Gowalla: Social City Travel Guide
Gowalla evolves to a social city travel guide: check-ins as a commodity, storytelling at heart; http://eicker.at/Gowalla
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Gerrit Eicker
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Gerrit Eicker
Google Acquires Zagat
Zagat got googled: Google acquires Zagat Survey, restaurant ratings and reviews since 1979; http://eicker.at/GoogleZagat
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Gerrit Eicker
Nina and Tim Zagat: “Zagat got googled – We are writing to share the most exciting news in our 32 years in business. Zagat Survey has been acquired by another great company, Google. – From the beginning, Zagat Survey has empowered people by providing a vehicle for them to express their opinions. After spending time with Google senior management discussing our mutual goals, we know they share our belief in user-generated content and our commitment to accuracy and fairness in providing users with the information needed to make smart decisions about where to eat, shop and travel. – It is a testament to the knowledgeable consumers who contribute their opinions that Zagat Survey has become an internationally respected symbol of quality. Their experiences, distilled into numerical ratings and concise, witty, quote-filled reviews, will continue to provide accurate guidance for a wide range of leisure activities.”
Google, Mayer: “I’m thrilled that Google has acquired Zagat. Moving forward, Zagat will be a cornerstone of our local offering – delighting people with their impressive array of reviews, ratings and insights, while enabling people everywhere to find extraordinary (and ordinary) experiences around the corner and around the world. – With Zagat, we gain a world-class team that has more experience in consumer based-surveys, recommendations and reviews than anyone else in the industry. …I’m incredibly excited to collaborate with Zagat to bring the power of Google search and Google Maps to their products and users, and to bring their innovation, trusted reputation and wealth of experience to our users.”
pC: “Google … is expanding its push into local content with its acquisition of Zagat, which started out as a New York City restaurant guide in 1979 and now publishes guides in 13 categories and over 100 cities. It’s good news for Zagat, which unsuccessfully put itself up for sale in January 2008, pulling itself off the market six months later when there were no buyers. … Zagat has tried to develop its mobile business. Its app, which costs $9.99 per year, was one of the founding iPad apps. The company announced a partnership with Foursquare for a ‘foodie’ badge in 2010 and also partnered with Foodspotting to use that company’s data and photos. … In the past, Google has resisted the characterization of itself as a content company, but this is a major push into local content for sure.”
SEL: “This is huge news for Google (capital ‘H’) and for local. Google is a content publisher now and the content that Zagat brings arguably closes the gap between Google Places and Yelp. We’ll have to see the implementation. … Beyond restaurants, Zagat also offers ratings and revenues of entertainment venues, wine and travel. The online version of the site has developed a community as well; so there’s a social networking dimension to this acquisition as well as content that Google is buying. … I spoke with Google’s Marissa Mayer and Tim Zagat. They told me that nothing would change in the near term; Google will continue to publish the guides and maintain the subscription product. I asked if Zagat reviews would be imported into Google Places and Google’s response was non-committal. Of course they will; that’s the point of this transaction: the content.”
RWW: “The Google local apps are still relatively barebones compared to dedicated competitors like Yelp and Foursquare. Even recent additions to Google’s dominant Maps tools haven’t made it to mobile yet. But this acquisition, along with Google’s purchase of The Dealmap last month, reveal Google’s hand in the local recommendations game, and it looks like a flush.”
VB: “The move is a major blow to user-generated reviews website Yelp, which competes with Google Places and Zagat. Google failed to acquire Yelp back in late 2009, with Yelp reportedly walking away from a $550 million deal. Google further distanced itself from Yelp when it removed Yelp’s reviews from Google Places in mid-2010.”
TNW: “I see this as a much more powerful play than just local offerings. This, combined with Google’s purchase of ITA and its hotel reviews puts the company firmly into the travel business, with more offerings than almost anyone else in the business.”
Lowe: “All of the restaurant reviews on Yelp could fill 16,894 Zagat guides, and only 26% of businesses reviewed on Yelp are restaurants. Congrats?“
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Gerrit Eicker
LBS Adoption
Pew: 28% of all American adults use mobile or social location-based services of some kind; http://eicker.at/LBSAdoption
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Gerrit Eicker
Pew: “28% of cell owners use phones to get directions or recommendations based on their current location – that works out to 23% of all adults. A much smaller number (5% of cell owners, equaling 4% of all adults) use their phones to check in to locations using geosocial services such as Foursquare or Gowalla. Smartphone owners are especially likely to use these services on their phones. 9% of internet users set up social media services such as Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn so that their location is automatically included in their posts on those services. That works out to 7% of all adults. – Taken together, 28% of U.S. adults do at least one of these activities either on a computer or using their mobile phones – and many users do several of them.”
Pew: “Smartphone owners – One in ten smartphone owners (12%) have used a geosocial (‘check in’) service such as Foursquare or Gowalla, and 55% of smartphone owners have used a location-based information service. Almost six in ten smartphone owners (58%) use at least one of these services. These are all well above the average for cell owners as a whole. – Younger users – Smartphone owners ages 18-49 are more likely than those over 50 to use either geosocial or location-based services on their phones. (There are no significant differences among social media users by age in regard to automatic location-tagging.)”
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Gerrit Eicker
Facebook Places: Where We Go
Facebook adds time to location sharing: Where we are, where we go, and where we’ve been; http://eicker.at/WhereWeGo
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Gerrit Eicker
Facebook: “Add where you are to anything you share – In the past, you needed a smart phone to easily share your location. Now you can share your location from your computer, too, and say: Where you’ve been. Remember where you were in your favourite photos. Where you are now. If friends are nearby, they might just meet you there. Where you’re going. Friends who have been there can give you tips or even join in the plan.”
TC: “It was almost exactly one year ago that Facebook launched Places, their location-based offering. … Fast forward to today: Foursquare recently raised a large round of funding valuing them at $600 million. And Facebook is killing off Places. – To be clear, Facebook is not ducking out of the location game itself. In fact, you could say that they’re doubling-down on it. But they are moving away from the game that the ‘check-in’ services have been playing. And a result of that is Places being killed off and being replaced by new ‘Nearby’ area… This is smart, as it’s something none of the other location services have really nailed yet. And now that location is being emphasized on every Facebook action (though it can easily be turned off) – and not just on mobile…”
IF: “Facebook will remove the Places check-in feed from its mobile apps and interface, a company spokesperson confirms with us. Rather than check-in, users will be able to add their city-level location or tag a specific Place in any post. … When users post content from the web, mobile site, or smartphone apps, they’ll have the option to tag a Place, whether they’re there currently or just want to mention it. As TechCrunch illustrates, Facebook’s foot-traffic incentivizing Check-in Deals will still be available, with users seeing the option to redeem them appended to the news feed story of their mention of a location.”
Gerrit Eicker
Check-in Value!?
Check-in services need to find a way to deliver deep value to people beyond the check-in; http://eicker.at/CheckinValue
Gerrit Eicker
Adoption of Online Marketing Services
Local businesses: the adoption of online marketing services; http://eicker.at/2d Chart: http://eicker.at/2e (via @SocialTimes)
Gerrit Eicker
Facebook Mobile
Facebook launches: new iPhone/Android apps, Single Sign-on via Places API, Facebook Deals; http://eicker.at/FacebookMobile
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Gerrit Eicker
TNW: “Facebook held its ‘mobile event’ for over 7,000 viewers. In his opening remarks, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said, ‘Our goal is to make it so that no matter what platform you are building, your apps can be social…And that over the next few years, entire industries will be rethought as social applications.‘ He also mentioned that 200 million people now use Facebook via mobile devices.”
Ray, Forrester: “Today’s pronouncements demonstrate the ambition and vision Facebook has for itself in mobile computing and socializing over the long term, but in the immediate future Facebook now is poised to bring the wonders of checking in to the masses. … Facebook’s new Deals feature is uniquely positioned to bring rapid changes to consumer behavior over the next year. Here’s why: First, Facebook is a platform with 500 million avid users (compared to the 4 million who currently use Foursquare), and with each passing month more consumers are accessing and updating Facebook via their smartphones. Second, Facebook’s new Deal platform is free for marketers and SMBs; anyone who claims a location on the Facebook Places platform can easily and quickly launch an offer. Finally, marketers are lining up to create offers on this new Facebook platform. … One outstanding question is how Facebook’s new Places features will affect the fledgling LBS category. … It seems evident to me that the LBS space is in for some profound changes in the coming year as Facebook Places becomes as familiar to Facebook users as status updates and fan pages are today.”
SEL: “The world of location-based services changed dramatically today. And the changes that Facebook announced place the company firmly in the center of that very dynamic universe and ecosystem. – Toward the end of becoming a “platform” for mobile, Facebook made several significant announcements aimed at developers. There were also announcements aimed at consumers and marketers, ‘Deals’ being the big one. … It thus appears very simple to create an offer for Facebook Deals. The simplicity of this page will be significant for the millions of small businesses that will undoubtedly be interested getting access to this offering. And it will be opened up to small businesses in the near future – initially 20,000 and then the broader audience. … Deals will be a big hit with both consumers and marketers, whether large or small. Coupons is one of the most effective and popular forms of mobile advertising and Facebook’s reach will make it a huge player in this segment. – It will take a little while to digest all the implications of these announcements as well as to see their impact on the market and the mobile ecosystem as a whole. But I’m pretty confident that they’ll be significant and even lasting.”
IF: “Facebook is seeking to allow developers to build in a social environment no matter what phone they’re building on, whether that’s RIM, Android, iPhone, Windows Phone, or the mobile web. The company recently reached the milestone of 200 million people actively using Facebook mobile products across all platforms. … ‘You can rethink any product area to be social, have it be more engaging, have it grow virally, and remake whole industries’ says Zuckerberg.”
VB: “With a new single sign-on feature, Facebook aims to become the way users log into all their mobile applications. It’s already doing this to some extent, by allowing users to log into non-Facebook websites using Facebook Connect, but the company’s mobile chief, Erick Tseng, said the goal here is to make the process as simple as possible on phones, where typing in user names and passwords can be a huge pain. … On the privacy front, the news today doesn’t seem hugely significant, but I still expect some complaints when users start seeing Facebook data showing up in other apps.”
Guardian: “Facebook today revealed a series of improvements to its service on mobile devices in a move that lays the foundations for new revenue streams from retail stores, venues and small businesses. – Mobile is seen as a powerful platform for the expansion of Facebook, particularly in the developing world where internet adoption is increasingly skipping desktop computers and growing rapidly on the mobile web. … Facebook’s head of mobile business, Henri Moissinac, told the Guardian the improvement could be interesting for developers. ‘Augmented-reality apps like Layar will be able to visualise deals in real-time around a user’s location,’ he said.”
Gerrit Eicker
Facebook Deals
Facebook goes local business, enables merchants to push deals out to existing and new customers; http://eicker.at/FacebookDeals
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Gerrit Eicker
NYT: “Facebook introduced a feature on Wednesday that will allow retailers and other merchants to offer coupons and special deals through its mobile application, intensifying competition in the market for mobile searches and advertising. – People who use Places, Facebook’s location feature, will see a yellow icon indicating that a redeemable deal or coupon is available nearby. They can then use the application to ‘check in’ at the store or restaurant and show their phone’s screen to an employee to claim their deal. … Mr. Kendall said Facebook would not charge businesses directly to list coupons and special deals through the mobile application. Instead, businesses can purchase advertising to publicize their offerings on Facebook, he said. … Facebook also plans to work with nearly two dozen major chains like H&M, 24-Hour Fitness and McDonalds for special offers. But eventually all merchants and small businesses with a Facebook Places page will be able to offer deals. Facebook’s deals program borrows heavily from location-based social networks like Foursquare, Loopt and Gowalla, which have long been experimenting with similar ways to offer rewards and deals on cellphones. … For retailers, the Facebook feature offers the chance to establish online connections with real-world customers and learn more about them.”
AF: “So far Facebook claims that the number of users who have used the Places application is multiples larger than any other location service. That would lead us to believe that well over 10 million Facebook users have checked in with Places. If enough brands begin to leverage the new Deals platform, this could clearly be a big win for Facebook. Most significant here is that Facebook doesn’t charge any companies to launch deals. – Contrast that with Groupon who goes through the laborious process of negotiating the cost of every deal that they launch with local businesses. While Groupon has an incredible email list of consumers who want to make purchases, Places based deals could prove to fill a much needed niche. While companies can’t ping Facebook users as they walk by their businesses, users can choose to seek out deals that are nearby. … To be clear, Facebook Deals is not the Groupon-killer that some had claimed when we leaked out information last week about the impending launch. Instead, this is a different business model where customers will have to seek out deals through businesses that they become a fan of. Fortunately, many of the companies don’t think it will be long before most Facebook users are seeking these deals out.”
IF: “The most interesting part of the product is that Facebook isn’t taking a cut of revenue for these discounts, posing a challenge to smaller competitors that use deal revenue as part of their business model. On a business’ Places page, they can set up an offer. There are four kinds: Individual deals, which reward a customer if they check-in once. Loyalty deals, which reward customers for a certain number of purchases or check-ins. Friend deals, which reward customers if they bring in extra friends. Charity deals, which allow businesses to donate to charity for every check-in they attract.”
VB: “The social network’s executives said in a press conference that they won’t charge businesses for the deals. – That’s pretty surprising, since deals are seen as the main way for check-in services like Facebook Places (which includes the deals service), Foursquare, and Gowalla to make money. … Update: A Facebook spokesperson just emailed and said that although the deals are free for the program’s initial launch partners, the pricing could change in the future. … Facebook chief technology officer Bret Taylor said that Facebook didn’t create the feature to increase advertising. ‘The main thing is to improve the user experience around our Places product,’ he said.”
pC: “It’s not clear how many people are using its check-in feature, called Places, right now, although if this catches on it will clearly give users a financial incentive to use it. Places was introduced in August. Asked about usage, Zuckerberg only said it was ‘multiples larger’ than other similar services. – Zuckerberg did use the event to provide an update on Facebook’s overall mobile usage, saying that the company now has 200 million users who access the social network ‘across all platforms,’ a figure that has tripled over the last year.”
Gerrit Eicker
Real-time Marketing
Dumenco and Ghuneim on Trendrr business intelligence: Why real-time marketing matters now; http://eicker.at/q
Gerrit Eicker
Facebook Places Deutschland
Facebook Places startet in Deutschland: Werden Check-in-Dienste jetzt massentauglich? http://j.mp/dwDMPq
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Gerrit Eicker
Facebook: “Orte ist eine Facebook-Funktion, mit der du sehen kannst, wo deine Freunde sind, und mit der du anderen deinen physischen Aufenthaltsort mitteilen kannst. Wenn du Orte verwendest, kannst du sehen, ob sich deine Freunde gerade in der Nähe befinden und dann einfach Kontakt mit ihnen aufnehmen. … Du kontrollierst und besitzt alle Informationen, die du auf Facebook teilst, einschließlich der Informationen in der Orte-Anwendung. Du bestimmst, wie und mit wem du diese teilst. Dein Aufenthaltsort wird niemals automatisch mitgeteilt: Und zwar weder beim Verwenden deines Handys noch beim Verwenden der Facebook-Anwendung und auch nicht, wenn du die Orte-Funktion verwendest. Dein Aufenthaltsort wird nur dann mitgeteilt, wenn du diesen in der Orte-Anwendung angibst. Ob und mit wem du teilst, wo du dich befindest, ist deine Entscheidung.”
FAZ: “Facebook-Nutzer können ihren Freunden künftig nicht nur mitteilen, was sie gerade tun, sondern auch wo sie sind. Der Dienst Places, der in Deutschland Facebook-Orte heißt, ermöglicht nun auch den deutschen Nutzern das Einchecken an Orten. Der neue Dienst ortet dabei den Nutzer über Satellitennavigation (GPS). Per ‘Check In’ können die rund 12 Millionen aktiven Nutzer in Deutschland dann ihren aktuellen Aufenthaltsort aus einer Vorschlagsliste umliegender öffentlicher Plätze wie Restaurants oder Geschäfte auswählen oder einen neuen Platz anlegen. Auf diese Weise können Nutzer erfahren, welche Freunde gerade ebenfalls dort sind, oder sie können Kommentare hinterlassen, die vielleicht für spätere Besucher hilfreich sein können. … Der Ortsdienst funktioniert nur, wenn die Nutzer dies ausdrücklich in ihrem Profil einstellen. Die Ortsangaben werden dann nur den Freunden mitgeteilt. Wer von einem anderem Facebook-Nutzer mit eingecheckt werden kann, muss vorher zustimmen. Problematisch ist allerdings die Möglichkeit, auch nicht-öffentliche Plätze anzulegen. Wenn genügend Menschen sich zum Beispiel auf einer Party anmelden, erscheint der Ort als öffentlicher Platz.”
Heise: “Da Facebook aber die Möglichkeit bietet, dass Dritte auch den Aufenthaltsort eines anderen Nutzers preisgeben, sollte man auf derselben Seite ‘Freunde können angeben, dass ich mich an einem Ort befinde’ auf ‘Gesperrt’ setzen. Ein dritter Punkt findet sich auf der Seite ‘Anwendungen, Spiele und Webseiten’. Dort gilt es, unter ‘Informationen, die durch deine Freunde zugänglich sind’, das Häkchen vor ‘Orte, die ich besuche’, zu entfernen. Sonst könnten die Anwendungen von Freunden auf die Ortsinformationen zugreifen.”
NW: “Jeder Ort besitzt eine eigene Profilseite. Einzelhändler, Gastronomen und andere physische Einrichtungen können eine von Nutzern angelegte Orte-Profilseite beanspruchen. Nach einer Verifizierung erhalten sie die Möglichkeit, ihre bestehende Facebook Page mit der Orts-Profilseite zu vereinen. … Betroffen von Facebook-Orte sind unter anderem hiesige Check-In-Services wie friendticker und Qype. Im August erklärte uns friendticker-CEO Florian Resatsch, dass das Berliner Startup Facebook-Orte über die von dem Social Network angebotene API integrieren wolle, sobald es in Deutschland verfügbar sei. – Facebook-Orte ist der bisher bedeutendste Vorstoß eines Webangebots in den primär von jungen, nur bedingt einflussreichen Startups dominierten Markt der ortsabsierten Dienste.“
Gerrit Eicker 08:40 on 13. September 2011 Permalink |
ATD: “Gowalla, long-time rival to Foursquare, today announced a new direction for its social location service. The Austin, Texas-based company will attempt to offer a hybrid between a social app and a content guide, focused around local experiences. – Instead of checking in, Gowalla users will now create ‘stories’ when they meet up to hang out together. These are basically group check-ins, as on Facebook where a user can tag multiple friends at a place. After that, any tagged person can contribute photos and other content to the story, capturing it as a communal experience.”
VB: “Check-ins are a bit more of a transactional model, we wanted something that was faster and more connected and saved that memory in a way that I could share with my friends,” Gowalla founder and chief executive Josh Williams (pictured) said. “Our goal is to inspire people to get out.”
GigaOM: “Gowalla, like many other check-in services, has had trouble keeping pace with Foursquare. But the location startup is relaunching its service with an eye toward becoming more of a city travel guide, downplaying the role of check-ins in favor of discovery, travel and storytelling. – The relaunch is an important step for Gowalla, which needs to find a better way to differentiate itself. It had tried to emphasize games early on with virtual goods called items, which could be collected and traded. But it announced last month that it was ending the use of items and was refocusing on its core mission of encouraging people to go out and explore the world.”
Gowalla: “[W]e will be removing Items completely with the next release of Gowalla. While they have been a trademark feature of Gowalla since the beginning – one that our entire team poured much effort and passion into – fewer than half a percent of our active community makes use of them. It now causes more distraction than joy for the vast majority of our community.”
TC: “So will this small pivot work for Gowalla? Well, they’re certainly focusing on the right areas. Check-ins are now a commodity, the real value of location lies in both augmenting personal experiences and providing useful information. Gowalla is trying to find the sweet spot between both. They’re a mobile travel guide and a well-conceived location-based sharing tool. … You can also share all of this data to Facebook and Twitter – and yes, you can still check-in through Gowalla and send it to Foursquare. – The travel aspect is potentially even bigger. While there are a lot of people going after this problem, no one has nailed the mobile travel guide so far. When someone does, it’s going to be massive. Gowalla has a pretty decent shot of doing something unique here because of all the data they’ve been collecting over time.“