you write something positive about the firm, then according to critics you are on the take.
What most people don’t know is that the community of journalists and bloggers that cover Microsoft is actually quite tight-knit, and we all like each other. We even work together, answering each other’s questions on Twitter and other platforms. As far as tech niches go, Microsoft reporting is a good one. So when things like today happen, with our nuevo teapot tempest, I cringe a bit.
To catch you up, I made the claim in a post over the weekend that Microsoft is set to put new and unneeded pressure on the homebrew community that has sprouted up around its smartphone line. Some people agreed, others did not, and the entire circus is now in town.
Let’s go over the facts, so far as they are apparent to me:
- Microsoft did well by working with the ChevronWP7 team to build and sell an unlocking tool for Windows Phone. This made it possible for homebrew developers to unlock their handset for $9, thus exempting them from the usual $99 fee to open an App Hub account. Of course, homebrew apps can’t be sold in the phone line’s Marketplace, but that’s the tradeoff.
- When it did collaborate, in a way, with the ChevronWp7 team, a final ceiling of 10,000 ‘tokens’ was set down. That number was reached. The team has therefore stopped selling tokens.
This is where things go a bit strange. At $9 a pop, having sold 10,000 units means that the three guys (and I like each of them, I should point out) made (in theory) over $30,000 a piece on the project so far. And there appears to be demand for more units; the unlocking tool is built, and given that all is needed is more tokens (read: permission from Microsoft) to keep the game going, why not do so?
That’s not my business. According to the group they are talking amongst themselves about whether they want to keep going. It’s their choice. I hope they keep on marching, but it’s their time.
Now, why did I drag Microsoft into this, if the terms were known, and accepted by the ChevronWP7 team? Primarily because I hold Microsoft to a very high standard; a company that is as rich in cash and minds as Microsoft is should be savvy at all times, and when they fail to meet that standard I ding them for it. To limit the ChevronWp7 unlocking tool to a certain number of tokens was a foolish first move, as it set up the situation that we currently find ourselves in: limbo and confusion. That aside, it was even more asinine to not notice (presumably) that the tool was running low on tokens (the countdown was very public, at a minimum). The Windows Phone team should have stated, publicly, that it was going to make available some 50,000 more tokens, if the ChevronWp7 team asked for them.
That would have solved the entire issue and still kept the sovereignty of the ChevronWp7 team intact.
Given the positive press that the company garnered by helping with the production of the unlocking tool, I expected Microsoft to not make mistakes like this. Why they didn’t take the situation of the tokens selling out to extend a new hand of help to developers, and take the free and good notices that would have resulted is beyond me.
This explains my headline, that “Microsoft [is] set to quietly quash homebrew on Windows Phone.” The company understands the situation that it is in, and by not acting is putting pressure onto the homebrew scene. Quash, by the way, is often used to mean ‘suppress,’ and not simply ‘to end.’ It was that definition that I was using. And Microsoft is doing just that.
Finally, back to my first point about writing about Microsoft, this is what I am talking about, from the ChevronWP7 team’s post:
My story can be found here. I’ll list some salient quotes below for your convenience:According to the development team, Microsoft limited the app to some 10,000 ‘tokens.’ In other words, only 10,000 copies of the app were to be sold. That threshold, as of writing, has been met. The last tokens went as the New Year was ushered in.
The app is over, for now. What’s odd is that, despite obvious success, the team has not worked out a deal with Microsoft to sell more copies.
When the partnership to build the unlocking app was put together, the statement from the third-party read as follows: “Through this discussion, we established a mutual understanding of our intent to enable homebrew opportunities and to open the Windows Phone 7 platform for broader access to developers and users.” If Microsoft doesn’t grant more tokens, you have to ask what the hell happened to that sentiment.
The only thing that I would change in any of that would be the word ‘hell.’ It fits well, but it might be a bit much. I’m annoyed that Microsoft, which should know better, allowed this situation to transpire. That annoyance shows in that sentence. However, I don’t think that I was, to quote the ChevronWP7 team, shouting “MICROSOFT HATES THE WORLD.”
So that’s that. I hope everyone had fun.
-
2011-12-22
[worth reading] Absolutely, Positively Unacceptable | FedEx Blog
Along with many of you, we’ve seen the video showing one of our couriers carelessly and improperly delivering a package the other day. As the leader of our pickup and delivery operations across America, I want you to know that I was upset, embarrassed, and very sorry for our customer’s poor experience. This goes directly against everything we have always taught our people and expect of them. It was just very disappointing.
However, from the customer’s perspective, I am pleased to let you know that the matter has been resolved in a very positive way. We have met with the customer face to face and they already have a replacement monitor at no cost to them. They have accepted our apology and say they are fully satisfied with what we’ve done in response to this unacceptable delivery. They’ve made it clear, though, that they prefer not to be identified in any way, and in this case as always with customers, we fully respect their privacy.
I know you recognize that this absolutely does NOT represent the professionalism and dedication of the 290,000 FedEx team members worldwide. It is one person and one package. While many people are publicly speculating about what will happen to the employee, FedEx takes care to protect team members’ privacy as well as our customers’ privacy. We do take this matter extremely seriously, and have initiated action in accord with our disciplinary policy, while respecting privacy concerns. Without going into detail, I can assure you that this courier is not delivering customer packages while we are going through this process.
This matter is an unfortunate exception to the outstanding service FedEx team members deliver every single day. Our customers know and value that service. We have been doing this almost 40 years, and if we weren’t doing it right, we wouldn’t have gained the widespread respect we have enjoyed. As a matter of fact, we have a very simple motto we try to live by – the Purple Promise: “I will make every FedEx experience outstanding.”
While this delivery fell way short of those high standards, we are already using it as a learning opportunity. We’ve shared this video internally to remind everyone that every single package is important to you, our customers, and that actions like this are totally unacceptable. We are also going to build this into our training programs as a constant reminder of the importance of earning — and keeping — your trust with every single delivery. We hope that you, like the customer involved in this incident, will see it as an unfortunate exception that proves the rule that our company cares for its customers.
Matthew Thornton III
Senior Vice President
US Operations
FedEx ExpressThe company that doesn’t fall on its sword in this day and age is not long for this world.
Sorry, whilst not the hardest word, should be a lot easier to say - as FedEx prove.
