The Social Technology Quarterly is a research publication focused on helping brands leverage the latest research and trends in social media and social technologies.
2. Overview
Welcome to the third issue of Social Technology Quarterly. The Social Technology Quarterly is a
research publication focused on helping brands leverage the latest research and trends in social
media and social technologies.
With demand for high quality research and analysis in this fast moving space we have introduced
a new category of articles on the social consumer. Our focus here is to help brands and marketing
managers understand the changing perspective of the consumer in the era where social, mobile and
location are emerging as a lifestyle.
Along with contributions from Kuliza, Manu Prasad, who blogs at manuprasad.com, and Payal Shah,
a psychologist who builds storybook apps for children, this issue also features a photo essay of the
‘evolution of social spaces’ by Anindya Kundu.
We hope you like the latest issue and look forward to hearing your views.
Team Kuliza
Social
Technology
Quarterly
3. Contents
Contributors
Achintya Gupta | @achintya85
Marketing enthusiast and Brand Manager at Kuliza. Writes
on social media marketing.
Kaushal Sarda | @ksarda
Technology evangelist, serial entrepreneur, Chief Evangelist
at Kuliza, and an advisor to HashCube. Writes on
commerce and CRM.
Diarmaid Byrne | @diarmaidb
Psychologist and interested in behaviour change and
gamification. Chief People Officer at Kuliza. Writes on
communities and collaboration.
Manu Prasad | @manuscrypts
Head of Social Media at Myntra. Writes on technology,
startups and restaurants for the Bangalore Mirror.
Kshitiz Anand | @kshitiz
UI designer, photographer and Design Strategist at Kuliza.
Writes on design and interaction.
Payal Shah | @pobroin
Psychologist and child development enthusiast. Writes
about children’s media, baby sign language and education.
Nitin Saboo
Solutions Specialist at Kuliza. Writes on campaigns
and commerce.
Anindya Kundu| @anindya_kundu
Visual Designer at Kuliza. Aspiring drummer, food
enthusiast and animator. Illustrates Kuliza’s stories.
4. Campaigns
Why Automobile Marketers Love Social Media? 6
Achintya Gupta
The True Nature Of Flash Mobs 11
Kaushal Sarda
Retailing To The SoLoMo 15
Achintya Gupta
Social Commerce
Browsers To Buyers: Converting Online Windowshoppers to Buyers 19
Diarmaid Byrne
Social + Ecommerce ≠ Social Commerce 25
Manu Prasad
Breaking The Banks 29
Diarmaid Byrne
Social Consumer
Babies On A Digital Media Diet 34
Payal Shah
The Power Of A Story 37
Kaushal Sarda
Social Media Fatigue 42
Kshitiz Anand
What Is So Smart About An Energy Grid? 46
Nitin Saboo
Contents
5. Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 3
Social Spaces
Coliseum, Rome
5
The Colosseum in Rome is the largest and most famous surviving amphitheatre
from the Roman world built by Emperor Vespasian and later by his son Titius. It
was used to stage large-scale public events, festivals and celebrations, such as
gladiatorial contests, mock sea battles, animal hunts, re-enactments of famous
battles, and dramas based on Classical mythology were held in the arena.
6. 6Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 3
How some of the best social media
marketing campaigns have come
from automobile brands
For many of us, our car or our bike is more of a
passion than a product. We spend months re-
searching which brand and model we should buy.
They are our prized possession, conversation
starters and status symbol. We connect easily
with other people who own the same car or mod-
el as us, and whenever we meet the conversation
is often centred around our shared passion.
All these characteristics make automobiles a
great product to be marketed with social media,
and it is not surprising to see that some of the
best social media marketing campaigns have
come out of the boardrooms of automobile com-
panies. Not only that, each and every sizeable
player in the automobile market is dirtying his
hands in the social media marketing space.
So what is it that makes automobile market-
ers love social media and how are they using
this space to come up with the finest of the
campaigns? This article will discuss the reason
behind their love, some examples of the best
automobile marketing campaigns, and what the
social media marketing community can learn
from automobile marketers.
Why Social Media Marketing For Cars?
A car is more than just a car
Social media marketing works best when you are
marketing a passion and not a product. A passion
makes people bond and directs conversation.
These conversations around passions are the
heartbeat of social media marketing and a cam-
paign runs as long as these conversations run.
The best thing about marketing automobiles is
that they are larger than the product. For many
of us, they are a passion and talking points for
conversations. Hence, no other media suits sell-
ing an automobile better than social media for its
abilities to connect people, connect with people,
Written by Achintya Gupta
Why Automobile Marketers Love Social Media?
Campaigns
and engage them.
Instrumental in research, recommendations
and advocacy
What sells a car? The three most prominent
factors are research, recommendations and
loyalty. Since a car is a considerable investment,
we spend a lot of time researching on the best
models, understanding the specifications, and
comparing brands and their various models.
Here we use a lot of recommendations from our
friends, talk to the experts among them, search
for reviews online, or research the specifica-
tions to understand whether we need them or
not. Sometimes our loyalty for a particular brand
makes us advocate certain models to others.
Interestingly, when it comes to cars, traditional
media helps you in none of the above factors
affecting the sale. A 20 second ad spot, half page
emailer or full page banner are just not enough to
satisfy a consumer’s needs. Social media, how-
ever, is a great tool in that it generates conver-
sations for recommendations, supports thought
leadership for research, and gives a platform
to brand advocates to promote their favourite
brands
Time bandwidth for engagement
Another thing about cars that makes social media
an attractive tool for marketing is that cars are not
purchased on impulse. Customers take their time
in deciding which cars they need to buy. Inbound
marketing techniques like social media marketing
might not be best at generating mass awareness
quickly (like advertisements), but they are great
when it comes to engaging consumers across
every stage of the sales funnel. And hence,
considering the prolonged time period consum-
ers take in assessing which car to purchse, social
media marketers get enough time to engage the
consumer in conversations, develop a relation-
ship with him, and convince him for their product.
7. Auto Industry Use Of Social Media?
There are no fixed set of strategies for marketing
anything through social media. How you market
yourself depends upon what you are selling and
whom you are selling to. So if you are selling
cars and automobiles, your strategies will be built
around the fact that you are selling a passion, a
subject around which people talk a lot, around
which people have lots of stories to share, and
people react badly if anything goes wrong with it.
Based on this, brands are using 7 different strate-
gies to sell automobiles:
Listen and respond
This is an old school way of using social media
and is often the first step of a brand’s entry into
social media marketing. This strategy has been
successful for brands, and helped Dell generate
millions of revenue. Moreover when it comes to
cars, people are very verbose on social chan-
nels and love to talk about them. This is why all
auto majors like Chevrolet, Ford, Honda, GM are
on Twitter responding to consumers, listening to
their conversations, and finding opportunities.
The interesting thing here is that most of the
automobile majors have their senior staff (and not
external hired agencies) talking on these social
platforms, like Scott Monty for Ford and Adam
Denison for GM.
Toyota used the same strategy during the mas-
sive 2.3 million vehicle recall in January 2010,
but with a difference. They got Digg to let people
ask Toyota questions and others to ‘digg’ the
most popular questions. Then Toyota got their
President for North American sales operation,
Jim Lentz, to answer these questions in a video
interview.
Conversations with customers
Once a brand knows that consumers are talk-
ing and researching about their cars online it is
a good idea to give them a place to access the
best content. This is where blogs are successful
in building meaningful conversations with con-
sumers.
Volkswagen and GM understand this fact and run
a number of blogs to engage, inform, and con-
nect with their audience. While VW has individual
blogs for its different models like Jetta, Passat
and Beetle, GM runs other popular blogs like
Fastlane and Drivingtheheartland.
Microcampaigns
These are small campaigns, often for a month or
two, which aim to excite the audience about a car
and increase its recall in consumer’s mind. From
a technology point of view, such campaigns are
often applications running on platforms like Face-
book rather than run on an independent platform.
A few examples of such campaigns are:
In 2008, BMW launched an online graffiti contest,
where participants could paint BMW cars with
graffiti tools – a simple but effective campaign to
engage audience around the brand
• Volkswagen Nederland launched an app
called the Fanwagen. They asked people to
vote for the all time VW classic – the Beetle
and the T1 – with the possibility of winning
the vehicle as a reward. The classics were,
however, armed with social media features
like print your newsfeed, relationship status
near the number plate, and many more
• Harley Davidson launched the H-D Fan
Machine contest where they asked fans to
submit ideas for H-D web videos about how
life is better on a Harley
• In 100 cars for good, Toyota decided to
donate 100 cars to organizations that need
them for doing good. Many non profits partici-
pated while others voted for the non profits
they thought needed the cars most
• Honda Civic launched a quest called the
Honda Super Civic Quest, that gave partici-
pants various clues and challenges across
different Honda channels to win a Honda
Civic
User generated word-of-mouth campaigns
This strategy truly uses the social potential be-
hind marketing cars. Major automobile makers
created campaigns that ask people to share their
stories and experiences with their cars. Although
the idea is simple, it results in tremendous word
8. 8Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 3
of mouth. People today are less likely to believe
brands, but they will believe stories from other
customers. Some examples of such social media
campaigns are:
• The Road We Are On campaign by Chevrolet
focussed on celebrating 100 years of Chevy
and asked customers to share their wonder-
ful memories with Chevrolet. Interestingly,
they also filmed a series of documentary
style webisodes for Bridgeville and the role
Chevy has played in the history and culture
of the city. Another campaign by Toyota –
The Camry Effect – focuses on Camry users
sharing their journeys and memories
• Jeep launched Have Fun Out There cam-
paign, where it asked customers to share
fun moments they have had with their Jeep.
They got some exciting submissions, like
the fan who converted his jeep into a music
machine, or others who shared their photos
of coast camping with their Jeep
• Such user generated social campaigns might
not always be about cars. The campaign can
also express a particular value that the car
brand holds. For e.g., Volkswagen launched
a brilliant campaign some time back called
The Fun Theory where they asked people
to post ideas about exciting and fun ways
to change people’s behaviour. In the teaser
campaign, they converted a subway stair-
case into a large piano with each step as
musical keys, to encourage people to use
stairs more than escalators.
examples are:
• Ford launched the Fiesta Movement cam-
paign, which is considered the benchmark
for social media campaigns. In order to
generate buzz about the launch of the new
Fiesta model, Ford gave the car to 100 social
agents, who drove it across US and complet-
ed various missions while promoting the vehi-
cle on various social networks like Facebook,
Twitter, YouTube, etc. The success of Fiesta
Movement led Ford to launch a second chap-
ter where participating teams engaged with
local talent to find creative ways to promote
the Fiesta
• Chevrolet also launched a reality contest on
similar lines called the Chevrolet’s SXSW
road trip challenge. However, the challenges
and missions in the reality contest were
crowdsourced
• In India, Mitsubishi launched a similar contest
for Cedia in 2009 where they used social
media to find a participant to tour across
India along various routes and share their
experiences
Social reality shows
Some of the biggest car brands have used social
media to create mega campaigns on the scale
of reality shows. These social reality shows are
different from user generated contests: in user
generated contests the focus is the content
generated by people, whereas social reality
shows are less about the content and more about
excitement and participation. Some of the best
Communities
Building a community of car lovers is definitely a
great idea. Not only does it create an active pull-
based marketing platform that your consumers
will visit often, it also helps you understand your
fans and exposes you to large amounts of valu-
able data from conversations in the community. I
have not seen many online community initiatives
by automobile companies (although there are
many independent fan communities), however
there is a specific example by BMW Mini called
creative use of space – a community of art-
ists and designers – that is worth talking about.
This community engages people in projects and
initiatives to make ‘creative use of space’, a core
value behind the BMW mini brand.
Experience apps
These apps are more sales focused and aim at
bringing the in-car experience to a potential cus-
tomer. Although currently most of these apps are
9. are at a catalogue level, such as the Audi A1
eCatalogue, Audi A8 experience app, Rolls
Royce Ghost iPad app, BMW X3 iPad app, there
is great potential. Additionally, adding social com-
ponents to these apps - user generated reviews
for various features, related blog links for more
research, the ability to share experiences with
your network of friends and followers – will take
them to the next level.
Automobile companies have very aggessively
adopted new marketing models and made their
marketing more social and engaging. They have
succeeded in creating interesting social media
marketing campaigns, and also have proved the
ability to market successfully with this media. We
would look forward to more fascinating cam-
paigns from car makers in the near future.
10. 10Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 3
Social Spaces
Ye Olde Trip To Jerusalem, Nottingham
This pub claims to be one of the oldest in Britain, dating to 1189.
Pubs were both drinking establishments and social focal points for
their community for centuries in Europe. They provided space for
public debates, and before the spread of theatres, they staged per-
formances by travelling musicians and theatre groups.
11. Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 3 11
Written by Kaushal Sarda
The Genesis
Pranks may be one of the most elusive forms of
comic behavior. Even dictionaries don’t seem
to have a precise definition. They define pranks
as “by turns, a malicious trick, a conjuring act
performed to deceive or surprise, a mischievous
frolic, and more”. This reason could be that the
best of pranks have always blurred the lines be-
tween appropriate and inappropriate conduct.
Abbie Hoffman, a serial prankster from the 1960s
had classified pranks into 3 types:
1. Good Pranks – these are amusingly satirical
2. Bad Pranks – these are gratuitously vindictive
3. Neutral one – these are surreal and soft on the
victim
The true potential of a flash mob lies in
triggering instantaneous social
movements
Campaigns
The True Nature Of Flash Mobs
examples for each of these objectives, dwell into
its mechanics, the influence of communication
technology, and finally probe if there is potential
for greater social impact using flash mobs.
The Origins Of Flash Mobs
A flash mob is a group of people who assemble
suddenly in a public place to perform an unusual
and sometimes seemingly pointless act for a brief
time and then disperse. Bill Wasik senior edi-
tor of Harper’s Magazine created one of the first
flash mobs in Manhattan. The mob occurred on
June 3, 2003, at Macy’s department store. More
than 130 people converged at the ninth floor
rug department of the store, gathering around
an expensive rug. All the participants had been
advised to say that they lived together in a ware-
house on the outskirts of New York, and that they
were shopping for a “love rug” as that they made
all their purchase decisions as a group.
Organizing A Flash Mob
Since flash mobs involve a large group of people
who have to meet and behave in a predefined
manner, such events require adequate planning.
The success of any flash mobs really depends on
the coordination between the participants and the
clarity of tasks. Some key things to keep in mind
when planning a flash mob are:
• Clear sense of purpose for conducting the
flash mob
• Deciding the tasks and their sequence for the
occasion
• Sharing clear instructions to participants on
the objective, location, timing, and tasks
• Arranging for any props needed as part of
the event
• Know the limitations of the location
• Ensuring that there is someone capturing a
great video of the event (essential to watch it
later or to share online)
One of the famous pranks that Abbie and his
group performed involved showering the floor of
the New York Stock Exchange with dollar bills,
bringing the ticker tape to a halt for six minutes.
It’s hard to say if this prank would purely fall into
the good pranks category.
In this article we are going to explore a particular
type of prank called flash mobs. Flash mobs are
social in nature and since their inception have
been used for amusement, branding, social im-
pact, opportunistic crime, etc. We will look at
12. 12Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 3
aware of the flash mob having been texted by
T-Mobile. A human orchestra of 20 singers using
their voices to mimic instruments supported the
performance.
• Finishing the event in a way that it appears
nothing ever happened
The Role Of Social Tools
Advances in social media and mobile technolo-
gies have certainly made it easier to organize
mobs quickly and with better coordination. These
tools make it possible to create real time location
specific social networks. These networks make it
easy for the mobs to coordinate on location and
in real-time, hence making it that much harder to
predict behavior and also ensure they can adapt
their behavior in real-time. Two such applications
are BuzzMob and Yobongo.
BuzzMob
In this application users create “rings” around
geographical areas, from a single building to a
three-mile wide area. That place gets a virtual
wall that includes a live stream of posts, tips and
pictures from users who are in the location (as
validated by GPS) and join the ring. Rings can be
public or password-protected.
Yobongo
This application was also an earlier entrant in the
space. They provide a way for users to connect
and communicate with other like-minded people
nearby.
Foursquare is also moving towards real-time con-
versation and has launched an events check-in
feature.
Flash Marketing
T-Mobile organized a flash mob at Terminal 5 in
Heathrow Airport. Thousands of travelers flying in
were unexpectedly greeted by hundreds of sing-
ers and dancers as part of a flash mob.
The greeting were performed by a crowd of more
than 500 people - a mixture of waiting public, taxi
drivers, cabin crew and baggage handlers - spon-
taneously bursting into synchronized song and
dance. Some of the flash mob participants were
Flash Buy
Tuangou is a fun way to combine group buying
and flash mobs. The way it works is that if you
want to buy something from a local store – a car,
a luxury fashion item, gadget or gizmo - you tap
your social and local networks online for oth-
ers wanting the same item and you organize a
flash mob. You then agree to turn up at the poor
unsuspecting store en-masse at a particular time
and demand a group discount.
The logic is that the store manager would trade
margin for volume and make the sale, allowing
the mob to buy the product with a discount. This
is a fast growing social commerce trend of team-
buying in China that fuses online collaboration
with high street retail.
Tuangou provides an opportunity to inject some
fun back into the Western style of group buying.
There could be an interesting opportunity to add
the immediacy of a real-world Tuangou to group
buying tools to increase the location-based social
fun.
13. steal merchandise. A group of 30 teens flooded
a Maryland 7-Eleven in August 2011, helping
themselves to chips and other snacks. Police ini-
tially labeled the group a flash mob organized via
cellphones, but it turned out that the group had
designed the plot while riding a city bus. What
scares most authorities is that social tools have
now made it possible to introduce pre-meditation
in mob behaviors in real time which previously
have only been thought of as sporadic gathering.
Flash Mobs As Social Change Agents
An interesting and possibly the most valuable
utility of flash mobs was discovered through the
actions of the occupy squads. These squads
are groups of people willing and committed to
respond to injustice created by the system, wher-
ever they should arise. For example if someone
is harassed by a bank, an employer, government
red tape, etc., they no longer have to face it all
alone – now they have a group, a squad, a move-
ment to back them up.
With the availability of social tools like BuzzMobs
it could be possible for people to signup for
certain causes and help create occupy squads in
real time at any location where there is a form of
injustice happening. If this works it may transform
flash mobs into a real powerful social change
agent, surely something to explore further.
References
• Bremer Bank, Flash Mob to End Hunger,
Nonprofit Resource Center, June 6 2011
• Flash Mob, Wikipedia
• How to Organise a Flash Mob, Wikihow
• Katie Kindelan, Flash Mob Raids 7-11 Store
in Silver Spring, Maryland, ABC News,
November 22 2011
• Sheila Shayon, Flash Mob Trend Spawns a
New Social Media Industry, Brand Channel,
August 23 2011
• Shirley Brady, T-Mobile Flash Mob Takes
Over London Heathrow, Brand Channel,
November 1 2010
• Special Report, From Hermes to Bonsai Kit-
tens, The Economist, December 20 2005
• Tuangou, Wikipedia
Cause Mobs
Dancers and drummers wearing bright orange t-
shirts with the words “Ending Hunger” entertained
shoppers at the St. Paul’s Farmer’s Market in
St. Paul, Minnesota. They performed a choreo-
graphed rendition of Glee’s “Halo”/“Walking on
Sunshine” mash-up.
The mob was produced by Bremer Bank, a US
Midwestern bank chain, as part of the company’s
sixth annual “Taking Action to End Hunger” cam-
paign that raises awareness and donations for
Feeding America and local food banks. Bremer
posted the video on YouTube and promised to
donate $1 for every view up to $10,000 — in
addition to matching donations made through
the bank’s website. The final haul? More than
$84,000.
Flash Robs
As we know all good pranks can lead to bad
conduct. It is very easy for a flash mob that has
malicious intent to cause serious damage. Flash
robs are essentially a criminal incarnation of the
flash mobs.
A common version of a flash rob involves a group
of unwanted visitors: typically swarms of teenag-
ers or young adults who plot via Twitter, phone
texts and Facebook to descend on stores and
14. 14Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 3
Social Spaces
The Globe Theatre, London
July - September 2011 |
Deriving its basis from ancient Greek drama, theatre is a collaborative
performance art depicting events and narratives to a live audience. The
Globe Theatre, built by William Shakespeare’s acting troupe in 1599, was
the stage for many of his most famous plays. During the Elizabethan and
Jacobean period in Britain, theatre was the cinema of our time, and the
major social activity for the rich and poor.
15. Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 3 15
How are the world’s top retail brands
selling to a consumer who is social,
local and mobile
With the growing numbers of smart phones, con-
sumer brands today are preparing themselves for
a new breed of consumers – the SoLoMo. These
consumers are:
• Social they are connected to their friends,
interest groups and are having online conver-
sations
• Local they use a location layer on mobile
phone to find things
• Mobile
This group is very attractive to sellers since it is
small but very rapidly growing and it will soon
encompass a large number of brand’s target
audience. However it comes with challenges,
such as its shift from a traditional to newer media,
technology savviness, a lack of time, and a huge
affinity to word of mouth.
Brands have realized that such a SoLoMo con-
sumer would like this mix of social, location and
mobile available on their smartphone to make
their life and shopping as easy as possible, and
would give preference to brands that enable this.
This triggers a race between the brands to tap
the SoLoMo customer.
So, how do you sell to the SoLoMo? At Kuliza,
we realized that among all the industry verticals,
the retail industry has come a long way in cater-
ing to their need and has launched interesting
initiatives to make their shopping quicker, simpler
and more reliable. Hence we deep dived into this
space to research into what the world’s top retail
brands are doing to attract the SoLoMo con-
sumer.
How Are World’s Leading Retailers Selling To
The SoLoMo?
Walmart
The world’s largest retailer has come up with
interesting applications on the iPhone, iPad and
Written by Achintya Gupta
Campaigns
Retailing To The SoLoMo
and Android to improve the in-store and out-store
shopping experience for consumers. Their mobile
apps help customers get detailed product infor-
mation, see reviews, and order from their phone
to get items delivered to their doorstep. The app
makes the shopping experience even simpler as
it adds items on bar-code scanning, finds stores
using maps, checks what is in stock in a particu-
lar store, finds in-store items using the aisle loca-
tor, ticks off items with using a smart shopping
list, and integrates with coupons.
Another interesting initiative by Walmart is the in-
novative fusion of Social + Mobile + Retail with
@Walmartlabs. The idea is to use millions of
pieces of data generated in the open social web
through forums, tweets, and blogs to create inter-
esting analytic insights and use them to facilitate
smarter purchases.
Tesco
Tesco has also developed mobile apps for
Android and iOS to help consumers make smart
purchases. Consumers can use these apps to
browse through products, scan products to order
them, and add products to a shopping list.
On the top of these mobile apps, Tesco has also
initiated some very interesting campaigns to
16. 16Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 3
Amazon
With traditional retailers like Tesco and Walmart
providing options to SoLoMo consumers, it is not
surprising that an online retailer like Amazon is
also developing a number of apps. Some of them
are:
• Amazon mobile (iTunes and Android): Helps
user to get the full Amazon.com experience
from mobile phones from selection to re-
views, product comparison to purchase
• Amazon Fresh (iTunes and Android): Aids
grocery delivery. The app allows users to
choose delivery slots, pick past purchased
items, scan barcode to order etc
• Amazon Student (iTunes): To help student
buy and sell books
• Amazon Habit (iTunes): Daily sales of hand-
picked selection of designer brands
• Endless (iPhone): For premier accessories
from designers
• Kindle (iTunes and Android): For the Kindle
experience on your non Kindle devices and
for purchasing books and magazines
• Window shopping (iTunes): A rich media ex-
perience to browse interesting products and
learn more about them
Although the range of apps is exciting, such a
wide range requires customers to download and
install multiple apps. A practical move from Ama-
zon would be to release an umbrella app from
Amazon that contains all the various apps.
attract to the SoLoMo consumers. One such
campaign was launched at Korea where they put
up billboard of grocery products with QR codes in
the subway stations. The users could simply scan
the QR codes to add products to the list.
Tesco is also using Augmented Reality (AR) apps
to provide their customers a 3D image of the
product they want to buy and improve online pur-
chase satisfaction. Their AR app allows them to
place markers in front of their computer cameras
to see 3D images of the product they want to buy.
eBay
If we have to pick one retailer that is doing a
commendable job to attract the SoLoMo consum-
er, I will pick eBay for the amazing thought they
have put behind their smartphone apps. They
also offer their apps across Android, Blackverry,
iOS and Windows phones and mobile web.
The Ebay app helps users on the move to easily
sell and buy their items on Ebay with their smart
phones. Sellers can research pricing trends and
know the best price they can get for their product.
They can scan the product barcode with their
phone to put it on auction or enter details by tak-
ing pictures with their phone camera. Sellers too
can get the full ebay experience: alerts for auc-
tion updates, minute by minute information about
what is happening in their account, and quick
search and purchase features.
The eBay Fashion app allows users to build their
wardrobe and get personal styling accessories,
shop exclusive flash sales and share interests
and purchases with Facebook friends. The app
also has an augmented reality feature that lets
users try sunglasses virtually.
Similarly, eBay Stubhub brings users to the
world’s largest ticket marketplace. Users can find
tickets for the shows they like, select ticket prices
and choose seats with the app. eBay Classifieds
app helps users to post, search and browse
items easily and get the full classifieds’ experi-
ence from their phone.
To add to this, eBay has number of other apps
that help users find deals and buy sell products
from half.com.
Target
The world’s second largest retailer is not behind
the competition when it comes to wooing the
SoLoMo consumer. Although they have shopping
apps for almost every device, their mobile apps
17. 17Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 3
world of Social, Local and Mobile consumers.
Returning to the original question: how do you
sell to the SoLomo? Researching how retailers
are solving this problem, here are a few ques-
tions companies need to ask themselves before
planning their app:
• What are the problems your customers are
facing? A SoLoMo app is not just a marketing
tool to create buzz, but should target specific
problems your customer’s face. The Home
Depot’s app helps consumers measure screw
sizes before they make purchases, Tesco’s
app helped the busy Korean commuters shop
faster, Walmart’s app help consumers locate
products inside the store.
• Is your app blurring the wall between online
and offline shopping? Your customer might
like to get an in-store experience sitting at
home or get an online social experience
while inside your store (see the Facebook
fitting room by Diesel). Is your app helping in
that?
• How are you leveraging the location layer?
Can your customers find your stores, see
what products are available in their nearest
stores and check collections? Certain mo-
bile CRM apps like Place Pop send location
sensitive messages such as personalized
deals and offers from brands to customers in
the vicinity
• How social is your shopping experience?
People want to take advice from their net-
work or see reviews from other buyers before
they buy stuff. Is your app enabling that?
• What happens behind the app? Is it provid-
ing the kind of analytics you want, like data
on purchase behaviour, customer’s priorities,
kinds of questions customers are asking to
their network, influencers among the cus-
tomers, etc.? With such an app, this kind of
essential data and insights are possible.
are not very different from others. Their key
features include shopping from within the app,
bar code scanning, store location with maps, deal
and coupon offers, reviews, and in-store search.
Ikea
The Sweden-based home products company has
been printing its catalogues for the last 60 years.
Now it has brought its catalogue to the mobile
phone with its catalogue app for a rich and
interactive experience. They also have launched
an augmented reality app to help users see how
specific furniture products would look at their
home.
Ikea also has a text based mobile loyalty program
that sends messages on deal, games and alerts
to subscribers. Also, to facilitate purchases with
mobile phones, Ikea has a mobile shopping site
where customers can browse through products
and find offers.
Home Depot
This is another brand that is launching interest-
ing initiatives keeping the SoLoMo consumer in
mind. While most of the shopping apps of other
brands have more or less the same operating
mechanism, Home Depot’s shopping app is in-
novative and targets some very critical needs of
consumers.
The home improvement and construction prod-
ucts retailer has built a mobile shopping app that
has an interactive calliper to measure the lengths
of objects so that you don’t go wrong with your
purchase. It also allows you to measure the size
of nuts and screws, calculate the amount of ma-
terial required for painting, insulations and other
home repairs, and watch do-it-yourself tutorial
videos. The app helps consumer find stores and
locate items inside the stores.
This is definitely not the end of the list as you
will see many other retail majors like Best Buy,
Macy’s and Kohl’s fighting their way into the
18. Social Spaces
Cafe Central, Vienna
18Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 3
Coffee houses in Vienna have been an integral social institution in Viennese
culture dating back to 1685, and are listed as “Intangible Cultural Heritage” by
UNESCO. Providing food and drinks, they allow guests to sit for hours social-
izing, writing, playing cards, receiving post, reading or contemplating. Poets and
writers have regularly met, exchanged ideas and even written here, contributing
to what is commonly referred as ‘coffee house literature’.
19. July - September 2011 |Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 3 19
Written by Diarmaid Byrne
Tactics for e-retailers to convert online
windowshoppers to customers
Browsers To Buyers
Social Commerce
that lavender-scented restaurants increase the
amount of money and time diners spent in the
restaurant.
For online retailers it is very difficult to compete
on emotions and desires with real-world retailers.
As Jonah Lehrer argues, online retailers are still
trying to sell to us with information even though
emotions drive purchase decisions. Until the day
comes when we develop an emotive internet, on-
line retailers must continue to focus on the insula
and take advantage of their ability to offer better
savings on the same products. However, over-
indulging the insula by offering lower prices is not
enough to convince people to move from brows-
ing, comparing and reviewing products to actually
purchasing them. Retailers need to design an
online experience that makes it easy for people
to make purchase decisions.
High-street retailers have the advantage of al-
lowing customers to feel an item, try it on, look
at it from every angle, and read any information
on the packaging or labels. E-commerce retailers
don’t have this opportunity so they have to focus
extra hard on ensuring that the experience and
design of their online store converts browsers to
shoppers.
Web Stress
No business wants to increase the stress level of
their customers. However, spending money is an
inherently stressful experience for many people,
and convincing them to part with their cash is a
hard task irrespective of the price. It is important
that retailers look at their site’s user experience
to make life as easy as possible for their custom-
ers to encourage them to purchase products.
User experience starts from the moment the web-
site opens. People typically take 50 milliseconds
to make a judgment about the website based on
The combination of lower disposable incomes,
cheaper prices and technology advances has
made online shopping more attractive and easy
for people. However, ecommerce sites convert
just between 1-3% of their visitors and shopping
carts are abandoned by 75% of shoppers on av-
erage. With just a laptop, tablet or mobile screen
to convert browsers to buyers, online retailers
need to evolve their websites to take advantage
of human psychology and consumer behaviour.
Research described by Jonah Lehrer in his Wired
article The Neuroscience of Groupon that there
are two ways to influence consumer behaviour:
• Increase desire for an item
• Convince people that they are getting a good
deal
In an experiment researchers from Carnegie
Mellon and Stanford found that as people decide
whether or not to buy products their nucleus ac-
cumbens, insula and frontal cortex are activated.
These measure how much a person desires an
object (nucleus accumbens) and whether they
find the price good value (frontal cortex and
insula). If retailers can measure and design shop-
ping experiences that increase the activity in the
person’s nucleus accumbens, and so increasing
the desire for a product, while inhibiting the insula
by making sure the customer feels like they are
getting value for money, there is a greater likeli-
hood that browsers will convert to customers.
When it comes to encouraging people to spend,
real-world retailers have a tremendous advan-
tage over online retailers. They can determine
how much we desire a product. In an Apple store
visitors can feel the quality of their products by
holding them, in clothes stores shoppers can feel
the quality of the materials and try items on, and
in a food store senses can be excited with smells
that increase the temptation to buy in a way that
a photo can not compete. In fact, a study showed
20. 20Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 3
the speed at which the site opens and the im-
mediate impression of the design of the website.
Research by Computer Associates on neurologi-
cal reactions of consumers to shopping online
found that poorly performing websites require
more concentration and result in increased stress
for users. This is not good for business. Making
an online store fast and easy to use ultimately
determines if a person converts from a visitor into
a buyer.
Pricing Psychology
Another aspect that significantly affects customer
stress and sales is how retailers display the price
of a product. A study by Sybil S. Yang , Sheryl E.
Kimes, and Mauro M. Sessarego of Cornell Uni-
versity called $ or Dollars: Effects of Menu-price
Formats on Restaurant Checks looked at differ-
ent restaurant price display techniques:
• Number with a dollar sign ($10.00)
• Number without a dollar sign or decimals (10)
• Written price (ten dollars)
The researchers found that the written price (10)
resulted in customers spending significantly more
money. This is because they minimized the pain
of buying by eliminating dollar signs and cents
from the prices. Essentially, people suffered less
than in a transaction that involved $ signs and so
purchased more.
Checkout Process
Spending money is an experience we often dis-
like, as seen by the behaviour of the insula in
the research above, and online retailers don’t
have lavender to heighten the experience of
facing prices on our tablets or laptops. Therefore
online retailers need to reduce the stress of the
checkout process in any way they can to encour-
age people to stay and complete the purchase
process. The process should be simple, without
distractions, and with all the necessary informa-
tion available to them. Some elements of an
excellent checkout process are:
Registration
Any registration form is a barrier to shopping
because they imply commitment that the person
may be still unwilling to make and they take up
unnecessary time. It is best to incorporate this
during the checkout process
Modify order
As the aim is not to stress the customer, make it
easy for people to modify their order during the
checkout process
Product details
Provide customers with as many details and op-
tions as possible to review before they complete
the purchase: specify product details, provide a
photo of the product, and a link to view the prod-
uct page
Breadcrumbs
Unlike the product detail page where people want
to spend time, the checkout process should have
each step of the process clearly defined with
breadcrumbs and involve as few steps as pos-
sible.
Disruption
Customers should not be taken out of the check-
out process in case they do not return. They
should have all the information available to them,
such as FAQ, customer service numbers, and
delivery times, so they do not need to look for it
elsewhere on the site.
Shipping Costs
In a 2010 study by the Foresee Institute across
30 online stores, the lack of shipping costs was
the most important feature that significantly
improved sales. Unfortunately many stores hide
shipping costs to generate extra revenue. Hid-
den shipping costs will make shoppers feel that
the store is taking advantage of them. Airlines
are well-known practitioners of this: Ryanair and
AirAsia don’t display the final cost of the ticket
until the final step of their purchase process. So
even if the ticket looks like unbeatable value, the
additional charges added on make it less so.
When looking to convert a browser to shopper,
there are two benefits for not listing shipping
charges at the end of the purchase process:
• It makes the purchase decision easier be-
cause there is no uncertainty about what the
final price will be
• It is easier to compare prices across stores,
especially against brick-and-mortar stores.
Online stores typically have a cost advan-
tage, so providing a clear price during the
browsing phase make it more likely people
will convert
If shipping costs are unavoidable, they should
be presented in an easy to understand way that
does not exhaust people. This will reduce the
21. 21Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 3
information, and here where retailers need to
move them from browsing various products to
adding them into their shopping cart and pur-
chasing them. Ensuring that all of this information
is present in an appealing and organized man-
ner means that the design of this page is crucial.
There are a number of things that retailers need
to focus on:
UX Design
It seems that many e-commerce sites spend
too much time on the design and usability of
the homepage and ignore the importance of the
product detail page. This is the page that users
spend most time on, looking at the product in
detail, checking specs, reading reviews, compar-
ing products and, hopefully, deciding to buy. It
is important that all the information a customer
needs or expects is present and structured in an
intelligent way.
It is also important that retailers provide as much
product information as possible: sizes, materials,
weight, dimensions, colours, instructions, etc.
The customer should not have any questions left
unanswered about the product. If they do they
are likely to go elsewhere, reducing the likelihood
of a sale. North Face do this well, giving shop-
pers all the information they are likely to need.
pain of buying and make the decision to continue
purchasing the product simple.
Shopping Cart Design
E-commerce sites do not want to encourage
shoppers to purchase just 1 item at a time. This
makes the design of the shopping cart essen-
tial in keeping people on the site and browsing
products. Ideally, the shopping cart should allow
people to add multiple products, edit the quanti-
ties, see what other people bought to help with
upselling, and display the total cost without ever
leaving the product page they are on.
One of the better examples of this soft-cart style
shopping cart is at Pottery Barn. It displays
products that other customers bought and gives
shoppers the option to go straight to checkout or
to continue shopping. This meets two important
criteria: keep shoppers interested in other prod-
ucts based on intelligent suggestions and make it
easy to quickly purchase their product. However,
it does not display the final price (shipping and
taxes included) nor does it allow customers to
increase the quantity of products to purchase.
Product Detail Page
The product detail page is the most important
page for shoppers. It is here that people want to
look in depth at the product and product
22. 22July - September 2011 |Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 3
Photography
Product photographs are the most important
design element of an e-commerce site. Without
the ability to excite shoppers’ kinesthetic, olfac-
tory and gustatory senses that brick-and-mortar
stores have, online retailers only have product
photos to excite and convince shoppers to pur-
chase. However, displaying a great product photo
is not enough. As with typography, the photos
need to match the sites style, colour scheme and
branding, as with Threadless.
Photos play a crucial role in converting browsers
to shoppers in a number of ways:
• Influence
Photos help users imagine using the prod-
uct, how it fits into their life, and convinces
them that it matches their needs. Photos are
a more immediate and effective method of
doing this than marketing blurbs and product
reviews and can sell the product on their own
without the need for content
are buying fits their needs. This can be done
by showing them how the product works,
showing zoomable details, or highlighting
exciting features or innovations
Typography
Along with focusing on the design of the site,
especially the product page, and ensuring there
are high quality photos of the products that inform
and educate the shoppers, typography is another
crucial element when trying to convert people
to shoppers. Rather than typography that has
been selected for its beauty and artistic merit, the
most effective typography is simple and direct so
shoppers don’t have to expend too much effort
reading and understanding it. As outlined above,
tiring shoppers out with unnecessary effort re-
sults in tense rather than relaxed shoppers who
spend less time and money. This is why Helvetica
is so popular. It doesn’t distract attention from the
product photo and allows the content to be read
quickly and easily.
• Upselling
Photos of product accessories can excite
shoppers and help them imagine what else
they can add on to enhance their product or
experience
• Reassure
Photos can reassure shoppers that what they
Emotional Connect
Shopping is typically a social experience heavily
influenced by friends, family and peers. This is
because people look for social proof and valida-
tion that their purchase decisions have been cor-
rect. Technology has not yet accurately replicated
the social experience of shopping in a group,
but online retailers are leveraging social features
on their websites to satisfy the human need for
social validation.
This is seen in the ‘Amazon effect’, a term coined
by Joshua Porter to explain why people start
searching on Amazon before other retailers. Am-
azon is not necessarily better than other stores,
nor does not have the best user experience, but
people choose Amazon because they provide
trustworthy reviews, personal stories, and infor-
mative comments about products and how they
work in the real world. Providing user-generated
feedback and ratings on Amazon increases trust
in a product, provides social validation, and
23. 23Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 3
makes the purchasing decision easier for people.
In fact, if Amazon personalized their feedback
more by including a photo of the reviewer, the
feedback would become more impactful and
convincing.
Spending money is a stressful experience for
people and online retailers have a limited ability
to manage this. Therefore it is essential that they
look at every aspect of the user experience to
convert hesitant browsers to relaxed buyers.
References
• Rooger Dooley, Neuromarketing, Available at
http://www.neurosciencemarketing.com/blog/
• Jonah Lehrer, The Neuroscience of Groupon,
Wired, September 8 2011
• Smashing Magazine, Best of Smashing
Magazine, 2011
• Smashing Magazine, How to Create Selling
E-Commerce Websites, 2011
• Smashing Magazine, Typography: Getting
the hang of web typography, 2011
24. Social Spaces
Graffiti, Buenos Aires
24Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 3
Although often considered an act of vandalism and a visual blight, graffiti has
emerged as self-expression in the form of street art in public spaces. Its history
goes back to scribbled, scratched and chalked writing or drawings on monuments
from Ancient Greece and Roman Empire, and most famously in Pompeii, Italy.
Collaboration has played a vital role in the development of graffiti art in Buenos
Aires. This is due to the collaborative nature of artists who value each others’ art
and their visual representations of society.
25. July - September 2011 |Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 3 25
Nothing beats sales as an ROI metric,
but social platforms can also play a key
role
Written by Manu Prasad
Social + e-Commerce ≠ Social Commerce
Pardon Social Commerce for being 2011’s buzz-
word, but someone had to apply social platforms
to actual business before it died a fad’s prema-
ture death. After all, few would remember the
early history of social and e-commerce. If I asked
you who originated a patent titled ‘Social Net-
working System’ in 2004, filed for it in 2008 and
received it in 2010, wouldn’t you just say Face-
book? Wouldn’t you also stare at the one poor
nerd who said ‘Amazon’? But indeed, Amazon
owns it, thanks to PlanetAll, probably the inter-
net’s first social network, acquired by Amazon in
1998 (the same year it acquired IMDb), and shut
down in 2000 after Amazon ‘integrated the key
e-commerce features of PlanetAll’. Indeed, a few
years later, Amazon would pioneer user reviews,
a feature that has endured despite controversies,
and is probably the forgotten proof of commerce
liking social even before the latter even got itself
a name.
However, this was before Zuckerberg made a
mark in our lives and in an age when going be-
yond 140 characters did not automatically mean
reframing the communication. Thanks to the
ubiquity achieved by these and other networks,
the corporation became interested and decided
to use it for its prime directive – sales.
It became even more of a mantra for the ever
increasing tribe of e-commerce sites because
in terms of proximity to social media, they had
trumped their brick and mortar counterparts
on the original fourth P – Place. From ensur-
ing that each product display had a ‘Like/Share/
Tweet’ broadcast button to using plug and play
f-commerce solutions and taking Dell’s name in
vain in the context of sales on Twitter, sales was
deemed only a click away from social media.
A Gartner report suggests that by 2015, compa-
nies will generate 50% of their web sales via so-
cial presence and mobile applications, so there’s
Social Commerce
nothing inherently wrong with this approach, but it
quite belies the potential that social media offers
e-commerce. For when the consumer moves
from read/listen to discover/create/share/connect/
curate, then, virtual or real, across the organisa-
tion’s functions, new competencies and process-
es need to be evolved to factor in this transition in
consumption patterns.
At a fundamental level, all activities of the e-com-
merce venture can be clubbed into either acqui-
sition or retention. If we expand this further, we
would get a typical marketing funnel (above, from
Booz Co.’s report ‘Turning “Like” To “Buy”’) and
the various activities therein. It is easy to see
how social media can play a part at each level
of the consumption process. From establishing
the brand as a thought leader in its domain using
multiple social publishing and distribution tools,
to using consumers’ social graphs to create more
engagement contexts, to involving the user in ex-
perience design as well as advocacy on various
platforms, the possibilities can only grow as more
social platforms arrive and the consumer usage
increases. The only thing that’s missing in that
chart is culture, which, as Zappos has showed,
can become a strategic difference maker. So,
here are a few examples of how social has found
use beyond sales.
26. 26Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 3
Twitter
Practically every brand is now on Twitter, so
rather than give examples I’d like to draw your
attention to this excellent use by ASOS where it
showcases stakeholders in the fashion industry.
Facebook
Similarly, it’d be difficult to find a brand that’s not
active on Facebook, so I’ll point you to Burberry’s
Facebook exclusive for the launch of Burberry
Body. It’s to be noted that fashion brands are now
understanding the nuances of communication
with regards to gender and are promoting content
accordingly.
Instagram
A lot of fashion brands use the Instagram plat-
form but Rebecca Minkoff (which also sells on-
line) actually used photos by fans in a print ad.
Brand
In terms of brand building and content creation,
some of the best examples belong to the fash-
ion industry. Though guilty of being a little slow
on the uptake when it came to utilising social
platforms, they wasted no time in redeeming
themselves, when they got the hang of it. Aided
by their online sales capabilities, they created/ex-
tended their brand story across platforms, to the
extent that now, fashion magazines are getting
into commerce.
Tumblr
Tumblr, already popular as a quick’n’easy blog-
ging service with a sense of aesthetics, had its
fashion quotient increased by the likes of Oscar
PR Girl, TopShop, DKNY PR Girl and many many
more. Others like ASOS, Mr.Porter, and Macy’s
chose to build their own blog homes. Burberry’s
Art of the Trench is a success worth mentioning
too.
YouTube
With bucket loads of video content – photo
shoots, ramp walks, behind the scenes and so
on, it wasn’t difficult to see that YouTube would
be a destination too. HM, FCUK are a couple
of examples, and Ikea has done a wonderful job
of integrating an interactive experience with its
brand story and sales channel.
Foursquare
Even a (real) location based service can be use-
ful. If Jimmy Choo’s Catch-A-Choo trainer hunt
on Foursquare or Topshop’s SCVNGR play can’t
be taken as e-commerce examples, we can step
outside fashion for a minute and take a look at
what it did for the online sales of Domino’s last
year.
Google+
The official announcement of Google+ pages for
brands mentioned HM, Burberry and Macy’s,
and Amazon and eBay are already among the
top brands there.
Pinterest, a virtual pinboard style social photo
sharing site, has been used to great effect by
Shop It To Me, a ‘personal online shopper’, to
post curated styles and announce flash sales.
Mobile
Another major and now common platform that
has been used by fashion e-commerce brands is
the mobile. eBay’s Fashion App, Harrod’s iPhone
app, DACE, StylishGirl, SheShops are all
27. affiliate e-commerce platform which allows users
to build catalogs and share it on their social net-
works. Swedish interior design retailer Lagerhaus
has created a distributed pop up shop (usually
seen on Facebook brand pages) widget for blogs.
ASOS has used gamification – allowing users to
jump the queue – for its Sale Preview. But in UK,
there is an entire game platform named Fantasy
Shopper in which users can make spend fantasy
currency in real world shops, and convert it into a
real buy with one click. Gamification also finds its
uses in retention, something that Bluefly is test-
ing, in partnership with Badgeville.
examples, as is Louis Vuitton’s HTML5 optimised
online magazine – Nowness.
Tablets
And while smartphones do drive traffic to e-com-
merce sites, the iPad and tablets are on their way
to trump them. An eMarketer study indicates that
41% of users have bought an iPad for shopping.
The Gilt Groupe, GAP, Gucci have already made
successful forays.
Product
Remember Levi’s friends store? Building social
plugins into the products for shares and recom-
mendations is nothing new, and every e-com-
merce player from Amazon downwards has done
it. Nor are virtual dressing rooms a new phenom-
enon, but when the two are combined, as jcpen-
ney’s augmented reality dressing room did last
year, it can be quite a cool tool.
Similarly personalisation is another area where
a lot of brands have made advances. But there
are those like Wet Seal, which have combined
that with social media to good effect. Far away
from fashion, Domino’s does personalisation with
great pizzazz on an iPad app. It allows users to
make a pizza onscreen, makes a game out of it,
and then lets them share their score on social
networks. ModCloth pioneered the use of crowds
in inventory planning back in 2009 with its Be
The Buyer program and then amped it with social
media tools.
When social is considered outside of known me-
dia platforms, there are several communities like
Kaboodle that make great use of social shopping.
It is not really social media, but eBay has been
using physical stores and QR codes to promote
online sales for a while now. Tesco has been
experimenting in South Korea on this front too.
Sales
In addition to vanilla social commerce, there are
other options being explored too. Shopcade is an
The Community Formerly Known As
Customers
Zappos is legendary for utilising social tools to
advance its core customer centric culture. Dell,
on the other hand has, for several years now,
been involving the consumers in shaping their
brand with the Direct2Dell blog, twitter accounts,
Ideastorm. Best Buy’s Twelpforce is one of the
many other brands that use Twitter to address
customer concerns. But it goes beyond that and
opens itself up to consumers with their CMO’s
blog, partnering with MOFilm for user generated
advertising last year, and launching BBYOpen
(earlier Remix) that allows developers to create
applications based on its data. Platforms like
GetSatisfaction and BazaarVoice cite many
examples of e-commerce brands using social
media to address concerns, amplify positive
reviews, help create customer champions, and
increase sales and brand equity.
Conclusion
Going forward, social will become ubiquitous,
and thus e-commerce sites would need to build
mechanisms that weave in social externally -
across consumer touch points, both real and
virtual - and internally across functions. Social is
creating disruptions across domains, but consid-
ering their relative age, e-commerce sites have
the best chance of transcending it, simply by
utlising their natural advantage.
28. Social Spaces
Burning Man, Nevada
28Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 3
Burning Man is an experimental community that assembles every year at the Black
Rock Desert in Nevada for a week. It floudishes for one week and leaves without
a trace. The community, which has expanded to more than 50,000 in the last 25
years, is dedicated to art, self-expression and self-reliance. Music, guerrilla street
theatre and performances are a common sight at Burning Man.
29. Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 3 29
Typically people associate currencies with
money. However, the rise of the social web and
social rewards means that people and companies
are thinking more inclusively about what money
is and how people will pay for products and
services. Since the introduction of the credit card
in the 1950s society has become more credit
dependent. Advancements in technology and
payment processes point towards the increasing
digitization of money and probably a cashless
future. Similarly, virtual currencies may evolve
beyond the online world and be viewed as a vi-
able currency in the real world for purchasing real
world products. Money will no longer be the only
kind of currency we use.
Virtual Currencies
MMORPGs
Online gaming has been a key driver for virtual
currencies. The purchase of virtual goods started
with massively multiplayer online role playing
games (MMORPGs) such as World of Warcraft.
These have a large fanbase of millions of players
per day that readily buy in-game virtual money
and goods, such as armour, weapons or in-game
fireworks. Over the years transactions involving
game-specific currencies in MMORPGs have
grown to hundreds of millions of dollars.
Social games
Although virtual worlds like Second Life and
MMORPGs have historically driven the growth
in virtual goods, today the fastest growing seg-
ment is social games, such as Zynga’s Farmville,
particularly on Facebook. This growth has been
achieved by leveraging social features in games
that encourage players to share, collaborate and
communicate their progress and achievements
with friends and fellow players. This has been
hugely successful: according to research by the
NDP Group, 1 out of every 5 Americans over the
age of 6 has played a social game at least once,
The evolving definition of currencies
from cash, credit, and virtual to identity
and reputaion
Written by Diarmaid Byrne
Breaking The Banks
Social Commerce
of which 35% have no previous social gaming ex-
perience. The average social gamer is a 43 year
old woman. In fact, the biggest competitor for the
attention of social gamers is TV and soap operas.
Research by Mashable found that:
• $2.2 billion was spent on virtual goods in
2009 and this is expected to rise to $6 billion
in 2013
• 58% of virtual currency purchases are in the
range of $10-50; and 9% are more than $50.
• 53% of players in the UK and US have
earned and/or spent virtual currency in a
social game
• 83% of social gamers in the UK and US have
purchased a virtual gift
• 28% of social gamers have purchased virtual
currency with real world money
Facebook Credits
As most social games are played on social
networks they represent a lucrative new revenue
channel for social networks. In the case of Face-
book, rather than relying on advertising revenue
they have begun to monetize their users via vir-
tual goods and virtual currency in social games.
Until recently in-game payments had been made
by using a credit card or PayPal account, but in
early 2011 Facebook announced that all Face-
book game developers will be required to
30. 30Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 3
Digitization Of Money
The credit card was introduced in the 1950s, and
since then banks and credit card companies have
built proprietary systems that handled over $3 tril-
lion in transactions in 2010. Credit cards funda-
mentally changed the way people used money,
making it easier to buy products, but with a high
cost for retailers. Along with a monthly fee for the
credit card reader that registers purchases, retail-
ers also have to pay transaction fees to the credit
card companies. MasterCard, for example, have
243 types of fees with the highest rate at 3% and
a process time of 1-3 days.
Entrepreneurs have viewed this payment process
as inefficient and saw an opportunity to innovate
a quicker and more user-friendly way to complete
payments. The internet and online retail present-
ed them with this opportunity.
PayPal
The first major innovation in improving the flow
of money was PayPal. It started out as a tool to
complete credit card payments online without
customers having to provide credit card informa-
tion to different retailers. Essentially they were
an online credit card company charging retail-
ers a percentage of every transaction from the
customer’s bank account to the retailer’s bank
account. PayPal used communication systems
for digital transactions, by-passing contact with
banks or credit cards. Users could also keep
their funds within their PayPal accounts, and
make purchases with other PayPal users without
involving banks or paying their fees. As a result
PayPal were able to charge lower transaction
fees and transfer money more quickly than banks
and credit card companies.
PayPal were able to undercut the traditional bank
middlemen and innovate by streamlining the
transaction process. More recently they opened
up their platform and gave the ability to move
money to engineers and entrepreneurs who are
attacking the ecosystem that banks and credit
card companies built. This has allowed people
to build payment applications like Twitpay and
ShopSavvy and leave regulatory and risk-man-
agement issues to PayaPal.
Square
As PayPal became a common method of pay-
ment for online purchases, and more people buy
intangible goods and services, the more comfort-
able they have become paying with digital money
and virtual currencies. Similarly, as people have
evolved the way they buy items, they also evolve
how they pay for them. Even though services like
process payments only through Credits from
July 1, 2011 with Facebook retaining 30% of all
revenue earned through Credits.
Credits are a simplified system to pay for ser-
vices and goods inside Facebook. They can be
purchased in numerous currencies and work
across different apps rather than being tied to a
specific one. The major benefit for users is con-
venience of not needing to enter credit card or
PayPal details every time they make a payment
for in-game goods.
Credits are typically used for purchase of in-
game goods on social games on Facebook, but
brands are experimenting with them for other pur-
chases; in March 2011 Warner Brothers accepted
payments for movie streaming in Credits on their
Facebook page. This type of initiative works as
there is a fast-growing number of people comfort-
able with and excited about making payments in
virtual currencies.
Just as Facebook rolled-out ‘Like’ and Open
Graph to other sites, there is no reason to think
that they won’t introduce Credit payments also.
The commerce experience has been personal-
ized with Open Graph up to the point of transac-
tion, so what is to stop retailers from allowing
Facebook to complete the transaction also?
Currently gamehouse are testing purchases with
Credits along with the usual options of PayPal
and credit and debit cards. If this is successful,
Facebook will surely look to expand Credits to
other sites, especially online retailers, and estab-
lish partnerships with brick-and-mortar brands
for people to spend and earn Credits in the real
world. An interesting hint of where this could go
is the partnership between American Express
and Zynga established in November 2010 to
allow cardholders to redeem their card-based
reward points to buy limited edition virtual goods
in Zynga’s games. As the line between the virtual
world and the real world increasingly blurs, so the
line between virtual and traditional transactions
will also blur.
The first sign of this virtual-real world crossover
was Facebook’s partnership with MOL Global in
July 2010 to allow people to buy Credits at MOL-
connected stores. This was significant in that it al-
lowed people can spend real cash to buy Credits
that they can spend on virtual goods and services
on Facebook. This allows Facebook to expand
Credits to users who do not use credit cards or
who prefer pre-paid plans. Facebook also started
selling Credits gift cards in Target, Walmart and
BestBuy stores from October 2010.
31. Square require users to be authenticated and
linked to a bank or credit card company like Pay-
Pal, they promise next day payment for retailers
with a cheaper transaction fee than credit card
companies. Eventually they want to create an
open system that allows users to exchange mon-
ey instantly without middlemen charging fees.
Square have designed the payment process to
be far more simple and user-friendly. The most
recent update - Card Case - introduced a virtual
card case that users fill with ‘cards’ of retailers
they purchase from who use Square. The cards
provide users with store location and contact
information, menu or services, and purchase
history and receipts. Most interestingly they give
users the ability to pay by telling the cashier their
name at the check-out without swiping a card or
using the phone.
Google Wallet
Google have also been pushing virtual payments
with Google Wallet. An alternative to Square,
Google Wallet is a prepaid virtual card that ties
in to the near field communication (NFC) sys-
tem built into Android phones. It allows users to
pay for products by tapping their phone against
a compatible card reader in stores. Users can
either link their credit card to the Wallet app,
which will then directly transfer money from their
account to the retailer, or they can top-up funds
on a prepaid card with funds from credit or debit
cards. Like with Square’s Card Case, Wallet us-
ers can also connect loyalty cards to the app.
What services like PayPal, Wallet and Square
are pointing towards is a future of digital money
with people and retailers less reliant on cash,
banks and credit card companies for processing
transactions. Both Google Wallet and Square
reduce the cost of business for retailers and
make payment easier for customers. They are
also reducing the interaction between people and
banks. It is not difficult to imagine that payments
will move away from credit card companies to
prepaid cards that re-fill a customer’s Wallet or
Square account, or payments that are added to
a monthly phone bill, or possibly even real world
payments with Facebook Credits. In November
2011 Fast Company charted the likelihood of
who will succeed in the battle to control mobile
payments, predicting that tech titans like Google
and Apple will be the most likely successors, with
banks losing out early.
Future Currencies
In the future Facebook Credits could be just one
form of currency that avoids transactions through
banks and credit card companies. As the larg-
est social network Facebook has a tremendous
opportunity to expand Credits to other sites. ‘Like’
is already embedded on websites, Open Graph is
common across many brand sites, large retailers
have already built sites on Facebook, and they
have a currency already in use. The major advan-
tage for Facebook is that they have hundreds of
millions of potential users; they would need 12%
of their current 800 million users to use Credits
to equal the number of PayPal account holders.
Credits also look like a crucial tool to increase
revenue: with more users accessing Facebook
from tablets and smartphones there will be lim-
ited growth in ad revenues.
Looking further ahead, another potential form of
currency that could emerge in the future is iden-
tity currency. A recent article in BetaBeat detailed
the efforts of banks to analyze social media
32. 32Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 3
profiles to build a better understanding of a
person and determine their credit risk. Jeremiah
Owyang has written about ‘social insurance
rates’ based on a person’s online profile and
behaviours. In the current environment the major
concern is that banks and insurance companies
may gather information that may be illegal for
them to ask. However, it is only a matter of time
before banks and insurance companies offer opt-
in programs to encourage and reward behaviours
that are displayed online, and the crossover of
virtual currencies into the real world will begin in
earnest.
References
• Benjamin Wallace, The Rise and Fall of
Bitcoin, Wired, November 23 2011
• Daniel Roth, The Future of Money: It’s
Flexible, Frictionless and (Almost) Free,
Wired, February 22, 2010
• Danny Vincent, China Used Prisoners in
Lucrative Internet Gaming Work, The Guard-
ian, May 25 2011
• David Zax, Should Facebook Pay You?
Or: How to Monetize Friends and Charge
People, Fast Company, May 20 2011
• Duncan Geere, How to Run a Magazine
Using Virtual Money, Wired, March 29 2011
• Eliot Van Buskirk, Facebook Makes a Play
for Virtual Currency Dominance, Wired,
September 20 2011
• Greg Lindsay, The First Bank of Blizzard: Are
Virtual Currencies the Next Safe Havens?,
Fast Company, August 9 2011
• J.P., Bits and Bobs, The Economist, June 13
2011
• Jake Perry, The Cost of Virtual Currency,
World Policy Blog, September 26 2011
• Kit Eaton, Facebook-MOL Partnership
Brings Virtual Credits to Real Stores, Fast
Company, July 8 2010
• Kris Hansen, The New Reality of Virtual Cur-
rencies, Core Banking Blog, August 22 2011
• The Future of Facebook Project, The Bank
of Facebook: Currency, Identity, Reputation,
Emergent by Design, April 4 2011
33. Social Spaces
Heidelberg Project, Detroit
33Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 3
Created by artist Tyree Guyton and Sam Mackey in 1986, this is an outdoor
community art environment where the elements of each canvas contain
recycled materials and objects from the streets. Every part of art is meant to
tell a story about current issues plaguing society. It started as a political pro-
tect against a deteriorating neighbourhood and evolved into its present form.
34. 34Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 3
My husband and I don’t own a TV. And we don’t
plan to own one anytime in the future. We both
grew up with TVs in the house but had relatively
low-tech active childhoods revolving around
playing in streets and backyards, sports teams,
reading, and general playing with friends. In the
last four years that we haven’t had a TV, the
only thing we miss it for is watching sports but
are still very happy with our decision because of
the extra time we get to do a lot of other things,
especially reading.
Our childhoods were not that dissimilar to our
parents’, but thanks to technology, our children’s
childhoods will be very different from our own. It’s
almost as if a huge digital wave has transformed
childhood in the span of one generation. Even
though we don’t have a TV, our children (when
we have them), will have a childhood drastically
influenced by technology of other kinds - comput-
ers, tablets, smartphones - things we ourselves
rely upon heavily for our work and access to en-
tertainment and news. This is also classified as
screen time and there has been a lot of debate
around exposure to screens for children, espe-
cially babies.
All my research on this issue points towards the
policy statement from the American Association
of Pediatrics that strongly frowns upon all screen
time in general. This is especially for babies
under two because their cognitive development
differs from babies over the age of two, though
children over two should not be exposed to
more than an hour or two of screen time either.
The AAP’s original policy statement from 1999
strongly recommended against exposure to
screens originally based around television, which
is still the primary way children are exposed to
screens. The updated policy that was released
on 18th October 2011 uses the word media even
though most of the references are to Television
and video. Dr. Ari Brown of the AAP admits that
The influence of TV and other digital
screens in the lives of babies today
Babies On A Digital Media Diet
Written by Payal Shah
Social Consumer
there was not enough research done to have a
stand on interactive digital media. After twelve
years of research, one would think they would
have had a chance to consider all the alternate
screens that exist. It is somewhat understandable
that tablets were not included, but unaccept-
able that the research doesn’t include computer
screens! Truth is not much research has been
done to find out the benefits or disadvantages of
using digital media on under-2s.
However, it is worth considering that the AAP is
right about using electronic media of any sort,
TVs, DVD players, computers, video games,
tablets, smartphones, etc as digital baby sit-
ters. While it can be completely understandable
to leave a baby unsupervised in front of any
of these for 30 minutes so that a busy parent
can catch up on work emails or make dinner,
it is something that should be avoided entirely.
Leaving babies with digital pacifiers means that
interaction with these devices is reduced and
static viewing increases. Static viewing is what
becomes a barrier to learning and increases the
risk of ADD, Autism, aggression and violence, de-
pression, etc., according to Dr. Jenn Berman who
has dedicated a whole chapter to zero tolerance
to TV in her fantastic book Superbaby.
Digital babysitting happens under the guise of
education. The Baby Einstein series claimed all
kinds of development for babies but ended up
having to recall all their DVDs because the claims
were ill founded. “When children view videos,
they are passive recipients of information and
are not truly engaged. TV’s quick scene changes
(every four seconds), disconnected images and
incoherent subject matter are confusing to young
children who can’t follow the content and don’t
have the cognitive skills to create a narrative for
the images” writes Berman in her book Superb-
aby. The non-interactive screen (TV and video)
undermines the development of the very claims
35. 35July - September 2011 |Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 3
Background
Hi! This is an article.
As for whether or not babies should be exposed
to digital media, like all things in life, moderation
is key. Digital media should be limited and have
a designated time allotted to it. Rules set around
digital media from the very beginning help even
exposure to other forms of play and learning.
And while there’s nothing like playing outdoors
and reading traditional books at bedtime, it does
make sense to carry an iPad while traveling, as
a mobile all-in-one coloring book - story book -
game - activity book as long as interacting with
devices doesn’t replace one-on-one, face-to-face
interaction with people. In any case, reading,
even on an iPad is a million times better than
watching TV.
that “edutainment” offers. Interactive screens
however, like tablets and smartphones offer the
possibility of interaction which has the potential to
help with actual learning.
Lets take for example a children’s picture book
app like The Going to Bed Book by Sandra
Boynton - it is basically a picture book, with some
interactive elements. The interaction makes sure
it is not static, introduces a fun element, and
sounds like popping bubbles that babies would
like. The experience itself is not very different
from reading a traditional picture book. The baby
doesn’t have the finger dexterity to swipe or flip
pages on the iPad, but doesn’t have the finger
dexterity to turn pages on a traditional book ei-
ther, so both have to be read with a parent. Even
if a toddler read the same book everyday, as
they often do, it would amount to about 5 min-
utes of screen time. Children’s app developers
have even created an App Manifesto where they
pledge towards the contribution of overall de-
velopment, not encouraging an exclusive digital
media diet.
Storybook apps are a great way to engage ba-
bies and get them to experience more, but finding
a balance between apps that are educational and
recreational at the same time, traditional books
and play is key. It is important not to limit other
types of learning and development that hap-
pens through social interaction. Introducing and
instilling a love of books, irrespective of the size,
shape or medium will help the babies enjoy learn-
ing in any form. You can’t compare the pop-up
version of Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpil-
lar with The Going to Bed Book on the iPad - both
are fantastic and why should a baby be deprived
of one over the other? They should be exposed
to different books, irrespective of the medium.
36. 36Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 3
Social Spaces
Speaker’s Corner, Hyde Park, London
As expression of free speech became more acceptable, debates could
move from restricted spaces in pubs and homes to public spaces. Hyde
Park, one of the Royal Parks of London, is famous for its Speaker’s
Corner where open air public speaking, debate and discussions are
conducted. Speakers can talk on any subject as long as it’s considered
lawful by the police. Speaker’s Corner has hosted famous figures like
Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, George Orwell, C. L. R. James, Ben Tillett,
Marcus Garvey, Kwame Nkrumah and William Morris.
37. Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 3 37
The Origins
A fundamental human trait is that we need pat-
terns to understand and relate to the new. That is
why most people find it very easy to relate to sto-
ries intellectually and emotionally. Stories provide
great ways to reach people and create an instant
sense of connect.
With the invention of stories, we bought the con-
cept of heros, villains, gods, etc and established
strong cultural and social bonds. The earliest
recorded evidence of storytelling dates back to
35,000 year old paintings on the walls of Lascaux
caves.
Effective storytelling helps brands
create campaigns that strengthen their
customer communities
Social Consumer
The Power Of A Story
Written by Kaushal Sarda
insights into what makes a story great, and why it
is a very important skill for any brand, especially
in the era of social. We will also look at examples
of some interesting campaigns that have used
smart storytelling to gain momentum and create
an impact.
What Makes A Great Story?
Before you start leveraging storytelling to create
impactful campaigns, its important to understand
the constructs of a good story. There are some
important questions that need to be answered
before you start. Who is the audience? What is
your goal in telling your story? Are you persuad-
ing someone to invest in your company? Are you
trying to gain buy-in for an idea/product among
your co-workers/customers? Are you trying to in-
spire people to support a cause or an individual?
Answering these kind of questions will help you
create a crisp and hard- hitting story.
Some other things you should remember when
creating a story are:
• Stories are about people: People always con-
nect with other people. So ensure your story
revolves around characters which are like
real-life people
• Make your characters speak: Make use of
direct quotes and let your characters speak
in a tone that provides an emotional connect
and purpose to the story
• People easily get bored: Always keep your
audience engaged and interested in what’s
going to happen next. You can achieve this
via elements like goals, obstacles, and sur-
prises in the story.
• Trigger emotions: A good story has the ability
to stir the audience’s emotions. The objec-
tive is not to add an element of drama but to
ensure that message stands out and is long
remembered.
• Deliver a clear meaning: When your story
To the primitive man of that time, these paintings
were a great way to describe the experience of
a great hunt to those who did not participate and
and ensure a common sense of connectedness.
These story art paintings are also our first forms
of visual art and narrated slideshows.
Hence what this proves that even though com-
munication techniques and mediums evolve, but
the fundamentals of good storytelling are ancient
and one of the best way of communicating a
message that is clear and relatable.
The objective of this article is to provide some
38. 38Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 3
is over the audience should know what the
story was about and have a reason for taking
the journey with you. Without this you have
just wasted a lot of their precious time.
The Role Of Storytelling In The Era Of Social
The glue that binds a community - whether online
or in the real world - is a strong emotional con-
nection with a purpose or social object. In order
for a brand to market itself effectively and to
connect deeply with its community, it must have
a message that clearly articulates its core values,
captures the attention of that community, and
makes them emotionally invested. One of the
best ways to achieve this is for a brand to define
its own narrative that is clear, hard hitting, and
aligned to their values and vision.
Brands should try to augment their ability to tell
a great and consistent story with technology ad-
vancements in real-time communication, location
based services, and augmented reality to create
an impact at the right moment. They should then
use social media to provide customers with tools
to share stories, and contribute their own relevant
experiences.
One key advantage of the social era is that
brands now have the ability to aggregate user-
stories that reiterate their message and add
credibility. However, this also means that busi-
nesses must constantly monitor any conversation
about the brand as consumers co-author their
own stories, augment any positive exchanges,
and publicly acknowledge and learn from nega-
tive ones.
Social Campaigns That Leverage Storytelling
To make all of this more relevant, let’s look at
some campaigns that used smart storytelling to
create value for the brand and achieve great suc-
cess.
Make A Wish Facebook campaign
The Make A Wish created a Season of Wishes
Facebook application. The app shared a stream
the stories of children who participated in the
foundation’s program. There were videos and
photos associated with most stories. Users had
provisions to like, share, and make donations
towards stories.
The organizers mentioned that the approach of
the campaign was not simply asking for dona-
tions but to create “stronger relationships and
engagement that we believe, ultimately, will lead
to more donations, more volunteer support, to
more referrals.” The strategy was to use social
media as a channel to establish a dialogue and
build relationships via powerful stories about
children in the program.
Urgent Evoke
Urgent Evoke is an “alternate reality” genre game
that was created to help empower young people
all over the world, and especially in Africa, to
learn about and devise creative solutions to some
of their biggest problems, such as hunger, pov-
erty, disease, war and oppression, water access,
education, and climate change.
This World Bank funded project involved par-
ticipants going through a comic book storyline
in which the main character would send out an
“urgent evoke” message about a disaster taking
place (e.g. clean water shortage, famine, etc).
The players had10 weeks, in the real world, to do
something that meaningfully addressed this kind
of crisis through investigation, volunteering, or
coming-up with solutions. They had to catalogue
their work and were awarded points on this post
review. Each player needed to complete and
document their contribution to get access to the
next “evoke”. Players who completed the whole
game and won were awarded mentorships,
internships, scholarships and start-up money by
the World Bank.
The fact that each “evoke” was represented
through a comic story meant that it became
more fun to learn about the problem and create
a sense of urgency to contribute amongst partici-
pants. This is an excellent example of a cam-
paign that used creative storytelling and game
39. The initial film created a strong message that
helped Tiffany excite couples to share their own
stories and connect as a community around the
theme of romance.
The Story Of Stuff
The Story of Stuff is a short animated documen-
tary on the lifecycle of material goods. The docu-
mentary is critical of excessive consumerism and
strongly promotes sustainability. Though a much
shorter documentary than Al Gore’s An inconve-
nient Truth, it managed to be entertaining and still
drive a strong and clear message to viewers.
design to great effect.
Tiffany Co. - Love is Everywhere
Tiffany Co. created a microsite and iPhone app
that allowed real-life couples to share their ro-
mantic stories through a film or series of photos.
All of these stories were compiled and placed on
a map to create a unique collection of user-gen-
erated romantic stories. Visitors also had access
to a compendium of love tips and, in addition,
information on Manhattan as the “ultimate city for
falling ecstatically in love.”
The campaign was kickstarted with filmmaker Ed-
ward Burns’ story “Will You Marry Me?,” a short
film created exclusively for Tiffany Co. The
film presented a variety of couples that shared
heartfelt, humorous and surprising tales of their
romantic journeys. These couples were photo-
graphed in New York and showcased jewelry,
photographs or love letters that symbolized their
life together.
The duration of the film allowed it easier to be
used during one class and still have time for
a discussion. This helped to quickly spread it
amongst teachers, who recommended it to one
another as a brief, provocative way of drawing
students’ attention and subsequent dialogue on
the subject. Another reason why many educators
say the film was a boon to them is because it
helped address the gap between what textbooks
said about the environment and what science has
revealed in recent years.
The project has been a great success, and ac-
cording to the Los Angeles Times in July 2010 it
had been translated into 15 languages and been
viewed by over 12 million people. The film still
gets actively shared and watched on social
40. 40Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 3
platforms like YouTube and has resulted in a lot
of variants on related topics.
This project is a great example of how smart and
effective storytelling can not only create rapid
awareness but also potentially trigger a move-
ment in the era of social.
Takeaway
I hope this article will get brands excited about
the power of storytelling and how they can use it
to create campaigns that strengthen connections
with and within their customer communities.
Reference Links
• About the Evoke Game, Evoke
• Andy Smith, The Power of Storytelling, The
Dragonfly Effect, October 6 2010
• David Cohen, Make-A-Wish Foundation’s
Facebook Campaign Tells Stories, All
Facebook, December 21 2011
• Lascaux, Wikipedia
• Lauren Fisher, Social Media has Evolved
into the Art of Storytelling, and we Must all
Become Masters of it, Simplyzesty, Novem-
ber 20 2011
• Lauren Indvik, Tiffany Co. Releases User-
Generated Map of World’s Romantic Mo-
ments, Mashable, June 1 2011
• Leslie Kaufman, A Cautionary Video About
America’s ‘Stuff’, New York Times, May 10
2009
41. July - September 2011 |
Social Spaces
High Line Park, New York
41July - September 2011 |Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 3
The High Line was a disbanded freight line above the streets of Manhattan’s
West Side in New York. It was re-opened in stages from 2009 as a park and
social space for public events. It also includes four venues that can be rent-
ed. The enchanting beauty of High Line is how it brings together the tranquil-
lity of nature amidst the busy city, and merges history with new architecture.
42. 42Social Technology Quarterly | Volume 1 Issue 3
Written by Kshitiz Anand
Life in the times of the information
economy
Social Media Fatigue
Social Consumer
Understanding The Why
Information as the building block for social
media platforms
In my opinion one of the key influencers of the
social media phenomenon centers on the word
‘information’. An article first published in 1995
highlighted advances in computers and data
networks that will create a future “information
economy’’ in which everyone will have access to
gigabytes of information anywhere and anytime.
Ten years from now we may find the economic
institutions of the information economy a similarly
unremarkable part of our day-to-day life.
I would like to believe that social media is a direct
consequence of this information economy, and its
main drivers are the terms ‘informational activity’
and the ‘information industry’. Information can
be of different kinds. It can be functional, instruc-
tional / actionable, recreational, motivational,
confidential, philosophical, knowledgeable, etc.
Each type of information created can be either
short-lived or for a certain period of time. It can
be valuable or useless. It can be global or local. It
can be created bit by bit or it can be shared.
In the era of social media and social networks,
this information is created at a rate faster than
ever before. People are now the champions of
creating information. Amateurs to professionals
across all age groups are creating information.
Practically anyone with an access to technology
has the power to create information that can be
shared and consumed. Emails, tweets, and social
network updates are best when they are con-
sumed fresh, and with the rise of technology plat-
forms that ensure a 24x7, seamless experience,
we end up consuming more than we can handle.
Social networks and social media platforms are
the facilitators of this information dissemination
and promoters for information exchange. How-
ever, we should understand that consuming
We live in interesting times. Did you know that
many people now access their Facebook profile
first thing in the morning? And some people find it
difficult to communicate with others because they
are not social media savvy.
An interesting infographic titled “How Social
Media is Ruining Our Minds” highlighted that
over the course of the last ten years the average
attention span has dropped from 12 minutes to
a staggeringly short 5 seconds. People around
the world spend close to 700 billion minutes on
Facebook every month, make over 1.6 billion
search queries per day on Twitter, and post 250
million tweets per day (Oct 2011). These are
huge numbers!
In such times, there ought to be better strategies
for social media engagement for individuals as
well as business. Almost as prevalent as blind
social media evangelism is the level of fatigue
and ennui around it.
43. information takes energy. It is this excessive con-
sumption of energy that causes fatigue.
The Nobel laureate economist Herbert A. Simon
puts it nicely: “What information consumes is
rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its
recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates
a poverty of attention, and a need to allocate that
attention efficiently among the overabundance of
information sources that might consume it. Tech-
nology for producing and distributing informa-
tion is useless without some way to locate, filter,
organize and summarize it.” On one side there is
excessive information being created, and on the
other side there is only a certain amount that the
brain can process and consume. This results in
social media fatigue.
What Is The Impact?
You are being watched: from whom you follow
on social networks, to what you read, to what
movie you saw, to who you spend time with. It
has taken over our lives. This takeover of life by
social media networks is something that needs
consideration. The times we live in often reminds
me of the note in George Orwell’s classic 1984:
Big Brother is watching you. social media and
networks are the new Big Brother.
Research conducted by Retrevo in March 2010
found that close to 42% of respondents accessed
Facebook the first thing in the morning. The Re-
trevo Gadgetology study also found that 48% of
respondents say they update Facebook or Twitter
during the night or as soon as they wake up,
and 19% of people under the age of 25 say they
update Facebook or Twitter anytime they happen
to wake up during the night; 11% over the age of
25 say they do the same thing.
Social media and social network sites appear to
be a new set of cool tools for people to consume
information, but the impact is greater than that.
For example, young people use social network
sites for:
• Keeping in touch with friends and acquain-
tances
• Developing new contacts, often with friends
of friends, or people with shared interests
• Sharing content, engaging in self-expression
and exploring their identity
• Hanging out and consuming content includ-
ing commercial and user-generated content
• Accessing information and informal learning
• Participating in informal groups and formal
youth engagement opportunities
People have become adept at multi-tasking
across platforms. The impact is seen on our
social status, on our personal self, our position
in the society, and also on our productivity. Our
conversations are in 140 characters or less, and
videos that are under 10 minutes are used as a
tool to make judgments easily. We have become
more opinionated and have developed a knack
for raising our voices over anything we feel is not
right. We wait for acknowledgement of any infor-
mation we create. All this leads to a fundamental
change in the way we view and consume infor-
mation. It has to be processed at a faster rate so
it is natural that fatigue sets in early.
Addressing Social Media Fatigue
With the overload of information it is easy to
be disillusioned, frustrated, and to feel lost. It
becomes necessary to identify a way address it.
Brian Solis noted that:
“We all know very well that activity within social
networking can lead to distractions. With one
click, we can find ourselves hopelessly lost in a
labyrinth of fascinating experiences that have
nothing to do with our initial focus. Serendipity
is part of the splendor of social media, but it is
something that necessitates discipline to learn,
entertain and be entertained, while also staying
the course. In the end, we exchange time and
privacy for exposure and attention.
The reality is that the cost of social networking is
great and without checks and balances, engage-
ment can cost us more capital than we have to
spend. The net result is then social and emo-
tional bankruptcy. And, the most difficult part of
this unfortunate state is that it is at first difficult to
recognize and far more exacting to overcome.
It is important for both businesses and individuals
to understand this. Here are a few tips on how
this can be addressed: