Can't Buy Me Love...For Less Than $112.65.

As a bit of a no-brainer, it was recently reported that men spend more than twice the amount women spend on Valentine’s Day: $112.65 per person versus $51.56 per person.

Based on Google's Valentine's Day doodle, however, maybe us men have been going about this whole 'buy your love thing' the wrong way.

I'll let you be the judge.

~p

Where Oh Where Are The Facebook Credits?

Last summer, Warner Brothers offered movie-goers a chance to watch “Harry Potter” and “The Dark Knight” for 30 Credits apiece. Miramax and Paramount countered with film-viewing offers, too.

It was reported as being successful and a good experience by users...and then...that was all.

So, why hasn’t this been leveraged by both companies and Facebook more?

As of last year at this time, Facebook reported the following:

• 10,000 websites integrate with Facebook each day
• More than 2.5 million websites have integrated with Facebook (including over 80 of comScore’s U.S. Top 100 websites and over half of comScore’s Global Top 100 websites)
• Over half of the 25 fastest growing Comscore U.S. retail sites use Facebook
• Media sites that adopt the Like button average a greater than 300% increase in referral traffic from Facebook

We also know that Facebook credits generate about $475 million in revenue each year (approximately 10% of their total revenue), mostly from in-site gaming upgrades. With their hand in so many different websites, however, why hasn’t this number increased? The move for Facebook credits to become the ‘currency of the web’ is kind of a no-brainer. 

As Zuck recently wrote in a personal letter to shareholders as Facebook registered for their IPO, "We don't build services in order to make money, we make money in order to build better services."

What better way to make money to build better services than to leverage the vast ecosystem of Facebook integration with a Credits system? Imagine if you could earn Facebook Credits on purchases from your fav retail sites, and also use credits to help pay for those purchases. 

If retailers paid $0.30 on the dollar (the same formal iTunes uses with publishers), and customers got back $0.10 on the dollar when applying credits to a purchase, this would be a win-win-win for Facebook (revenue), retailers (customer loyalty, easy of payment), and customers (ease of payment and discount). 

It would also catapult Facebook’s earnings into serious money-making territory. JP Morgan estimates that global E-commerce revenue will hit $963 billion next year. 

With these facts in mind, if leveraged properly, it is believed by Forbes that Facebook Credits could double every year for the next five years. That number would be almost double the total revenue of Facebook today. 

There is only one reason I can think of as to why this is such a long inevitable progression: Facebook was intentionally waiting to register their IPO so they can unleash credits within the first year to look like a hero to shareholders. 

Whatever the reason, when Zuckerburg finally does capitalize on this opportunity, I for one will be looking for some Credit.

~ p. 

Review: The New Facebook App for iPad

There was no mention of it at the F8. Apple didn't bring out a surprise guest in Mark Zuckerburg at its iPhone conference last week. Where was the much anticipated and now long overdue Facebook app for iPad that the world has been waiting for?

Well, on Monday afternoon, the app quietly arrived via a post from Facebook's own page on, you guessed it, Facebook. 

It's main integration is for the iPad, previously incompatible with the Facebook mobile app for iPhone, but it also serves as an upgrade for iPhone users. It is said that this app will also work across Android and other mobile platforms soon. 

So, I took this app for a test drive last night on my iPad, and I have continued using it this morning. At first, I did not see the point of going to this app over my web page. The functionality seemed, if anything, scaled back from the web experience. After some more time with the app, I found that it was a better over all experience for iPad Facebook-ing. 

The key difference for a user standpoint is that everything can be run through the app. If you click on an article, for example, you will be taken to the site that the article is on, but it is still framed within the Facebook borders. This will change the game for developers. Instead of creating apps that rest on your mobile device, you will now see more apps that are ingredients into Facebook's app experience. 

The new app provides great new features, including optimized photo viewing, and as mentioned above, never having to leave the app itself to visit different sites. 

That said, there are a few functionality changes that Facebook must make right now:

1) Sharing a link. The web experience lets you post a link and recognizes that you are doing so by including the article title, choosing a thumbnail or embedding the video. On the app, the link shows up raw and looks like a user error when posted. 

2) Back button or History. One of the cool new features is that you can simply slide the screen from left to right and it will take you back to the page you were on before. Unfortunately, this does now work the other way around. Clicking through to an article on a different site, still within the Facebook app framework, you can easily lose where you were on that site if you, say, accidentally flipped the screen back with your finger. I mean, you can find it again, like I had to this morning, it was just a pain to retrace my steps. 

3) Pages filters. On a 'fan' page, there is no filter to only read what the Page administrator has posted vs what everyone has posted. This was a distracting and annoying experience. You'll quickly see how much spam and nonsense other people post on your fan pages without this feature. 

4) Video chat. Through the message function, which is slick and very useable, I was surprised that I could not video chat. This would be a huge step for Facebook in the mobile space, especially considering their recent partnership with Skype. 

The new app will need some improvements, and more will likely bubble up the more people use it, but over all, the experience is quite good. I will be interested to see how the new web features, including Timeline, will integrate into the Facebook app moving forward. ~p

iPhone 4S: It’s Got Guts. Unfortunately, that’s all it has.

Today was the day we were all waiting for. 

Or was it? 

Apple launched a new iPhone today, as per reports, but it was not the iPhone 5 that has been frenzied over media outlets for the past couple of months. Instead, Apple announced an iPhone 4S, which is essentially high-powered iPhone 4. It comes with lots of cool, exciting new innovations on the inside, while on the outside, the same iPhone that we’ve had since June 2010. 

The biggest announcement today was Siri. This new feature, exclusive to the iPhone 4S, will change the way we interact with our smart phones, and eventually, all of our devices. At its core, it is first real push for commercializing Artificial Intelligence. From the video I watched, it is still in its infancy, but it works and interacts very well. Also, as I’m reminded from my Android-using friends, a similar feature has been available to them for some time.

The other new features for iPhone 4S are truly groundbreaking, including iCloud, and an 8MP camera that also shoots 1080p video. Even though one could argue that 8MP is 2-year old technology for the smart phone market, the details are commendable, like stability control, a fifth lens for sharper images, and letting in more natural light to better represent the color in your shots.  

These features come together to truly make this ‘the most amazing iPhone yet’, as the tag line says. Still, I can’t help but be disappointed in this announcement. 

Maybe it’s superficial, but for weeks I have been reading about the possibilities for the new iPhone 5 design - wider and taller screen, thin body, sleek rounded corners. I’ve seen fake pictures and pretend mock-ups of what it was going to look like. And I’ve been really excited to get my hands on one. Through that process, I convinced myself that the iPhone 4 was way too chunky, especially in comparison to, say, the new Blackberry Bold.  Not to be picky, but I’ve also been looking forward to a 10MP camera, and new battery technology to power these cool features. 

The new iPhone 5 was suppose to launch today and put Apple miles ahead of the competition - burying Blackberry, and firmly distancing itself from Android and Microsoft powered devices. This was going to be the moment to solidify and validate Apple as the most valuable company in the world. But that didn’t happened this afternoon. 

The stats that Apple shared during the KeyNote today also lead me to believe that they knew the crowd might be underwhelmed. While impressive, they came across as somewhat defensive.

• Macbook pro and iMac are the best selling noteboook and desktop in the U.S.
• There are 60 million Mac users around the world. Apple has sold 45 million iPods so far this year (ending in June).
• iPod marketshare in the U.S. is above 70%.
• iTunes users have downloaded more than 16 billion songs.
• iPhone has 5% of the Worldwide Mobile Phone market.
• More than half of all iPhones that have been sold were iPhone 4s.
• Apple has sold more than 250 million iOS devices.

Bottom line, it took guts to launch a iPhone 4S today. Unfortunately, that is all the iPhone 4S offers. Other smart phone companies, I would assume that you have about 9 months before the real iPhone 5 hits the market. Use your time wisely. ~ p

Accept the Latest Facebook Changes...Even if You Can't 'Like' Them

You might've heard. Facebook decided to make a few changes, and some people aren't very happy about it.

I am not one of those people. 

Listen, this happens every year. Facebook introduces something new, people don't like it, and then a few weeks later those same people realize that the world is still spinning on an axial tilt of 23 degrees, and they go back to updating their status 15 times a day. I've read this story, and the ending hasn't changed.

I'm not pretending that the new features released so far didn't take some adjusting. I'm simply choosing to skip the first 6 stages of grief (Denial, Pain, Anger, Bargaining, Sadness, Reconstruction), and immediately move into the 7th stage of Acceptance.

With that mindset, I actually thought that the new 'top story' function, and the ability to self-select them, was cool and helpful. The ticker made me realize just how many updates are, in fact, happening every minute of the day, and that this feature was probably necessary if not now than in the near future. As we know, each person's social sharing continues to double each year under the Mark Zuckerberg's self-proclaimed Law. Let's also remember that the biggest changes have not yet been released.

I'll cut to the chase: Timeline  is going to piss some people off. And, from a profile perspective, it will most likely completely change the way you think, feel and use Facebook. That said, it's not all bad. Timeline will be intuitive and suggest what should be displayed, so you don't have to do all the work. It will also be great to look at your Timeline a few years down the road to see what milestones or tomfoolery happened. It might even motivate some people to add new photos of old events, like your hairstyle from the 80s, or how cute you thought you were as a child. This, of course, all ties back to Zuck's Law that people will share more and more stuff each year...even if they need to back in time to do it.

The other biggie that's not yet released are the new 'Read, Watch, Listen' buttons for sharing movies, music, articles, and more. As Zuck explained in his F8 keynote, we could previously 'Like' any noun, and now we will have any verb, such as 'Read', with any noun, such as 'Book'. While this sounds cool, and will probably lead to a broader, more open social sharing language, I gotta say that I question this feature. Facebook did such a great job at building up the equity in the Like button across the web. Millions of users associate the Like button with the Facebook brand more than any other site feature. For this reason, it has a lot of brand equity. Plus, it's easy and consistent across the web. Branching out into different 'verbs' might have a diluting effect on this equity and, in turn, Facebook's ever-growing presence online. Then again, maybe I'll just accept this change like a new friend request: sometimes unsure, but knowing that it usually works out.

After all, Zuck has given us enough reasons to put our faith in him, so I will continue to do so. Partly because I do not have a choice. But mostly because he has a success rate that is miles above average. And, if that's not enough, we can just look to his bank account to see a few billion more reasons why Zuck will most likely continue to make Facebook and the Internet better for everyone. No pressure. ~ p.

Is Apple's 12-month Product Lifecycle Still Good for Business?

It's that time of year again. No, not when Valentine's Day chocolate is still on sale as Cadbury mini-eggs come back. Even though that is happening right now, too. I'm talking about the annual product lifecycle for Apple, namely the new iPhone and iPad 2.

Steve Jobs is a master of supply and demand - creating hysteria over new product launches for years. And making it last to some degree for a full 12 months. Even now, people can't wait to get their hands on an iPhone 4...even though it's old news as far as new products go.

This makes me wonder if Apple's strategy has worked too well. If they stick to their guns and launch iPhone 5 an their annual cycle, we should be seeing it soon. With this strategy, we should also be getting a real glimpse of iPad 2. In fact, there is a strong suspicion that Apple will unveil the iPad 2 tomorrow (March 2). But, as with iPhone 4, the original iPad is still flying off the shelves. With this in mind, my first question is 1) Are they not cutting into their own product market share by releasing a new product when demand is still high for the current version? 2) Does Apple need to continue to release new products on a 12-month cycle, or has their dominance with innovation given them enough breathing room to essentially dictate how and when new innovations should hit the market? As a consumer who is waiting for iPad 2, I hope not. But I guess that's the power of a company that's now worth $100 billion more than Microsoft.

Knowing that the traditional timeline for new Apple products is quickly approaching, the rumors surrounding those products have also ramped up. There is a growing list that you can read here. The ones that stick out to me are the much larger screen for the iPhone 5, including a slide-out keyboard, and a camera between 8 and 12 megapixels. The larger screen and better camera sound right in-line with Apple's innovation style - but the slide-out keyboard would be a big surprise to many users if it happened. I can only assume this feature would open up the market for business consumers - trying to steal that domain from RIM's Blackberry.

The other no -brainer for me is the back and front facing camera for the iPad 2. Apple's Facetime application has the potential to indirectly create customer loyalty that's as strong as RIM's Blackberry Messenger. I know that's one of the only reasons I am still on a Blackberry, and the same goes for most of my friends. The camera on the iPad 2 is also one of the driving reasons I do not currently have an iPad 1...I'm waiting to for this feature and application to change my life.

With Tablets starting to flood the market, this indeed looks like it will be the year of the Tablet. As a consumer, I look forward to watching the market evolve and unfold, and see who is leading the pack when December holiday shopping comes around. My money will be on the iPad...but maybe RIM's Playbook has a game plan up their sleeve. ~ p

Starbucks New Media is a Great Sign for Off-line Advertising

This is cool. Starbucks locations in Toronto and Vancouver are promoting Tazo Tea with new a interactive window display.

When you touch the screen, you can guide a hummingbird, dragon or butterfly to find the ingredients of the teas. Check out the vid below for how the display was executed.

This is a great sign, excuse the pun, for off-line advertising. So much focus is on the innovation of digital advertising nowadays that the 'real world' can be lost or forgotten. I will continue to say that we will see more and more of a convergence of thinking and execution from online to offline in the future. I am waiting for the day that I can Facebook 'Like' a real shirt in-store at Banana Republic from my mobile. Think about how easy and awesome that would make wedding gift registration and Christmas shopping. Just remember that you read it here first. ;) ~ p

Friday Funny: Luddite Boss vs Tech-Savvy Employee

LOL, I mean...L2MS. I need to laugh at this one carefully. ~ p