It's interesting to note the variance and large swings in CTRs on the male side of this equation but believe this speaks to women's overall higher engagement with the Facebook platform and with visual forms of social in general (such as Pinterest). Perhaps more concerning for Facebook could be the large drop in CTRs and increase in CPCs in Q2 of this year, coming off the heels of their announcement of new ad formats.
"ADmented" Reality glasses from Google's Project Glass out in the wild - with the Google Ads component lovingly integrated (an oversight from the initial video?). For some this will be terrifying, for others, awe-inspiring. I think I'm somewhere in the middle but do feel that some of the features demo'd here are the ultimate evolution for AR (but also somewhat chilling to think everything we look at could be an ad for those who fear ideas like singularity).
Online views of movies will overtake DVDs this year - the DVD launched to such fanfare and has been cannibalized in record time. It'll be interesting to see the physical content that remains as technology moves forward. I'm not ready to completely give up on books, newspapers, DVDs and the like, but they certainly don't have a compelling future story to tell...
This stat shows us that just as brands are learning to use Facebook, consumers are beginning to understand how they WANT brands to use Facebook. The huge jump in responses to Personal posts and the precipitous drop in responses to Promotional posts point to the future of brand communications. People want brands that act like people and we need to get on the bus or get left behind.
Moving forward, with Facebook and Google leading the charge, "social networking" will be less about platforms than ever before and more about a social ecosystem across the web. As that's already happening with Open Graph and G+'s integration, I look forward to seeing these kinds of statistical breakdowns of social networkers begin to fade away. There should be a day soon when who's using social media and who's using the internet will be essentially the same number.
"Smart stadiums" are a very cool emerging concept. This is intersecting with the trend of "smart cities" (where IBM's interest lies in this project) as well as the concept of "big data". Really interesting to see how the stadium operates as a microcosm of a community and points the way to the future of how our world will soon learn to adapt and cater to our patterns and habits.
The convergence of their platforms, their mobile-first approach (where their market share is still crushing all competition in search), and their increasing use of content to tell a compelling story and sell their products in the same breath continue to make them the most compelling company to watch, IMHO.
Another eye raising graph showing the critical importance of content marketing and proper search optimization as underscored in Google's "Zero Moment of Truth" eBook. This curve is why marketers need to be more focused than ever on delivering relevant content to speak to both consumer need as well as search algorithms.
An interesting breakdown. Perhaps the best thing G+ has going for it right now is that it seems to have over 80% awareness. While I don't think G+ will become a "go to" platform to compete with Facebook any time soon, it's deepening integration into Gmail, YouTube, search and eventually Google docs will lead more people to the platform organically. I just can't see how this flops like some of their previous efforts in social - it's just too well set up for integration with essential services.
The simplicity of Pinterest is perhaps its most striking feature. It's essentially a collection of crowdsourced image catalogues which makes it no wonder there's the thought it could redefine retail and social commerce. Definitely one that we should keep our eyes on moving forward, particularly with the coveted 'digital mom'.
