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In times of recession one of the first places companies turn to cut costs is the marketing budget.  This has always made marketing departments the proverbial canary in the coalmine that signals economic downturn.  Richard Moss puts it well in his recent post:

“If budgets do begin to shrink in the coming months there will be a real temptation amongst Marketing Directors to start backing safe options such as TV advertising (where they hold historic data) rather than the right options (taking into account the rapid change in the way customers now consumer information).”

Indeed, it is in these rough financial times that Social Media becomes even more relevant as a marketing tool.  Make no mistakes, Social Media tools never can replace traditional media campaigns, Chris Brogan explains the confusion surrounding the situation.  It’s not the use of the tools that brings value, as Matt Peters also asserts, but how the tools are utilized. They are simply another way to engage with consumers, through methods such as dialog and word of mouth.  But what should be catching the interest of Marketing Directors around the nation is the fact that so many Social Media platforms are free!

Word of Mouth 2.0

Despite the exponential number of ways people can get information on products, word of mouth is still one of the chief influencers over people and the decisions they make.  Marketers can tap into the potential of Social Recommendation through sites like Yelp or Mystrands for absolutely nothing.  They can also use the real time media rich opinion polling features of Next2Friends Ask to get feedback on a myriad of things.  Or there is the simple tactic of raising visibility and engagement through micro blogging sites such as Twitter.  Some brands are seeing some success by buiding fans on Facebook or Myspace.  And Social Mobile platforms such as Next2Friends certainly have the added advantage of extending the reach of traditional social networking into people’s mobile lives.

Either way, there promises to be some rough times ahead.  It will be interesting to see who adapts and survives and who get’s left behind.

Next2Friends - It’s NOW!

The long awaited release of Google’s Android mobile OS on the much anticipated HTC G1 phone has finally taken place.  Being on the other end of the nation, Next2Friends had to watch the excitement from afar.  But we’ve been watching these developments closely since it directly impacts our mission to reach the most people possible with the Next2Friends mobile social platform.  So we’re aggregating all the impressions from the various blogs and sites that we follow, including an exclusive quote from someone inside T-Mobile.

The first overall message that seemed to ring clear was that the release of an open mobile platform is nothing short of revolutionary.  Crunchgear said, “it looks like we’re seeing an epic paradigm shift in the mobile space.”  And Endgadget summed it up nicely by saying “it felt a bit like a new era for the mobile industry…with high-profile companies backing a Linux-based, touch-driven mobile OS, and spouting the word “open” every two sentences.”

But like any revolution there are voices of dissent.  One of the loudest coming from Gizmodo.  Jesus Diaz begins by lamenting the seemingly small fact that the clocks on the G1 do not match.  But he builds his case quite well:

“The problem with the clocks would have never escaped Apple’s ferocious attention to detail, but it is not the image itself that’s so troubling. It is what it symbolizes, what is missing at Android’s most fundamental level: Attention to detail.”

Then there is the perspective of developers.  Will Android’s Marketplace be worth the time and energy?  The “open” nature of the platform could be fertile grounds for disenfranchised iPhone developers as reported in this Wired post, but there remains a central issue that stands in the way of the Android Marketplace taking off.  Frasier Speirs, developer of the iPhone Exposure application, puts it best in the Wired article:

“I’m basically playing with Android but I don’t really see that I’m going to seriously develop for it,” Speirs said in a phone interview. “The Android software package is a known quantity now, but the hardware ecosystem is not. It’s not clear to me that every phone running Android will be just like the HTC G1: There may be phones with touch screen and those without. I think that whole part of the Android story is really unclear right now.”

But all complaints aside, it seems safe to say that there just is too little information to form a firm opinion right now.  It remains to be seen how the public decides to engage (or not) with Android.  The open model versus Apple’s highly restrictive and closed model should make for some interesting battles in the future.  But we’ll leave you with a quote from Bruce Cook, a manager at T-Mobile who has had a G1 longer than most (the G1 won’t be available until October 22nd, 2008):

“I’ve worked in the mobile industry for over 10 years, and I’ve seen a lot of mobile phones come and go, and I personally haven’t been this excited and engaged by a phone in 5 years.  I love the functionality and have not experienced even one glitch so far.  The G1 is just the start of what I believe will be a promising future.”

Well put!

Next2Friends - It’s NOW!

Next2Friends™, the Mobile Social Platform, is teaming up with Webby Award winning web-series Drawn By Pain to create a 360° experience around its upcoming Tribeca Cinemas feature-length version screening on October 4th, 2008.

Series creator/director Jesse Cowell just debuted the series’ finale episode and is hosting the Tribeca Cinemas event in celebration of a hugely successful year. Next2Friends™ is sponsoring the event and will be on hand to create an all-encompassing experience out of the film screening festivities, through the exclusive use of its mobile tools. “Citizen journalists” and fans will be capturing all the pre and post show excitement by streaming live video, creating real-time opinion polls, and instantly snapping and uploading photos from their mobile phones.  There will also be live streamed exclusive content such as interviews with some of the key players of Drawn By Pain, and live coverage of the post screening Q&A with creator/director Jesse Cowell.

Winning the 2008 Online Film and Video Webby People’s Voice Award for “Best Use of Animation/Motion Graphics” was the culmination of a very momentous year for Cowell.  Starting in late January, Cowell announced a non-exclusive content deal between his banner Jeskid Productions and VUZE, the world’s most popular web portals.  Soon after, Cowell was asked by The Independent Film Channel (IFC) to appear on their new online Lunchbox Show, which featured interviews with Cowell along with clips from the series. In addition, Cowell agreed to have the official Drawn By Pain site www.drawnbypain.com powered by Blip.TV, the world’s leading videoblogging and podcasting service. The series was listed on the “What’s Hot” list for iTunes and was a featured exhibitor at New York ComicCon at the Javits Center in Manhattan. Drawn By Pain joined forces with The Escapist website in May of this year, on which it has been serialized in 12 episodes each Monday. The Drawn By Pain promotional spots airing on Escapist’s Zero Punctuation series translated into a huge jump in brand awareness for the series. The numbers of views & downloads for the series were now breaking the one-million mark across the board.

The use of technology and new media has opened up a whole new world of interaction and participation for fans, and Next2Friends™ delivers this better than any other social network today.  Driven by Next2Friends’ mobile tools, the paradigm is shifting from fans being the passive “recipients” of events to the engaged creators of content that reflect their excitement and experience.  At the heart of this transformation and central to Next2Friends™ is the mobile phone, which acts as a conduit and extension of all the ways a person wants to interact with a network of people in real life. This gets amplified at real world events, such as the Drawn By Pain screening, where people can suddenly share what they’re seeing using Next2Friends™ Live, snap and instantly upload photos for others to view using Next2Friends™ Snap Up, or ask and receive real time feedback from their network using Next2Friends™ Ask.

Don’t miss this one-of-a-kind screening event at 6:30pm on Saturday, October 4th at Tribeca Cinemas - 54 Varick Street, New York, NY, 10013. See Next2Friends™ in action by attending in person or simply tune in to www.Next2Friends.com on the eve of the event. For a free press pass to attend please contact Rachel Wilde at Rachel@Next2Friends.com. There will be a reception with food, drinks and special reels of behind-the-scenes footage following the show. For non-press reserved seating please contact info@drawnbypain.com. Tickets are $20.

Next2Friends - It’s NOW!

These are the kind of announcements that we relish here at Next2Friends since every time a carrier adds heft to their service it opens up the possibility of greater real time interactivity from mobile for even more people.  T-Mobile has announced that they are expanding 3G service to even more metropolitan areas. Austin, Baltimore, Boston, Dallas, Houston, Las Vegas, Miami, Minneapolis, New York, Phoenix, Portland, San Antonio and San Diego are currently covered. In a few weeks they plan on adding Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, Orlando, Philadelphia, Sacramento, San Francisco, Seattle. And by the end of the year they will add Birmingham, Denver, Detroit, Kansas City, Memphis, and Tampa.

This will give millions more people access to the 1Mbps speeds on their cell phones that customers with other carriers have enjoyed for a while.  What was the hold up?  Apparently T-Mobile was waiting for the Government to vacate some bandwidth.

Many are speculating that this announcement is meant to build momentum for next week’s planned announcement of the first phone to run on the Android operating system, called the HTC Dream.  From Endgadget:

“How convenient, T-mobile. That $199, Android-flaunting, 3G HTC G1, to be officially unveiled next week, is supposed to start selling on October 17th, just when the carrier plans to flip the HSDPA switch on eight new markets.”

We have to agree the timing is good.

But particularly interesting to us was a quote from CellPhoneSignal.com today:

“The faster speeds allow T-Mobile customers to take full advantage of new and emerging applications from social networking to sending live video.”

New and emerging applications? Sending live video you say?  How about streaming live video so you don’t have to bother uploading?  Enter Next2Friends Live.  Or how about media rich real time interaction with your network of friends through Next2Friends Ask?  All of the applications in the Next2Friends Mobile Suite benefit from greater connection speeds and that means more sharing with friends and family. To  a more connected future!

Next2Friends - It’s NOW!

Next2Friends is very proud to have been selected as a CEA i-Stage Finalist.  And since we are thrilled to be sharing this distinction with so many innovative companies, we thought we would take a moment to highlight our fellow finalists.

THE FINALISTS

LightGlove is a cool new way to control virtually anything, from computers to game consoles to car doors!  It straps to your wrist and scans palm, hand and finger motion with visual and infrared light.  It has the capacity to replace many “input” devices in common electronics such as game controllers and PDAs.

GridSearch is a new way to navigate through video.  You can speed up, slow down, jump to a frame, scroll, and create grids over time, much like the menus of a DVD.

Occipital is a little mysterious.  It definitely has something to do with photos and visualization.  A quote on their website says “photos no longer need to be static snapshots”.  And their blog deals with topics of computer visualization.

Pongr is a free mobile price checking service.  It allows you to snap a photo of a product or text the name or UPC to the service and get a list of the best prices available on the web.  You can then purchase the item from your phone or turn to the sales associate in front of you and begin haggling your way to a better price!

AstoundSound, by Genaudio Inc., is a 4D audio software engine that produces advanced psycho-acoustic information.  What the heck is that?  Normal audio is in two tracks and can move between two speakers.  With AstoundSound audio will appear to move not just back and forth but will completely surround a listener without the use of special devices.

Avaak makes Wireless Video Sensor Networks.  With innovations like ultra-low power integrated wireless video sensor platforms and battery operated cameras smaller that 1 cubic inch, they are attempting bring computerized video technology to almost anywhere for security, monitoring, automation and detection applications for consumers, commercial, defense and homeland security customers.

Boxee is social media center.  With boxee you can play videos, music and pictures from your PC or from the Internet. You can also share with your friends what albums you’re listening to, what movies and TV shows you’re watching, send recommendations and more.  Check out the very informative Boxee blog for updates.

Amulet Devices produces voice controlled home entertainment systems. Not only can their devices be voice activated they contain advanced motion tracking technology, which allows the remote to sense when you are talking to it.  And the Amulet can talk back too!  If you’re wondering what song is playing or what show you’re watching all you have to do is ask and the Amulet will tell you.

Instinctiv is an application available on all operating systems, browsers and mobile OSs, that enhances random shuffle by analyzing skip behavior to quickly determine what songs fit your current mood.  They also have a personalized radio platform called Instinctive Radio.  And all this integrates with the Instinctive Music Store that reports a 4x greater music purchase rate than the iTunes music store.

Ipevo is a maker of several different computer peripherals related to VoIP.  They have several USB phones and cameras for use with services like Skype that greatly augment the VoIP experience.  They’re nominated for their digital photo frame for which there is no information, but if it’s like any of their other devices it should be promising.

YouBundle is a promising new search engine that allows users to bundle searches so that others can follow pre-made bundles by other users who are passionate about a subject.  Instead of typical search engines that utilize mechanization to find search results, YouBundle turns search into a social experience.

While Taggle, Frontline’s Fitness Interactive Technology, and Minora’s 3D Camera are also nominees, we couldn’t find much information on them.  We’re looking forward to seeing what they have to share!

And last but not least is Next2Friends’ People in Motion (TM), that is built upon our suite of Mobile Tools seamlessly integrated with a Social Network to deliver real connections in real time where ever you are.  Features like Next2Friends Live allow you to stream live video from your mobile phone while features like Next2Friends Ask let you to ask real time media rich questions of your network. Next2Friends Tag brings proximity awareness to the package and Next2Friends Snap-Up enables you to instantly snap and upload photos.

Good luck to all our fellow contestants and we look forward meeting you in October!

Next2Friends - It’s NOW!

Everyone at Next2Friends™  is thrilled about being named one of the top finalist in the i-stage competition by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA)^®.  Next2Friends along with 14 other fantastic companies will be unveiling their products to a live audience on Monday, October 20th, at the CEA’s 2008 Industry Forum at the Four Seasons Hotel in Las Vegas, NV.  We will be travelling from the UK and our US offices to showcase not only our full range of real-time mobile media products but also some hugely exciting new additions. 

Congratulations to all the Top Finalists

The winner of the i-stage competition will receive $50,000 to develop its product line, as well as free turnkey exhibit space at the upcoming 2009 International CES®, the world’s largest consumer technology tradeshow, to be held in Las Vegas January 8-11.

“CEA’s i-stage competition serves as a phenomenal opportunity to recognize the new innovations that will fuel the growth of our industry,” said Karen Chupka, senior vice president, events and conferences, CEA. “These top finalists are taking technology trends to the next level and will no doubt shape the future of how consumers work and play.”

The i-sta