The Benefits of Being Awesome

source: kwawesome.comCommunities blossom when brilliant ideas comes to life... this is one of them. 

The concept is simple.. think of something awesome that you want to do... and these folks will give you the money to do it. How much money? $1000 (More than enough). How awesome does it have to be? That's up to you. 

Every community in the world should adopt this idea. It doesn't take much, in the case of #kwawesome, it only takes 12 people giving money 6 times a year. If you do the math, that basically means for $500 you could potentially be funding 6 truly awesome projects a year. This is almost a form of micro-level venture capital and certainly one that should be shared among many communities. Can this happen in 3rd world countries where there may not be so much money to pass around? Sure. Just replace the money with resources of some kind, because ultimately that's all money really is. 

Here are 3 (of probably a 1000) reasons why this is such a brilliant idea:

1. It's simple, so simple that it can be replicated, and should be. 

2. It is built around a community - One of the questions in the application is "How will your idea impact our community?" This forces applicants to think of something greater than themselves, which is something this world needs more of. 

3. It will inspire people to action - The smallest ideas may in fact be the ones that change the world. There may be someone out there who has an idea for the next YouTube/Twitter/Facebook (YouTwitFace as Conan would say) and this may just be the kick in the pants he or she needs to get started. 

I encourage you to learn more about the KW Awesome Foundation. It may just inspire you to start a foundation in your own community... which of course... would be #awesome. 

Plus One for the future

Exactly how much this is going to revolutionize search is yet to be determined ... but there is no question that in some way it will revolutionize search. Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land had one of the best overviews of this new product that I have seen all day. I am not going to go into much detail about the product here because I firmly believe Danny has done a terrific enough job. If you want to learn more about every single aspect of "+1" I suggest you check out that post. The rest of this post will actually not focus on "+1" at all, instead I intend to share with you my thoughts as to how Facebook is going to react to this. 

Last week I read an article that Facebook was beginning to test putting a web search bar at the top of its page (I also mentioned it on the podcast last week with Andrew). Imagine a world where you went to Facebook, saw a search bar much like Google's ... typed in a search result and got a results page that had socially-ranked results. That world is what Google has somewhat made real today and one which Bing is somewhat making real right now too (by partnering with Facebook). However, the downfall with Bing is that it lies outside of the Facebook experience. I see a future where Facebook implements this new search bar and does exactly what Google is doing now but with Facebook Likes as opposed to "+1's." In this way... Facebook has a pretty massive advantage because the Like button has been around for over a year and has had the opportunity to percolate throughout the Internet and collect vast amounts of socially relevant data. 

The ball now truly lies in Facebook's court. Basically it comes down to this: Google has the power of search and Facebook has the power of social, each is trying to invade the other's turf... who will be victorious? It simply thrills me to imagine the innovations we will witness in the near future. 

The 3 A's

Apple just got served... courtesy Amazon and Android (Hence the 3 A's). 

Unless Apple is announcing something phenomenal involving Mobile Me at their announcement on June 6th, they just lost the lead in the battle for the cloud. Earlier today, Amazon announced the launch of a new service called the Cloud Player which is going to be powered in part by their proprietary Cloud Drive. 

Amazon is making a pretty big bet on the cloud here and I think it is certainly the right one. If you watch the easy-to-understand cartoon video on their website, the problem they are providing a solution for is certainly one we can all relate to. The only problem Amazon faces right now is one of mind share (and market share but the latter is driven by the former). 

According to an article on the LA Times blog, Amazon only accounts for 10-15% of digital music downloads whereas iTunes accounts for almost 70%. I can imagine that this is also primarily due to the fact that the iPod is the world's most popular music player, I don't need any stats to back that up. The question is... for how long more is that stat going to matter? A more concerning stat for Apple is the market share that Android is quickly gaining in the mobile space, not only in the US but around the world. With the growing power of mobile devices, will people want to carry more than one device anymore (i.e. an iPod and a phone)? 

The adoption and evolution of this service is most certainly one to keep an eye on. As Android expands and Amazon deepens its platform experience... will the two forces eventually combine to beat Apple? Let the battle of the 3 A's begin... 

The F Word

Free. 

Earlier today, Seth Godin wrote a post on the Domino Project's blog about some news surrounding the project's next release. For a limited time (due to sponsorship by GE) the book is going to be available for free. I hope that the Domino Project team releases some numbers about how many people rushed to order the free version of the book... but it will be equally interesting to see how many people order the paid version as well. 

If you find something you genuinely love doing, why not turn it into an art and give it away for free? This is what Seth Godin does everyday with his blog. If someone spent some time assembling all Seth's blog posts over just the past year into a single book (categorized by topic)... I would imagine that book would sell for a lot of money; however, if you were already subscribed to his blog... you would have got all of that goodness for free. 

If you're a brand manager... think of something that your consumers would be more than willing to pay for... and instead offer it for free. I know it seems to defy probably every sound business principle, especially within a public company but if you can take the risk then why not try it. If you're an entrepreneur trying to make a name of yourself, why not start by offering something of value... for free. I'll leave you with two examples of folks who are heroes of mine and who have built their respective empires by offering value for free: Gary Vaynerchuk and Leo Laporte. 

A Very Official Episode

Thoughts About Tablets (Podcast)


Listen to the episode on iTunes

Listen to the episode online

Episode Summary:

This week my special guest David Michaelangelo Silva and I discuss all things tablets. We start with the basics about where the market stands right now (who's dominating it, why, who's offering what) and then we dive into a deeper discussion about certain products and also briefly mention the future of the space. Hope you enjoy the conversation! (Runtime: 41:35)

Sources for the discussion:

http://www.engadget.com/features/tablets-at-ces-2011/

http://mashable.com/2011/03/10/ipad-2-infographic/

http://www.businessinsider.com/android-playbook-2011-3

http://www.kno.com/the-kno/features

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-12261_7-20045771-10356022.html

http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/02/ipad-2-vs-motorola-xoom-vs-hp-touchpad-vs-blackberry-playbook/

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/igeneration/is-the-blackberry-playbook-competitive-enough/8371

Interesting sites to check out:

Dave's Blog

Asking Questions

I came across a very interesting post on Mashable this morning about a new product launched by Facebook. Really it was actually an update to an already existing product and there was also a post on Facebook's blog about it as well. The product is simply called Questions and I'm sure I do not need to go into detail about what it does. The name says it all really. There are however, a few interesting points I think this brings up for marketers who are using Facebook as a promotional tool. Before I get into that though, I've read about a few comparisons of this to Quora and I should express that in my opinion, they are entirely different products. Facebook's has the ability of being far more personal and drawing on a pre-existing social graph. Quora has the benefit of elongated answers and expert opinions on niche topics. 

Alright, now back to where I think it can get very interesting for marketers. There is a feature built into the product that allows users to select options for answers (before asking the question) and people answering the question can even suggest new answers. For example if you asked what is the best restaurant in a given city and you listed 5 places... one of your friends could potentially add a 6th to your list (if you allow them to do so - there's a checkbox). The cool thing about this is when you populate responses/choices, if one of the choices has a corresponding Facebook page... it will be automatically linked to your question. If you read the Mashable article you will see what I'm talking about. 

Now what if there was a way for marketers to find out whether their Facebook page is being occasionally chosen as an option within Questions? More importantly, what if there was a way for marketers to find out what questions were being asked and then target display ads to answer those questions? The idea may not be completely ridiculous. I guess we'll have to wait and see if users find this creepy or extremely relevant. 

The other interesting avenue for marketers is with Facebook pages now being able to act like profile pages (you can assume the identity of a Facebook page) you can hopefully begin to ask your own questions! This already exists in a way in the form of discussions, but questions looks a lot cleaner. It will be cool to watch the evolution of this product and hopefully it will allow people to get more relevant answers, by just asking questions. 

Add some 'Color' to your life

In the past 24 hours there has been some serious hype about a new app (for iOS and Android) called, Color. CNBC's Julia Boorstin had a good video overview of the app and Business Insider had a great walkthrough of it as well. There have been a few questions surrounding the seemingly overnight success of the app... firstly, how did it get so much funding and secondly what is the true point of it? Many people have poked fun at the app but here are some quotes from a couple of well-known and highly respected individuals in the tech world: 

"In short, if Color is used by a statistically significant percentage of folks, nearly every location that matters on earth will soon be draped in an ever-growing tapestry of visual cloth, one that no doubt will also garner commentary, narrative structure, social graph meaning, and plasticity of interpretation." - John Battelle (Post on Business Insider)

"This is the next frontier in social networking for a bunch of reasons. First, curating social graphs is a pain. It takes work. And simply importing your Facebook or Twitter graph is suboptimal for most social services. You then need to add and delete to get the right graph for the right app. And second graphs change over time. Who has time to constantly manage their social graphs. So they get stale and one day you say "why I am following this person?" or "why is this person a friend on Facebook?" And maybe most imporantly, sometimes you only want a social graph for a weekend, a day, an hour, or a minute. The only way to make that work is to construct it implicitly." - Fred Wilson (Post via AVC blog)

I am slightly confused. Although a lot of people are claiming this to be the next big thing in social networking, I am not convinced that this app is the answer. I agree with Fred Wilson that the idea of an implicit social graph is one that will truly revolutionize things and I also agree with John Battelle (in his full post, not the quote) that ultimately it is execution that will win it. Here is my point of contention with this app: It only works when you are within 100 feet of other people who are using the app... so here's the million dollar question... when you ARE within 100 feet of them, are you going to... stare at the pictures on your phone? or... physically interact with the people who are within 100 feet of you? Doesn't the one act seem far more social than the other? 

The app makes complete sense if you are trying to remember events from the past via pictures stored on your phone and after watching the walkthrough, it seems this feature is quite well built on the app. There is still a very big issue of privacy here because any picture stored on the app automatically goes public... any picture. Just add a little alcohol into the equation and with the app's innate ability to share via Twitter and Facebook... there may be problems. 

It really is too early to tell how successful this app is going to be. I will certainly be paying close attention to the progress of this story and will most definitely write a follow-up post once a reasonable amount of time has passed. In the mean time, if you have either an iPhone or an Android-based phone, please check the app out and tell me what you think of it! I am beyond curious. 

Go ahead, add some color to your life.