14 January 2015

I was right about Facebook. I was wrong about Facebook.

Sometimes you’re wrong for the right reasons.  Sometimes you’re right for the wrong reasons.  Sometimes you’re a bit of both.

Years ago I trashed Facebook and social networking sites:

Baby Boomers Bolting From Facebook
… Baby Boomers are decamping that most famous of digital digs …

I was wrong:

Pew: Facebook User Growth Slowed As Others Gained, But Still Has Most Engaged Users
by Sarah Perez
image… the social network remains the most popular, but its membership levels here have seen little change from where they were in 2013. One exception to this is with the “older” adults demographic.

For the first time, more than half (56%) of internet users ages 65 and older use Facebook. Yes: grandma and grandpa are now on Facebook.

We’ll forgive Ms. Perez for her ageist throwaway.  More:

In general, teens find Facebook “weird and annoying,” he said. Having mom and dad and now the grandparents, too, on Facebook, probably doesn’t help with that.

This all sounds about right to me.  My 2008 take on social media sites, specifically Facebook:

But there are a lot of lonely people out there.
… Most Baby Boomers don’t do virtual social networking because they actually go out and are social. They interact with real people at gatherings, parties, etc. They talk on the phone. They email friends … my guess is that the vast majority of Boomers aren't lonely or confused or need motivation. And even if I'm wrong, all these sites will wear thin soon. If you're lonely, then there's just so much 'social networking' you can do before it begins to reinforce your sad state - and makes you feel worse.

Most of the above still holds up.  What I didn’t foresee is Facebook becoming the generic virtual space for keeping up with friends from high school, college, work through the decades, etc.  These aren’t friends you necessarily hang out with now – and Facebook was originally a ‘here and now’ place for college kids.  How it’s transformed. 

My 2011 NYR is as solid today as it was then:

My New Year’s Resolution
No more scratching my head and being completely baffled by social media marketing experts telling me that consumers want to talk about products, have online conversations about toilet paper or whatever – and have even more conversations with the manufacturers of products. What an odd, insulated view of advertising and marketing.

And this:

03 October 2013
Facebook And Twitter Do Almost Nothing To Drive Sales

More from that TechCrunch piece:

… Twitter, unfortunately, is seeing declining engagement. “36% of Twitter users visit the site daily, but this actually represents a 10-point decrease from the 46% who did so in 2013,” states Pew.

No surprise to me.  My 2012 take on Tweets:

Twitter & Advertising
… “I don’t think the model is necessarily there yet.”  Meaning, a hundred-odd years after the birth of modern advertising, twenty-odd years after the birth of the Web – nobody can figure out how to advertise effectively with social media.  So now let’s concentrate on mobile devices. Mobile advertising will work once social media marketing gurus figure out what the hell they’re doing.

I don’t mind being right for the wrong reasons. Or wrong for the right reasons.


Just for fun:

My Unctuous Smartphone
By Chuck Nyren
huffington_post_logo1There was a movie I never saw about a guy falling in love with his talking phone. That won't be happening with me. I'm not even sure I like her.

23 December 2014

2014

Time to wrap it up. And what better gift can I give than saving you hundreds of millions of dollars?

What’s the real value of social media marketing?
The news around social media is not good.  Facebook’s organic reach has tanked, people share news on Twitter and the jury is still out whether Pinterest actually offers an ROI…

The Great Unwatched
By David Segal
imageBy many estimates, more than half of online video ads are not seen, either because they are buried low on web pages or run in tiny, easily ignored video players on those pages, or run simultaneously with other ads. Vindico, an ad management platform company, deemed 57 percent of two billion video ads surveyed over two months to be “unviewable.”

Of course, NostraChuckus has been saying these same things for years:

Social Media - WOMM - Web Advertising

Most popular social media post this year:

30 September 2014
Social Media: A Sliver Of The Bigger Picture
… The mobile/social media soothsayers will have you believe that there is this unknown, magical mode of persuasion that has never been thought of before – and will reveal itself any day now.

If you believe that, I have a Blackberry in Brooklyn I want to sell you.

So I guess you can consider my gift as re-gifting.

05 December 2014

Inventing The Tablet

My previous scribbling about Tablets:

11 September 2014
A Simpler Tablet?

AARP_TABLET_FRONT_SCREEN copy…  Tablets are getting cheaper.  One major manufacturer will soon be offering a full-fledged Windows tablet for $120.00…

Since that post, I’ve been thinking about Tablets every so often, along with having a long skype with a management/entrepreneur/tech gent in The U.K.  He’s developing an easier-to-use Tablet launcher.

However, I’m convinced that someone or some team of innovators should finally tackle the Tablet.

imageSteve Jobs and  Steve Wozniak invented the people’s personal computer (there were clunky, cryptic ones around before Apple).  The evolution of the Smartphone was messier. They were miniature computers with new operating systems tucked into mobile phones. Not much has changed.  

But Tablets ended up as merely a poor relation.  They’re simply hand-held flat laptops with touchscreens.  Or smartphones made bigger – but without the phone.  

The Tablet has yet to be invented.

It won’t be yours truly concocting said doohickey, but let me pretend.

Assuming this…

23 October 2012
The Future Of Consumer Doodad Technology

CrystalBallsepiaYou should stop thinking about the next big thingamabob and whose will be best.  In five or ten years there will be all sorts of thingamabobs for just about everything.  You’ll have two or three or ten thingamabobs.  Tablets/Smartphones will be big, small, thin, simple, complex, active, passive, out the door in your purse or pocket, lost in your couch cushions. 

And this:

05 September 2011
The Obligatory Follow-Up iPad (and Smartphone and QR Codes) Post
… The perfect tablet (someday) for Baby Boomers will be big, thin, light, unbreakable – and while you’ll be able to use it for search, email, Facebooky things, etc. – it will mostly be for curling up on a couch and reading your favorite magazines, newspapers, books, watching short videos, etc.

The Tablet invented:

Forget about computers and smartphones.
You’re creating a magic window built from scratch.

It will not look like a laptop or smartphoneflexibleWhen you fire it up you will see no icons or computery stuff.  It will be sections with rounded corners and they will all be … I don’t know what … widgets (but please don’t think widgets).  It’s informational, entertaining, passive. 

Touch the section and it will open up.
It’ll be easy to slide back to the home screen (but please don’t think home screen).  Think a combination Google/Yahoo starting page you’ve put together, along with a few video services, magazines, books, personal pictures, games, whatever you like.

The Point:
To plunge into work or play, crank up the desktop/laptop. To quickly grab info about this or that, snap up the smartphone.

To ease out of the day and get away from the frenetic digital nest, have more passive and relaxing experiences – slide onto a chair, couch, bed…

And curl up with your Tablet.

18 November 2014

The No New News News

It’s always a treat to get up, make some coffee, open the newspaper (pixels or pulp) and read nothing new.

Even that shticky opening sentence is nothing new.

Ignore Boomers at your peril
image… The 50+ market is tremendous, controlling roughly 70 percent of the nation’s disposable income. We account for 80 percent of luxury travel marketing, buy five times as many new cars as 18-to-34-year-olds, and represent 40 percent of the population.

Pull quote from my book ©2005:

“It will be the Baby Boomers who will be the first to pick and choose, to ignore or be seduced by leading-edge technology marketing. There’s a simple reason for this. We have the money to buy this stuff. Experts say we’ll continue to have the money for at least the next twenty years. Write us off at your own peril.”

That’s a long time to be periled.

Baby Boomers say they aren't moving out of their homes
By Les Christie  @CNNMoney
… In a survey of 4,000 Baby Boomer households conducted by the non-profit Demand Institute, 63% of Boomers plan to stay in their current home once they retire.

Sounds vaguely familiar:

Selling Universal Design/Aging In Place ©2005/2007 (PDF):
… My NAHB presentation had a large section dedicated to the problem‘ of aging in place. It‘s a problem, of course, for AACs. How do you convince Baby Boomers to consider your offerings – whether your community is across the country or across town?

hshThe first slide in the aging in place section was titled Let‘s talk about your competition.  I tossed up logos from Del Webb, Robson, Meritage, and a few others – along with one of a real estate salesman outside a house with a for sale sign. I shook my head. “These are not your competitors,” I said, “This is.”

A new slide popped up that read Home Sweet Home. Many in the audience nodded.

They’re still nodding.

Universities Cater to a New Demographic: Boomers
hbr… As millions of Boomers move into a stage that has no name, no clear role in society, yet vast possibilities, there is an urgent need for democratized versions of such programs—offered at a cost within reach of the bulk of the population and widely available through continuing education programs or even community colleges around the country.

From 2005:

Baby Boomers, Adult Communities, and Education
Campus Continuum focuses solely on developing, marketing, and operating university-branded 55+ Active Adult Communities that are tightly integrated with their academic hosts.

AARP has produced a supplement for HR Magazine all about hiring experienced workers (or not letting them go):

HR and the Aging Workforce

aarphr

Good stuff, but yours truly and others have been screaming about this for over a decade.  Take a look at one or two of these:

Human Resources/Brain Power

"No, I don't think a 68-year-old copywriter can write with the kids. That he's as creative. That he's as fresh. But he may be a better surgeon. His ad may not be quite as fresh and glowing as the Madison Ave. fraternity would like to see it be, and yet he might write an ad that will produce five times the sales. And that's the name of the game, isn't it?" - Rosser Reeves


Just for fun:

Never Leave The Hospital! Health Tech Wearables, Implanted Chips
huffington_post_logo1I'm having issues. I'm worried that the medical industry might want me to worry too much about my health. A little worry is good. But constant worry? It seems as if they want me to think of nothing else but my vital signs for the rest of my life.

Finally Live The Life You've Always Wanted With Wearables!
Along with Google Glasses, you'll also be wearing Google Nose and Google Mouth.

17 October 2014

JC Penney: The Store For Everyone

Brick & Mortar and catalogue of yore now online retailer JC Penney is grooming a new CEO:

J.C. Penney Seeks Home Depot Treatment Under Ellison
imageMarvin Ellison helped turn around Home Depot Inc. (HD) in the last decade. Now he’ll try to repeat that feat at J.C. Penney Co. (JCP)

The department-store chain, struggling to emerge from $3 billion in losses in the past 3 1/2 years, yesterday named Ellison its next president and chief executive officer.

The simplest of through lines, with much missing:

jcp1965The history of J.C. Penney goes back over 100 years.  In the 1960s Penney began to position itself as a middle America alternative to department stores (Macy’s, scores of others).  On the other end, it was more fashion-conscious than stodgy, dependable Sears. 

Then Target (also with a long though disjointed history) positioned itself as a hipper version of J.C. Penney. Other retailers followed. Now, Penney is perceived as almost as stodgy and behind-the-times as Sears was.

Time for a shakeup.

Mr. Ellison is given credit for helping to turn around Home Depot.  One of the reasons I like HD: age diversity.  I don’t go looking for some old person to help me, but they’re there.  And I know they have some idea of what I might have to go through utilizing a product, installing whatever– so they steer me in the right direction and give good advice.  If you’re a young’un, and you want to talk to a young’un – they’re there, too.

Somewhere in the above paragraph might be a clue for turning around J.C. Penney.

What about advertising?  Penney might study the age-neutral campaigns of Marks & Spencer:

05 October 2007
London & Marks & Spencer
…What fascinated me was walking into the store with my more-significant-than-I-am other and watching her riffle through the racks. She turned this way and that, being drawn to items for herself, her teenage daughter, and her twenty-something daughter. It was obvious that all three could shop together practically in the same spot.







There are plenty more – all the way up to today.  Search YouTube. 

And there’s this:

Marks & Spencer named as best retail brand at representing baby boomers, poll shows

JC Penney could (and should) be the store for everyone.