DisAPPointing: The world of mobile apps can be a time waster

Photoshop received approval this week for their own official iPhone app, which allows users to rotate, crop, use filter effects, adjust exposure, tint and saturation. Not exactly groundbreaking, but regular users and the tech savvy should expect a heavy hitter to have a presence in the app market.

The concept of an app store for mobile phones is doggone appealing for 21st century cell phone users. Apple's campaign "There's an app for that" has become synonymous with the utility of mobile communication and convenience. Although BlackBerry maker RIM released it's own version of the app store earlier this year, Apple has touted the availability of thousands of programs in its own store and even surpassed two billion downloads at the end of September.

Many companies have hitched a ride on the app wave with useful components, such as remote ordering for Chipotle and Starbucks (they actually have two) and pop culture icons such rapper T. Pain's auto voice tuner. Others have shown to be timelessly useful, such as Google Maps and weather alert applications like WeatherBug.

Despite the usefulness of some applications, the app market at large has reached a point beyond saturation. As is true with social media usage, some tools are simply time wasters. For those who remember the infamous pre-installed Snake game on old Nokia phones, this was enough a to satisfy the urge to procrastinate for most people.

The bottom line is that smartphone users and application developers must seriously consider the ultimate goal of time and money spent developing, searching, downloading and "playing." As technology history teaches us, this too shall pass.

• Brands: This means determining the PR and financial investment and ROI developing an app would take. In the case of Photoshop, the justification is clear.
• Consumers: The app store could largely be procrastination 2.0 and another drain on your bank account.

A brilliant video advertisement from WorldMate illustrates my point:

Microsoft Jumps Head-First into Social Media

There is a new era about to embark at Microsoft worldwide.

The new 82-member social media innovation team, dubbed FUSE (FUture Social Experiences), is set to begin sending some serious waves through the company's software development. Conceptualized and assembled by Ray Ozzie, Micro's Chief Software Architect, the FUSE team is expected to begin applying social media capabilities into PCs and business products.

The implications of this move could have an enormous impact on the public's daily computing, indicating that social media is becoming less of a learned process and more of a traditional 21st century lifestyle. Early adopters will be a driving force.

Ozzie cites high-bandwidth internet, both wired and wireless, the wide availability of digital camera phones and 'app-capable' phones, etc. as obvious justification for the team's dedicated purpose. Internet-connected game consoles and TVs are part of the equation as well. Social movies and programming have already been available, although not mainstream, for the past year or so.

The marketing team at Microsoft formally acknowledges that social media has transcended "communication and collaboration" and directly affects product experiences and consumer behavior. An important point to emphasize with slow-adopting clients.

Some of you may already be familiar with the rumored LookingGlass product, which is Microsoft's prototype for social media business software. It is unclear if LookingGlass is the front-runner of the new FUSE team, but it is very likely there is a connection. Click here for the original FUSE article.

Happy tweeting, everyone.

Bon Voyage, Ohio

Since I launched this blog in the Fall of 2007, I have never written post about my personal life or plans. After graduating in June of this year, my family, friends and old co-workers have begun to scatter across America. That being said, this is the best way to give you all an update on the next steps in my life and career!

After graduation, I moved to Columbus and began at Northlich less than 48 hours after my commencement ceremony. I originally planned to stay in Columbus, as it is close to my immediate family and network of friends and professionals.

Now that September is upon us, I have chosen to take the next step in my career by moving to Chicago. I recently accepted a post-graduate internship position with Weber Shandwick and am set to begin October 5th of this year. For those of you unfamiliar with Weber, it is one of the world's largest PR firms and was recently in the news after MySpace selected it it's AOR. I will make the move October 1 into an apartment in the north side of the city.

Needless to say, I am more than thrilled with the opportunity. I have loved my experience at Northlich and am extremely grateful for the mentorship, exposure to new projects, and wonderful friendships I have gained during my time there. I will miss Ohio and many close friends, but am very happy to offer a pull-out couch for visitors in the Windy City!

Of course, I fully intend to work my rear-end off to turn my internship position into a long-term job within a couple months. Regardless, I will stay in Chicago for at least 1-2 years and take that time to learn everything I can while being surrounded by some of the best in my industry. Thank you to everyone who has always shown support and make a continued effort to stay connected, no matter how many miles are between us.

As I prepare to move, I am nostalgic about the networking trip I planned for Ohio University's chapter of PRSSA to Chicago earlier this Spring. Thank you to Aaron Baer for the video below!



A convenient side effect of my transition is a three week "summer vacation" during the month of September. During that time, I will be attending both my cousin's and best friend's weddings, along with a few adventures in between. I would love to share all of my plans with you, but I prefer to keep at least some information private amongst family and friends. Feel free to e-mail me or follow me on Twitter!

pauljmatson (at) gmail (dot) com

FCC socializes it's broadband launch

This week, the Federal Communications Commission decided that social media was a key component to it's submission of a plan for national broadband access. Ever since the United States figured out that it is trailing behind the rest of the civilized world in public broadband, this issue has been hot on the keyboards of programmers and politicians. Given the inherently heated debate that has been stirring, why did the FCC choose to integrate social media into their development stage?

"We want it to be a two-way conversation. The feedback, ideas and discussions generated on thsi blog will be critical in developing the best possible National Broadband Plan," said FCC Chairman Julius Genachoswki. Please note that he took office in June of this year.

I am most looking forward to see which comments and "feedback" are censored. Let the transparency war begin! Here is a quick look at what has been posted since the campaign launch on Tuesday:

Click here to follow the FCC

To be honest, I am more than a little disappointed with their "engaging" tactics. Nearly every post begins with "Broadband Update:" and redundantly links back to it's own general web address. If I wanted to read repeated advertisements to visit their web page, I would add it to my RSS feed.

A quick look at the replies to the FCC account reveals similar feelings among new followers. It seems as though Chairman Genachoswki needs to do a better job executing the "two-way conversation" he has proclaimed.

The "Blogband" blog, however, is performing much better. It only has four posts and is two days old, but has received nearly 100 comments with undoubtedly heavy web traffic. Like most successful blogs, Blogband is collaboratively maintained by the FCC internal team (including posts from the Chairman). It is still too early to tell how much the social media outlets will affect the ultimate decisions of the FCC for initiating national broadband. Despite it being in its early stages, I have great appreciation for the fact that they have created social modes for input from the American public.

The question now becomes whether the FCC will actually begin responding to its feedback publicly. Please comment or send me an email at pauljmatson (at) gmail (dot) com. Cheers!

Twitter is down! Social media Twouble

Microblog service Twitter has officially been down since around 10:00 a.m. today, preventing the tweets of millions of users around the globe. The official Twitter Status blog has published the following update:

Defending against a denial-of-service attack?! Let the battle begin! Time to summon the all-mighty Fail Whale to wage war against the cyber foes. Fortunately, the federal government has the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team to step in if needed.

So what exactly is a denial-of-service (DoS) attack? According to US-CERT:

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In a denial-of-service (DoS) attack, an attacker attempts to prevent legitimate users from accessing information or services. By targeting your computer and its network connection, or the computers and network of the sites you are trying to use, an attacker may be able to prevent you from accessing email, web sites, online accounts (banking, etc.), or other services that rely on the affected computer.

The most common and obvious type of DoS attack occurs when an attacker "floods" a network with information. When you type a URL for a particular web site into your browser, you are sending a request to that site's computer server to view the page. The server can only process a certain number of requests at once, so if an attacker overloads the server with requests, it can't process your request. This is a "denial of service" because you can't access that site.

An attacker can use spam email messages to launch a similar attack on your email account. Whether you have an email account supplied by your employer or one available through a free service such as Yahoo or Hotmail, you are assigned a specific quota, which limits the amount of data you can have in your account at any given time. By sending many, or large, email messages to the account, an attacker can consume your quota, preventing you from receiving legitimate messages.

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If you are already shaking from the inability to access your home page, calm down. Although this is a longer downtime than Twitter has experienced for a year or so, it has happened before. The larger the Twitter network becomes, the more computers get involved, the more likely an attack of this nature becomes. For a more in-depth explanation of this situation and how it is orchestrated by hackers, click here.

The question is this: what do we do when a major social media service breaks down for an extended period of time? What will be an interesting case study is to examine where people are turning in the wake of Twitter failure. Facebook is my first guess. Other ideas welcome!

Designers are not developers

This (somewhat) crass post showed up in my Delicious feed, but think it is worth sharing. There is often a discrepancy over what skills people have in social media vs. digital marketing vs. web design. Naturally, today's PR and ad agencies want to have team members with a diversity of skills and specialty in a few. Few are able to differentiate the actual differences between each skill set.

A "concerned web developer" decided to publish this note contribute his insight (there is a lack of grammatical accuracy, but hits several important nails on the head):

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Poster of Job Ads,
For the record, nobody knows PHP, .NET, MYSQL, HTML, FLASH, CSS, JAVASCRIPT, ILLUSTRATOR, and PHOTOSHOP. If a potential emplotee says they do, they know a little of each and are of no real value. If they do indeed appear to be an expert with all of these, then they have no life. If you want someone of real skill -- you need to break down your job ads like so:

[PHP goes with MYSQL]
[.NET goes with SQL]
[HTML goes with CSS and maybe JavaScript]
[ILLUSTRATOR goes with PHOTOSHOP and FLASH]

...futhermore, there are two major spheres here that often get blurred into one..

web DESIGNER and web DEVELOPER.

A designer can also be a GRAPHIC designer -- these people are artists and can use Illustrator, Flash, and Photoshop.

A web developer knows how to code, web developers are NOT artists! -- If your potential employee claims to be a senior web developer and also a graphic designer, they are LYING.

A concerned...
web DEVELOPER

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You can find the original post here.

Self evaluation: blog traffic transparency

Since the inception of this blog nearly two years ago, it has undergone three major aesthetic overhauls and countless changes to it's content focus. There have been few alterations since the Summer of 2008, which prompted me to compare the actual traffic performance of today to my initial goals.

With majority thanks to Google Analytics and the input from insightful subscribers, I was able to uncover some interesting facts about what people find most interesting, the relevancy of my content, and how traffic is directed here. In honesty, my first post was for a college class, discussing the possibility of Facebook releasing an IPO. Today, with the title "The Social Media Institute," my blog has evolved into a home for my thoughts on optimizing the opportunities inherent in engaging the world through digital mediums.

In short, how to use the Internet to reach people.

For transparency's sake, I have published an 11 month web traffic report for your viewing/downloading pleasure. I would be happy to answer any questions you may have, and welcome thoughtful feedback. Leaving a comment, @ reply/DM me on Twitter, or send me an e-mail at pauljmatson (at) gmail (dot) com.

Google search results:
About 52% of my overall traffic comes from organic search results on Google, Yahoo and other search engines. I currently hold the top five listings for the following entries (test them yourself!):

1. abercrombie and fitch media (ranked #1) ... I'm still a little shocked at this one.
2. how to keep people interested (ranked #1)
3. a dying father (ranked #1)
   
4. best twitter application (ranked #2)
5. GPA vs experience (ranked #1)
6. strategically obnoxious (ranked #1)
   
7. no such thing as an expert (ranked #2)
   
8. social media institute (ranked #3)
9. how to pitch using social media (ranked #4)
   
10. paul matson (ranked #1) ... I hold the top 3-4 spots on a given day.

Top referring sites:
After publishing a new post, I typically post it to Twitter, PROpenMic.org, my Delicious page, Instant Messenger away message, Facebook, and LinkedIn. E-mail subscriptions included, of course. These are the top site ten web site referrals that are not from search engine traffic.

1. Twitter
2. Facebook
3. Blogger
4. PROpenMic
5. ohiouprssa.org
6. iphone.facebook.com
7. beingcheryl.com
   
8. LinkedIn
9. researchgoddess.wordpress.com
10. tonysylvester.blogspot.com

Global visitors (89 counties):

1. United States (4,300 visits)
   
2. United Kingdom (227 visits)
   
3. Canada (149 visits)
   
4. Austrailia (63 visits)
   
5. India (51 visits)
   
6. Germany (38 visits)
   
7. Phillipines (31 visits)
   
8. Netherlands (30 visits)
   
9. Colombia (22 visits)
   
10. France (21 visits)
    

Most popular posts:

1. The best Twitter applications
2. What and When to Tweet
3. Welcome to the Abercrombie & Fitch Emergency Department and Trauma Center
4. Who will hire me? GPA vs. Experience
5. Five ways to keep up with social media
6. 7 ways to keep people interested
7. How to pitch using social media
8. Twittiquette
9. Get noticed through Facebook
   

The full report:
Traffic report

The numbers game: Real relationships in social media

Mobile Media: Wherever I go, you come too

A key component of successful social media networking, marketing and sharing is the ability to access the social web at critical times. The technological advancement of smartphones and wireless providers have enabled consumers to get on the Internet virtually anywhere at any time. I am not suggesting that one stays constantly connected. Instead, mobile accessibility has unchained us from our computers. Everyone is now able to explore the world while utilizing critical elements of the social web.

Flipcams, cell phones and mobile-optimized web sites are now available in the mainstream market. In many ways, this has helped exponentially increase the amount of up-to-the-moment information available. We can now upload text to our blogs, pictures to Flickr, and videos to YouTube while remaining copmletely wireless. For businesses seeking to engage their target audience, this is an opportunity to get real-time feedback on anything from product reviews to onsite experiences.

Below is a picture re-cap of a recent bike ride I took through downtown Columbus. Most of these were taken with a cell phone, which I was able to upload to Flickr as I rode. By the time I arrived home after two hours of riding, there were only a few photos left to finish posting. Without this capability, it is unlikely that I would have shared this experience at the rate that it became available.

Sex APPeal: BlackBerry vs. Apple

Unbeknown to many, the commercialized availability of smartphone applications is barely a year old. Since the inception of the Apple App Store on July 11 last year, global activity has topped 1.5 billion downloads. Not to mention, of course, the 10 million downloads the first weekend the App Store was available. While the launch of the App Store pre-empted the release of the BlackBerry Storm, RIM's first touch-screen smartphone, BlackBerry was quick to catch up introducing it's own App World in March of 2009.

Both the Apple and BlackBerry app stores provide wireless download capability, with several new applications being added each day. In my own experience, I have owned an iPod Touch since September 2007 and a BlackBerry Storm since November 2008. After countless downloads, trials and erasing most apps from both devices, there are a few conclusions that can be reached for the current state of each app store:

BlackBerry App World

Pros

• Coverage: With Verizon's 3G network, applications that require streaming capability or constant connection fare much better than an iPhone or Palm Pre any day. If you are an Apple fanatic, I am sorry. This is a verifiable fact.
• Productivity: BlackBerry continues to dominate the business world, and the App World naturally reflects the business landscape. If you are a frequent traveler, salesman, productivity manager or receive hundreds of messages a day, there is a guaranteed app or two to make your life easier.
• Compatability: With very few exceptions, virtually all downloads available in App World will function on any recent BlackBerry model. There is little concern about whether you will have to upgrade your mobile OS or purchase an entirely new phone.

Cons

• Quantity: If you want to spend hours browsing App World, your joy ride will end relatively quickly. While there are several hundred apps from which to choose, you are unlikely to find niche apps, such as a one developed for Dairy Queen or obsessed CSI fans.
• Price: There are several apps available that are 100% free of charge, but some will set you back as much as $30 for each download. Despite this apparent drawback, many of the more expensive options are used for business-related functions that serve specific purposes. In some cases, an app purchase could be paid for by one's company.
  
• Support: The App World is still in it's infancy, and third party developers have only had a few months to begin creating BlackBerry-compatible app syntax. It is still early to judge whether or not RIM has dropped the ball on opening up it's API. In the mean time, technical support and "buggy" symptoms still plague many available applications.

Apple App Store

Pros

• Availability: In spite of the App World, Apple currently boasts more than 65,000 applications available for download.
  
• Speed: One clear advantage that Apple products maintain is the access to Wi-fi when it is available. While the AT&T network may lag, an iPhone or iPod Touch can pick up wireless signals and operate at normal speeds in some areas.
  
• Usability: The touch interface is very fluid and responsive on new Apple models, which minimizes frustration while learning new applications. Ironically, the iPhone and iPod Touch's inability to run multiple programs at once give them an advantage while operating downloaded software.
  
• Price: While thousands of apps are free, many more popular downloads are a mere $.99 - a price that will not break the bank when you are disappointed with a download.
  

Cons

• Navigation: With so many new apps available on a near daily basis, it has become a daunting task to keep up the latest updates on each program. While Apple is working on redesigning the aesthetics of the App Store, relief from navigation frustrations is a light very far from the end tunnel.
• Time: Aside from the time it takes to navigate through the entirety of the App Store, many applications are simply for novelty use. This begs the quesion whether Apple has a reputable place in the business market, or if it serves as a distraction rather than a tool for efficiency.

The ultimate decision is yours, of course, but I hope this insight helps. Feedback welcomed and appreciated.

The ultimate search engine

For anyone familiar with the Internet, Google has long since transcended into being a household name. An estimated 235 million searches are performed each day on the Google search engine, which accounts for roughly 72% of searches performed across the web. Even when one uses alternate search engines, it is still commonly referred to as "Googling." Imagine how copy machine companies must have felt when Xerox began dominating the market (i.e. "Xerox that paper" instead of "copy that paper")

Talk about brand power.

Amid the countless number of self-proclaimed "SEO gurus," there are very few people that truly understand the complex, evolving algorithms of search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing. As the abyss of information available on the web continues to expand, we rely heavily on these sites to navigate efficiently.

Multitudes of search engines continue to be developed to help deliver more targeted results (Google alone offers separate engines for blogs, patents, images, etc.) Online training even exists to teach people how to enter key terms more effectively, much like I was taught as a child to use the library's first "digital card catalog."

Instead of listing the "Top 100 Search Engines" or some other shoddy compilation of sites you will only visit once, here are two bookmark-worthy ways I guarantee will make your daily searching through social media and the web more efficient.

1. Google Custom Search
Take control. This is a simple tool that enables you to literally build your own search engine (no, you do not need a PhD in computer engineering... even a kid in elementary school could pull this off). The key element is an ability to narrow or emphasize the reach of your search engine based on preferred blogs, commercial sites, news sources, and so on. First, this means importing a list of your chosen sites into a database. You can then choose whether to search within those sites exclusively or with them simply emphasized in a normal search.

Once the engine criteria is saved, you can embed it on your web site and share it with others. This is incredibly useful for brand monitoring or simply easing the tediousness of clicking through page upon page of search results.

Who has that kind of time?

If you have no idea what type of search engine you want to create, visit this directory of topic-based search engines. For example, if you are only interested in the online content of high traffic "mommy bloggers," there is a search engine that exclusively searches the top 1,500 mommy blogs. Of course, there are plenty other topics from which to choose.



2. Addict-o-matic
Social media searching at a glance. This is a web-based tool which enables you to enter a key term into multiple social media search platforms simultaneously. As far as I have found, this is the most inexpensive (free) and fastest way to search several social media engines at once and compare results.


This site also allows you to add or remove the various platforms based on your preference and change their location on the dashboard. Featured engines include Google blog search, Twitter search, FriendFeed, News, Delicious and Digg, Flickr, Technorati, and many more.

Give each a shot and leave a comment. Cheers!

PR pros and social media woes

Whether you are a social network aficionado or still think Twitter is a new bird species, it can be a daunting challenge to keep up with social media tools and trends. Of course, there are countless resources available online and in print that try to offer insight into the bottomless pit of social media marketing.

Despite the endless charts, case studies and hype that social media sites project, some of the most valuable lessons in using and optimizing online tools come from collaborating with colleagues and friends. One of the best ways to connect online with PR practitioners, students and professors around the world is through PROpenMic.org. Membership is free and enables you to view and share relevant PR and social media counsel from experts and tehup-and-coming alike. Think of it as Facebook for PR people.

Lastly, if you have ever felt frustrated or inundated with the rocket pace of social media, this song is for you:

Chicago social media adventure

This weekend, March 5-8, the PRSSA chapter from Ohio University will be traveling to Chicago to tour six major agencies and attend a networking dinner. Many students participating have only just begun venturing into social media networking on the professional level. You can track our progress by visiting here. If you wish to communicate with the group, please use the Twitter hashtag #ouchi09. We would love to hear any and all advice/comments/encouragement as we explore Chicago together.

The chapter has been split into two smaller groups so that each can visit three agencies. We have scheduled meetings with the following firms:

* Ketchum
* Fleishman-Hillard
* Ogilvy
* Edelman
* Ruder Finn
* Weber Shandwick

If you wish to meet with us at the Hard Rock Cafe on Friday evening, please send me a DM @PaulMatson or @ScrippsPRSSA. In addition, several members of the chapter will be taking footage of their experience which is being compiled into a YouTube video. If you are in the area, we would love to have you featured as well.

Thank you to everyone who has assisted in putting this trip together. In short, this explains my absence from posting the past few weeks. Upon our return, I will be able to resume my normal posting schedule. I will also be guest blogging on PRofessional Development next week with CMU's Rachel Esterline.

Cheers!

You are always welcome to leave a comment or send me an email at pauljmatson (at) gmail (dot) com.

Quick reads on Social Media trends

To expand your knowledge of best practices in social media, it is important to read relevant reports each day. Save and share these articles on Twitter, del.icio.us, RSS, etc. I have read or skimmed everything that I post and save them in my own databases.

While it is critical to read about new ideas, trends and tactics in SM, it is equally important to actively engage with the online communities that create them.

What to do when social media is frustrating you
You cannot become an expert in all of social media at one time. Instead, focus on oneor two activitites for a while, move on to some others, then comeback to the first. You will find how much better you are after a break.

Using Twitter to break the language barrier in international issues
Social media use has been soaring for the past four years, as more Web 2.0 services are being added to the arsenal available to citizen journalists and professionals alike, to be load-tested especially in times of strife or crisis.

Yahoo!'s next frontier: Internet T.V.
At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the company announced a range of televisions and related products loaded with software - developed by Yahoo! and Intel - that wouldlet users call up popular Web pages and tools right alongside programs they're watching on TV.

7 Social media predictions for 2009
1. Social Media continues its rapid growth
2. Business Networks surge as economic crisis continues
3. etc.

It should take no more than 10-15 minutes to read through each of these articles. Please follow the link to my del.icio.us page in the right-hand column to find a plethora of other useful articles.

Love or hate what you have read, please leave or a comment of send me an email at pauljmatson@gmail.com.