From my experience, facebook works 100% on netbooks. Though the Atom doesn’t have a powerful graphics card, it is more than sufficient for the flash games that are the most taxing in facebook now.

As for the mobile space, it looks like facebook is ignoring 3rd party apps currently. The iPhone 3.0 version will not have integrated applications, but only basic facebook functionality. The reasoning for this I think is two fold. First, supporting 3rd party apps on a mobile platform is technically challenging to say the least. I think their stance to have people create apps that use facebook connect is a strong strategy. The second reason to avoid support for 3rd party apps on their mobile platforms is the loss in revenues. On the mobile app, there are fewer opportunity to advertise to you. The mobile app is complementary to the web app, increasing users participation and encouraging them to return to facebook for the full experience.

Keep up the great questions!

Joseph

I think another important metric to measure is hashtag frequency. This is tag that CNN is targeting for the current Iranian election crisis. I think it’s amazing how social media has become the leader in realtime news coverage. Watching the events unfold on CNN illustrated how reports used Twitter as a first hand source, while admitting possible errors in the source. With the addition of video recording on the iPhone 3GS, the next incident may be broadcast from a Twitter Video service.

I personally like the Burger King’s Whopper Sacrifice campaign, where people sacrifice facebook friends for free whoppers. It’s viral, it’s humorous, it’s new.

Thank you for the comments. Though I agree that early adopters and techies lead the charge on emerging technologies such as social media, marketers can still use the medium as a way to engage customers. The website uses many forms of social media to keep Jack in the Box on the top of their mind, hopefully leading to more sales of their products. I say it was a good use of the medium because JitB was able to create a story where people wanted to stay engaged. Instead of having a contest that asked people to participate, they used a story of Jack in a fatal accident so that true loyalist would want to know what happens. Asking the customer to buy into the story made it social and I still believe they did a good job of leveraging social media to enhance the campaign.

Crap in the Box’s effort to leverage Social Media by spending boo-koo bucks on a filter that gives their video a ‘you-tube’ style IN addition to the MILLIONS spent on the add mirrors the product they sell – both can be made to look appealing – but when it comes to content, everyone knows Crap in the Box’s content is crap.

Perhaps what Joseph is missing is the nuances of the Social Media subculture, one that is led by techies and early adopters who oppose the dilution of truly social content. Looking for good examples of Social Media Marketing? Ask Siqi (UCSD grad who wrote Super Poke).

There are dos and donts in social media marketing and monitoring for every industry, but especially pharma. We help a number of pharma brands understand the consumer mindset around many serious healthcare issues ranging from pre-product launch, through launch and post-launch analysis. There is a combination of art and science to social media in pharma and the rules can be tricky at times.

Mike

Thanks for the crosspost! We covered this topic in our Research for Marketing course here at Rady. One thing that pharma could do (and probably is doing), is track the buzz of their products via online tracking services. I believe the market leaders is BuzzMetrics by Nielson. This would allow pharma to see what the initial response to a drug’s release is as well as track the social marketing response to different campaigns. I don’t ever think you can have “too much information.” But you do need the right tools to gather insight from it.

http://www.ultimate-internet-marketing.com

If we look at it from that perspective, then game need to shorten their time to gain mass approval. A great example of this would be the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The story has enough depth and emotion to make it a classic. The directors of the movie were able to bring that emotion over to film while also reducing parts of the story. Games can achieve this one day, but they need a story and a format that will be enjoyed by both “core” and casual gamers.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/09/26/switched-on-with-friends-like-google-does-apple-need-microsoft/

Because the airline industry is so mature, success is no longer about marketing strategy. It’s about operations and purchasing strategy. Product and service differentiation can quickly reach a point of diminishing returns, especially in mature industries.

The design is built great for latin based languages. I’d be interested to see how this technology works on non latin based languages. Since the mobile market believes that Asia is the biggest growth opportunity for mobile (China and India especially), how well does this technology fit in with mobile user input for that group?

The design is also built for visual typing. One key advantage to a traditional keyboard and T9 (also developed by Cliff Kushler), is the ability to touch-type. Users could input data without looking at the screen. This was even demonstrated in the movie The Departed. This form of entry requires users to see where they’re going which make it ver difficult to touch-type.

I think to determine how much more I’d pay for the 3hrs can be calculated by conjoint analysis. You bring up some good points. I especially like the comment about very light jets. I haven’t rode one yet, but they’re getting a lot of attention and I think they definitely have the potential to be a game changer.

VA is certainly trying to differentiate themselves with their aircraft decor, in-flight entertainment, and british-pop-cool branding. However, segmentation – ala creating different levels of service for those willing to pay – can be a good way to extract value from different consumers and to create more personal interactions between a businesses and their customers. As industries face greater local and global competitive challenges, many will look to expand their offerings to gain both the customers willing to pay $20/3hrs and those that want the air taxi for the lowest price.

Speaking of air taxis, the light and very light jet market may be the game-changer that the industry needs in order to overhaul the current hub-and-spoke and pension-drowning legacy carriers.

Additionally, names are like designs; they fade over time. Hewlett-Packard became “HP,” International Business Machine (sp) is now “IBM,” etc. So it may be a good consideration to think of a name that may be flexible later. Or even comfortable enough to change it. Apple Computers -> “Apple.”

Sound Exchange has imposed rates on internet radio that are close to double those paid by terrestrial and satellite radio. Even more troubling is a minimum $500 annual fee per station. For a service like Pandora that is based on personalized stations created by each user (I have more than 50 myself), this is a business model killer. Pandora has stated openly that unless congress can overturn such shortsightedness, the company will be unable to return value to its investors and forced to shut down. The same death awaits lesser and niche broadcasters.

This is the music industry at its worst: killing the most innovative force in music since the iPod platform so that dinosaurs in Los Angeles can avoid evolution. Of course, Pandora’s model could evolve as well (public radio-style ads have already been foreshadowed). If Michael Arrington’s fear is realized and Pandora becomes the sacrificial lamb of the music business, this debacle has the potential to become the greatest travesty in digital music to date.

The other driver of revenue on the internet that you forgot for Pandora is referrals. Pandora has multiple revenue streams: one through advertising, and another through referrals. Pandora (and other music discovery services) on the iPhone will make their money through referrals to the iTunes store. Each time someone discover a song they enjoy on Pandora and want to buy it, it goes straight to the iTunes store for purchase and then directly onto your iPhone media library. Talk about seamless integration. The record labels will take a cut, as will Apple; but so will Pandora. Reducing the barrier to purchase through this ecosystem will be a win for everybody: businesses and consumers.