Whats Next in Tech for 2012? This is a question that I have been kicking around with some of my peers for the past month or so. There are many trends occurring in the mobile space, in the social space and in the commerce space that are fundamentally changing how consumers and users interact, share and complete transactions.

One thing to keep in mind is how both Apple IOS and Android are rapidly gaining in the number of handsets activated daily. As more and more consumers upgrade to smart phones and as technology costs drop, opportunity rises in the ways that new use cases can have huge consumer and business impact.

7 Tech Trends to watch out for in 2012

1. In-app purchasing from mobile apps becoming more common and will jump above 99 cents in many cases.

2. Digital goods becoming perceived as a more normal way to pay for entertainment

3. Social recommendation engines for products

4. Customer service increasing its Mobile touch points with consumers

5. Social Identity and ranking becoming more like your credit score

6. Location aware apps for connecting merchants with virtual fence technology

7. Your facebook identity connecting with your purchasing history across the web and in the real world

While I could have made this list much longer, I have chosen these 7 tech trends as what I see coming to reality in the year 2012.

Share this on:

New iPhone Social Game: Where’s Cuppy? The game is fun and simple. Download the iPhone app and snap a pic of you and your friends with you plastic red cup. Simple. Stupid. Pointless and Fun as hell. So grab a Sharpie marker… draw Cuppy’s face on the Cup and start taking pics.

The photos of Cuppy can be shared on Twitter and Facebook. There are leader boards for 9 Categories of Cuppy Photos. The pics are funny and this game is a great icebreaker at parties, the beach, the dorm, bars and while playing beer pong.

There is also a cool map that shows all the places that Cuppy has had his photo taken. The app also has some cool photo filters.

Download the App in iTunes now

Here are a few pics from the Where’s Cuppy iPhone app.

Follow WheresCuppy on Twitter
Where’s Cuppy on Facebook

Share this on:

Check out this Cool Guitar Giveaway on Plixi. It looks like a photo contest where you upload a photo with the hashtag #patrickstump to Plixi.com

Patrick Stump from Fall Out Boy has a new solo EP called Truant Wave. So upload your photo of you in your spotlight showing what you do best to be entered to win this Stump-O-Matic guitar.

You can see all the cool photos that have been entered in this live photo stream here: www.plixi.com/live/patrickstump

Details of the photo contest are here:

Share this on:

I have been at every facebook f8 event and lots of the early developer garages; unfortunately my startup work at TweetPhoto has me buried and I cant attend.

you will see tons of new product announcements. my thoughts are “like” and “geo places” and checkin with iphones are my predictions. Looks like keychain tokens as well

1500 people will be there; these events rock and facebook does it first class.

if you want to see all the great stuff happening at facebooks f8 live stream and tracks here

facebook f8 watching it stream live http://apps.facebook.com/feightlive/

Share this on:

Gravity Summit NYC is an event that I am producing on November 16. This event is unlike most social media events as it is focused on the business world with real case studies and best practices from brands that are doing it right.

Register NOW

8:30 AM — Registration – Prepare for the day (please be on time) Join us for a scrumptious breakfast and lots of networking.

9:00 AM — Welcome and Introduction Co—Hosts: Beverly Macy, Rodney Rumford
Setting the stage for a full day, we’ll introduce the core concepts of social media and review the speaker agenda. The take aways from this event will provide the attendees with the knowledge, perspectives and insights to the next wave of effects Twitter, social media and the real-time marketing are having on business.

9:10 AM — Social Media Marketing Overview, Beverly Macy, Gravity Summit
Beverly teaches Social Media Marketing at UCLA and works with clients at all levels to understand how social media tools fit into the traditional Integrated Marketing plan. She will discuss the social media marketing landscape, giving best practice examples of how major brands are using Social Media as a fast, efficient, and relatively low-cost way to get their message directly to an audience. Learn how companies from all industries are changing the ways in which they engage with their customers and associates.

9:20 AM – AM Keynote VML Inc., Mike Lundgren – Partner, Director Innovation Strategy– “How Social Media is affecting advertising and branding”
VML is a preeminent Young and Rubicam Brands partner company that was recently named a Leader in the Forrester Wave™: US Interactive Agencies – Strategy And Execution, Q3 2009. Mike Lundgren has been providing insights and thought leadership on emerging trends and disruptive technologies and innovation to the industry for many years and is a highly sought-after speaker on this topic. With advertising and the new technologies grabbing an ever greater share of the total advertising dollar, the need for accountability is greater now than ever. Join Mike for this bird’s eye view of how agencies are working with brands to implement social media campaigns to help ensure the best visibility in the market for the client and how this is affects businesses today.

9:40 AM – Syfy – Matthew Chiavelli, VP, Broadband & Mobile

Syfy has traditionally had a huge presence at Comic-Con San Diego, but took a different approach in July 2009 following the channel’s rebrand earlier that month. Part of Syfy’s presence was a free iPhone application that served as a Syfy companion piece allowing visitors at the convention to share their photos from the con as well as follow Syfy’s latest news coverage during the event. Hear Matthew discuss his role in the Syfy presence at Comic-con and the creation of the Syfy Comic-Con app.

10:05 AM – Twitter for Dummies, Laura Fitton, Author
Twitter has changed everything. Even businesses not using Twitter are affected by it because their clients, customers, partners, and competitors may already be in the “Twitterverse”. Called by some Twitter’s original Cinderella story or a “Queen” of Twitter, Laura “@Pistachio” Fitton is the founder of www.oneforty.com. Credited with explaining Twitter’s business value to Guy Kawasaki and dozens of other tech leaders, she’s been speaking professionally about the business use of Twitter since October 2007, and launched Pistachio Consulting, the first Twitter for Business consultancy, in September 2008.

10:25 AM – Networking Break

10:45 – AdWeek, Brian Morrisey, Digital Editor
Brian is the digital editor at Adweek, where he writes about innovative, effective ways companies reach consumers through digital channels. He’s reported on digital advertising for eight years for publications such as DM News, ClickZ and Silicon Alley Reporter. Find out how the industry views these changes from a 3rd party perspective. Who’s doing it right and what lessons can be learned by your business?

11:05 – Deep Focus, Ian Schafer, CEO
Deep Focus is the visionary creator of the “MadMen Yourself” social campaign for AMC’s hit series MadMen. Ian Schafer, President and Founder of Deep Focus, has been consistently redefining the way entertainment properties are marketed online. In 2002, Ian founded Deep Focus to bring a holistic suite of marketing and promotional solutions to the entertainment industry. Deep Focus’ current clients include America Online, Dimension Films, HBO, MGM, Universal Music Group, 20th Century Fox, and many others.

11:25 – Current Media, David Neuman, President of Programming
The Internet and social media has dramatically changed the landscape on how independent content producers can get exposure. Find out how Current Media has approached the new media market hat is about what’s going on in your world: all the things you and your friends are actually interested in — that you won’t find on any other news site or cable TV channel. David Neuman is Current’s President of Programming, overseeing content on three television networks (US, UK/Ireland, and Italy), as well as the original video featured on www.current.com. Neuman leads a team of over 200 creative personnel based mainly in San Francisco.

11:45 – Twitter & PhotoSharing to Drive Business Results, Rodney Rumford, Gravity Summit
Rodney is a major force in the social media world today. He will discuss Twitter as a Business Tool; how you choose to use that tool will be determined by what you want to use it for: ie. news distribution, customer service, sales, branding, extending product awareness, product launches, promotion, relationship building, etc. He is also the CEO of TweetPhoto, a new photo sharing service and will discuss the value of photo sharing in customer engagement.

12:05 —Bing, Paul Yiu, Group Program Manager – “Amplifying Twitter’s Value with Search”
A new era of search is emerging as real-time data from platforms like Twitter and Facebook integrate with search algorithms to build a smarter, more cohesive hierarchy of social content. As search begins to curate the real-time fire hose, businesses now have a unique opportunity to monitor awareness and the zeitgeist of conversation bubbling up around their brand. Paul Yiu, the lead program manager behind Bing’s recently announced integration with Twitter, will share how businesses can leverage the valuable conversations around their brand by using search to surface important trends and buzz-worthy topics from the Twittersphere.

12:30 – Networking Lunch

1:30 BUSINESS CASE STUDIES
The sudden emergence of social media has been happening for the last couple of years, but the importance of building communities online for brand awareness and increased revenue generation is just coming into focus. These speakers will explore the art of managing social communities and how this relates to media relations, customer service, and employee interaction with social media. They will also discuss the best practices as well as the lessons learned as they have ventured out into the new social media realm.

1:30 – Case Study Domino’s, Ramon deLeon, COO, Domino’s Chicago
1:45 – Case Study The Roxy Theater, Nic Adler, Owner
2:00 – Case Study Operation Smile, Renee Hamilton (former) Social Media Manager
2:15- Case Study TurboTax, Scott Gulbransen, Corporate Public Relations
2:30 – Case Study The Roger Smith Hotel, Adam Wallace, Brian Simpson
2:45 – Case Study, Columbia Records, Christian Schlager, Sr. Director, Digital Marketing

3:00 PM – Networking Break

3:20 PM – PM KEYNOTE, Larry Chiang, Author, “What They Don’t Teach You At Stanford Business School” and blogger for Business Week
Larry doesn’t believe the best business tips, strategies, techniques and ideas are always taught in b-school. “What They Don’t Teach You at Stanford Business School” is a sequel to a book that he did not write. The original book was written by his mentor, Mark McCormack. Larry’s blog posts for Business Week typically take an irreverent view of the technology market and the emerging “social web”, but his insights prove meaningful and helpful to businesses seeking to take a realistic view of how social media is affecting their company.

3:45 PM – Bringing It All Together – Which Tools to Use, How To Get Started Beverly Macy, Rodney Rumford
Discussion on how you can establish strategic objectives and ROI targets for successful social media campaigns. Find out how to get started in the Social Media world and move in the right direction to meet your business objectives.

4:10 PM – Expert Q&A
Prepare to put your new knowledge into action! Your brain is going to feel very, very full.

4:30 PM – Adjourn

5:30 PM –TWEETUP /After Party at The Roger Smith Hotel – FREE and open to everyone

Share this on:

Facebook has had Twitter envy for the past 6 months.It was only a matter of time before facebook got it right and allowed actions on their site to jump over the facebook wall. Facebook just announced that you will be able to publish from facebook pages to twitter. Smart move for a variety of reason; the best of which it simply leverages a more friction free ecosystem to drive users back to facebook. I just hope that Twitter does not crush under the weight of these new flurry of tweets that are certain to come flowing from facebook.

This also makes Twittter even more valuable as a communication channel and will undoubtedly drive higher adoption of Twitter. Fasten your seat belts; I predict a bumpy ride.

Here is the blog post from the facebook team.

Publishing to Twitter from Facebook Pages

Many people have asked us to make Facebook and Twitter work better together for those times when they want to share their content as widely as possible. We agree. Over the next few days, we will be releasing a feature that allows administrators of Facebook Pages to publish their Facebook updates to their Twitter accounts automatically.

Public figures, musicians, businesses and organizations of all types who’ve created Facebook Pages often want to share a status update, a photo or an event with as many of their supporters as possible. Celebrities may want to share personal news or charities may want to put out calls for help to both their Facebook fans and their Twitter followers, all at the same time.

If you manage a Facebook Page, you now will be able to decide whether to share updates with their Twitter followers, and you also will be able to control what type of updates to share: status updates, links, photos, notes, events or all of them. If you have multiple Pages, you will have the option to link each of those Pages to different Twitter accounts. This new feature will only link Facebook Pages to Twitter, not your individual profile. It will soon be available at http://www.facebook.com/twitter.

A number of celebrities and organizations on Facebook are already using this feature to publish the content on their Facebook Page to Twitter and reach a wider audience. They include Dane Cook, LIVESTRONG, The World Wildlife Fund, and the NBA, WNBA and D-League.

We are always looking to make it easy for you to use Facebook with your favorite websites and applications. Facebook Connect allows you to bring your Facebook profile with you across the Web. We recently worked with Yahoo to integrate your Facebook experience into Yahoo’s new homepage; we’ve built our own Firefox and iPhone applications in-house; and we built tools to help you bring your content from YouTube, Hulu and other sites into your Facebook profile.

Twitter was a natural next step to link with Facebook Pages because it is a powerful tool for broadcasting short messages widely.

I was able to build this new feature from start to finish as a summer engineering intern. Next month I’ll head back to school, but I’m excited to see my work here live on through all of the people who now will both share on Facebook and tweet on Twitter right from their Facebook Pages.

Share this on:

Here is a quick rundown of the final stats after today’s Michael Jackson Memorial service for the King of Pop. You were able to see users status updates that were entered on the CNN site and connected back to users facebook accounts. At one point in the morning users were posting Approx 6,000 status updates per minute.

There were a total of about 1 million users posting approximately 800,000 status updates on Facebook related to the live online broadcasts by CNN, E! Online, ABC and MTV of the Michael Jackson memorial service. Here is a breakdown by website:

CNN:
733,000 status updates
759,000 Facebook users viewing broadcast
6,000 updates/minute at the peak

E! Online:
9,000 status updates
87,000 Facebook users viewing broadcast

ABC:
48,000 status updates
97,000 Facebook users viewing broadcast

MTV:
5,000 status updates
21,000 Facebook users viewing broadcast

For context, there were 1.8 million Facebook status updates with the word “Obama” on Inauguration Day in the U.S. – an event that was broadly publicized for months leading up to it. I find it interesting that MTV the station that launched Michael Jackson into video stardom is at the bottom of the pile here; it’s because MTV has strayed too far from thier roots of music and have dived into the minutia of really bad reality programming.

Additionally…
• The Michael Jackson page www.facebook.com/michaeljackson has grown to have nearly 7 million fans, possibly making it the largest single following of any public figure on the Web and 1 million more than President Obama’s page on Facebook
• The free Michael Jackson glove virtual gift is the most popular in Facebook history with over 800,000 given away
• The Michael Jackson memorial GroupCard received signatures from Facebook users around the world

Share this on:

Since the Iranian election last week, people around the world have increasingly been sharing news and information on Facebook about the results and its aftermath. Much of the content created and shared on Facebook related to these events has been in Persian – the native language of Iran – but the users have had to navigate the site in English or other languages.

Today Facebook will be making the entire site available in a test version of Persian, so Persian speakers inside of Iran and around the world can begin using it in their native language.

Persian was already in translation before worldwide attention turned to the Iranian elections, but because of the sudden increase in activity we decided to launch it sooner than planned. This means that the translation isn’t perfect, but we felt it was important to help more people communicate rather than wait.

If your browser is set to Persian, you should automatically see the Persian version of Facebook. If you’d like to change your language into Persian, go here: or click on the “Settings” link in the upper-right corner of any page and then go to the “Language” tab. You then can select the language you want from the drop-down menu.

We could not have made this happen so quickly without the more than 400 Persian speakers who submitted thousands of individual translations of the site. Thanks to everyone who has contributed so far. If you speak Persian or any language not yet completely translated, you can help as well by using the Translations application:

Share this on:

This is an event that I am producing. We have had 2 previous events at UCLA and Stanford that sold out and the feedback from attendees was phenomenal. We educate, inform and empower the attendees by having tier 1 presenters that share actual case studies, best practices and lessons learned.

This event is different from any “social media event” that you might have attended previously. This is why I created www.gravitysummit.com It is designed to address what I felt were the short comings of most social media conferences.

It is held at the faculty club of universities because our focus is education and bridging the gap for business professionals. We focus on helping you learn and not feel overwhelmed and you will walk away with ideas to implement immediately after the event. the pricing link is for early bird pricing. I encourage you to share with your peers or people that you feel would benefit from this very special event.

Tickets For Gravity Summit at UC Irvine

AGENDA

SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING FOR BUSINESS AT
University of California, Irvine Faculty Club
Monday, June 22, 2009

Special Thanks to our TITLE Sponsors: TurboTax and Quicken
Special Thanks to our Key Sponsors: Cisco Systems; Visible Technologies and TweetPhoto

8:30 AM — Registration – Prepare for the day (please be on time)
Join us for a scrumptious breakfast and lots of networking.

9:00 AM — Welcome and Introduction
Co—Hosts: Beverly Macy, Rodney Rumford
Setting the stage for a full day, we’ll introduce the core concepts of social media and review the speaker agenda.

9:15 AM — Social Media Marketing Overview
Beverly Macy
Beverly teaches Social Media Marketing at UCLA and works with clients at all levels to understand how social media tools fit into the traditional Integrated Marketing plan. She will discuss the social media marketing landscape, giving best practice examples of how major brands are using Social Media as a fast, efficient, and relatively low-cost way to get their message directly to an audience. Learn how companies from all industries are changing the ways in which they engage with their customers and associates.

9:45 AM — AM KEYNOTE: Marketing Your Way Out of the Recession: How Marketers Are Reconnecting With Their Customers Using Social Media
John Gerzema, Chief Insights Officer and Brand Economist for Young & Rubicam and the author of the bestselling book, “The Brand Bubble”
John will set the tone for the day and share how marketers are reconnecting with their customers using social media. Hear firsthand about the four cultural values shifts shaping new consumer strategies and brand behavior. To each behavior, John will demonstrate how marketers are reconnecting with their customers using social media, search, inventive pricing, distribution and ideas beyond traditional communications. Learn how John has guided brand strategies to global business and creative acclaim. Learn more about his thoughts and the book here.

10:30 AM — Networking Break

10:45 AM — Using Twitter and PhotoSharing to Drive Business Results
Rodney Rumford: Founder of Gravity Summit
Rodney is a major force in the social media world today, and is frequently quoted in the media and published on the subject. He will discuss Twitter as a Business Tool; how you choose to use that tool will be determined by what you want to use it for: ie. news distribution, customer service, sales, branding, extending product awareness, product launches, promotion, relationship building, etc. He is also the CEO of TweetPhoto, a new photo sharing service and will discuss the value of photo sharing in customer engagement.

11:30 AM — DOMINO’S Case Study: Using Twitter, YouTube, Facebook to Drive Revenue in this Economy
Ramon De Leon (aka DPZRAMON), Operating Partner, Domino’s Pizza Chicago
As an owner of multiple Domino’s Pizza locations, DPZRamon will share how his stores are using social media platforms to THRIVE in this economy. –DPZRAMON will also discuss how social media has been a critical tool for communicating with customers during crisis situations, – we all recall the recent YouTube prank video – in addition to building brand awareness and increasing sales.
-
12:00 PM — Networking Lunch

1:00 PM — PM KEYNOTE Building Passionate Communities Around Your Products
INTUIT, Christine Morrison Intuit Social Marketing Manager
Christine is a savvy brand marketer who has helped steer Intuit, one of America’s most admired companies with revenues topping $3 billion, to great success using social media to market its flagship tax software products. . What does Social Media have to do with taxes? Believe it or not, there are passionate users of TurboTax and Quicken and Christine’s keynote will outline how the company leveraged an integrated marketing and social media campaign, “FreeLoader Nation,” that included a new relationship with MySpace to build passionate communities around the products for the 2009 tax season Intuit’s hugely successful FreeLoader Nation campaign dished out access to the TurboTax Online Free Edition and other free stuff, including concerts with today’s hottest bands through MySpace Secret Shows, which boasts nearly 500,000 friends and offers members the ability to attend free performances by their favorite artists in small, intimate venues.

1:45 PM — SO CAL ACTION SPORTS NETWORK – How Online Collaboration is Helping Top Brands Capitalize on the Growing Action Sports Industry
Bryan Elliott, Chairman
Social media is more than just building brand awareness, it’s creating communities for businesses to collaborate, partner and generate cross-marketing and promotional opportunities. Learn from Bryan how members of SoCalAction Sports Network such as Boost Mobile, Best Buy and Microsoft are joining key influencers, experts and trend-setters in lifestyle marketing, Gen Y and the youth culture movement online to connect with one another and with their brand fans.

2:15 PM — VISIBLE TECHNOLOGIES – Ready to Join the Conversation Online? Tools for Reaching the Right Influencers
Blake Cahill, SVP of Marketing
Learn why companies such as DIRECTV are employing the TruCast(r) platform for social media analysis and participation in order to participate in the right conversations with the right influencers at the right time to bolster brands and grow revenue.

2:45 PM – Networking Break

3:00 PM — PANEL: Building and Managing Successful Online Communities
Moderator: Angie Swartz, Twitter Talk Radio
Lauren Kozak, SMM Manager for Britney Spears
Scott Gulbransen, SMM Manger for Intuit
Karen Sohl, Director Worldwide Corporate Marketing, Cisco Systems
Steve Patrizi, VP Sales and Marketing, LinkedIn
The emergence of social media has been happening for the last couple of years, but the importance of building communities online for brand awareness and increased revenue generation is just coming into focus. These new techniques are game-changing to every traditional discipline and strategy in marketing and public relations. This prestigious group of panelists have earned every scar they have through real world experience, and that has resulted in them becoming sharp practitioners in the largely uncharted territory of social media. This panel will explore the art of managing social communities and how this relates to media relations, branding management, employee interaction with social media, and executive, crisis, and internal communications.

4:00 PM – How to Get Started, Which Tools to Use.
Beverly Macy, Rodney Rumford
Discussion on how you can establish strategic objectives and ROI targets for successful social media campaigns. Find out how to get started in the Social Media world and move in the right direction to meet your business objectives.

4:15 PM – Expert Q&A

4:30 PM — Adjourn
Prepare to put your new knowledge into action! Your brain is going to feel very, very full.

5:30 –TWEETUP / MeetUp at Bistango’s in Irvine Sponsored by Visible Technologies, Inc.

Get Your Tickets For Gravity Summit at UC Irvine Now

SPEAKER BIOS

Beverly Macy
Seminar Co-Host

Beverly W. Macy is Managing Partner of Y&M Partners LLC, a strategic advisory company in Beverly Hills, CA. Y&M Partners offers services in business development, marketing, branding, and corporate finance. Clients have included Boeing, Qualcomm, Anthem, PacifiCare, ReachMD, and Inovus Solar. Macy spent 14 years at Xerox Corporation in global sales and marketing and began her career at Wang Laboratories in software development. She teaches Executive Marketing Courses, including Social Media and Global Branding, at UCLA and lectures at USC. She is a “biz dev diva”, a social media marketing specialist, a healthcare futurist, and a credentialed business author. Her newest course, Social Media Marketing, was launched in the Fall 2008 Semester. She is a published business writer, and speaks professionally. She has been active in community service for the past 20 years.

Rodney Rumford
Seminar Co-Host

Rodney has spent over 21 years in technology. He is a true visionary and has authored books on Social Media, Twitter, Business Blogging & Podcasting. He has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Fortune, Business Week, Business 2.0 and numerous Associated Press & Reuters articles. His sites have also been featured in the acclaimed “For Dummies” series of books.
Rodney has been involved with the Facebook f8 platform since its launch. He is the founder & CEO Gravitational Media, a new media agency that has helped many Fortune 100 clients as well as hundreds of small businesses. His company www.GravitationalMedia.com provides Businesses Strategy, Marketing, Ideation and Technology Consulting to help Brands Engage in Social Networks. Clients include Vivendi, Mountain Dew, Pfizer, Simon & Schuster, Seth Godin and many more. He is also the Publisher of www.FaceReviews.com which rates & reviews Facebook applications, as well as provides news and strategy insights about social media trends. He currently resides in Solana Beach, CA

Share this on:

Amigo for FriendFeed Rating:

I have been working with David Hinson who is an amazingly talented developer and i had the privilege of being one of the beta tester of his latest iPhone creation: Amigo for Friend Feed.

I did some of the testing of the app and watched it evolve into an amazingly full featured application that does virtually anything that you would want a Friend Feed app to do. I felt like i did not even have to go to the web site as the app is that robust. I really like the way it operates in the landscape mode too which is really slick.

It allows you to view the home stream, public stream, rooms, lists and subscriptions.
You can also easily search.
Quickly view comments and likes and the people attached to them.
Easily see users profiles.
Post messages and comments
like/unlike messages
subscribe/unsubscribe users
operate in landscape mode

There are even more features coming in future versions, but i have to say that this app is now my default iPhone app for Friend Feed.

Check out the overview video of Amigo for FriendFeed

You can go get your copy in the apple iTunes store here.

You can see another detailed screen shot of it here on Tweetphoto.com

Share this on: