Silicon Valley Takeaways

I spent this past week in the Bay Area (San Francisco & Silicon Valley), spending half a day walking the expo hall at ad:Tech, a full day with a vertical ad network and various meetings with an online couponing company, a proximity marketing company, a printer ink refill franchisor, attended a "Tweet-Up" and had lunch with mobile marketing/local directional media expert. Interspersed with all this was watching some of local Bay Area news and absorbing my surroundings.


Besides acknowledging the fabulous weather & wonderful scenery, here are my Top 10 Takeaways (not in any particular order):

10. The Information coming through the Internet Fire Hose is overwhelming & needs advanced filtering

9. Not everyone in Silicon Valley is using Twitter

8. Traditional media is accelerating its efforts to figure out how to leverage all the new ways to communicate and advertise. Targeting & Transparency will win the day.

7. Most people in downtown SF walk with their heads down staring at their mobile device only looking up at street corners & when an impending pedestrian on pedestrian collision seems imminent.

6. I love coffee but seem to love it even more when there's coffee on every corner

5. There are a lot of new digital companies (displaying at ad:Tech) with solutions looking for problems with low odds of finding them.

4. Scale is truly a fleeting commodity

3. The out of work, under employed, laid off people and smart recent college graduates looking for work out there is nearly epidemic.

2. Proximity marketing has an incredible future as more people wear their Bluetooth devices more often.

1. Tweet-Up = A New Social Norm/Marketing Opportunity

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OK, So there's LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook - Now what?

I had dinner Friday Night with some very close friends/co-workers who know my passion for new technology but aren't very focused on it themselves. I found myself in a discussion about social media, specifically LinkedIn, Twitter & lastly Facebook. Wanting to learn more, they asked me if I'd do a "class" on how to "productively" use LinkedIn and help them understand why Twitter has become a phenomenon (the noise about @aplusk vs. @CNN has bubbled it up to the mainstream this week).

It got me thinking about other friends & co-workers who have casually sought my help in the past & might want some instruction on how to use these new social tools. Sure, if you troll the Internet enough, you will find lots of suggestions, how-to's, tips, tricks, etc. But, how do you filter it down to a level that is relevant for US -- i.e. "seasoned" adults, parents & professionals - who aren't digitally savvy or have the time to get there - but want to learn?

So I'm thinking there's an opportunity for me to share what I know and help friends and colleagues translate this new technology into usage that is truly valuable.

If you think so too, would you mind giving me some input. Either complete this quick 10 question survey, or leave me a comment.

Thank you!

Todd

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News of this week

In my ongoing assertion that the velocity of the digital inflection point is increasing, here's some more news of the week that I found of interest:

• Facebook announces 200 million members If they were a country they'd be the 4th largest on the planet.

• Apple's iTunes iPhone/iPod App Store has its 1 billionth application downloaded today and Netflix delivered its 2 billionth movie on April 1st. It took them 8 years to deliver their first billion and just over two years to get the 2nd.

• CBS's March Madness Online Streaming traffic was up 75% over last year. 7.5 million unique users compared to 4.7 million last year and 1.8 million in 2007.

• The NFL is using "Ghost" Facebook accounts to gain personal intelligence about potential draft choice's. Scary! Who else is spying on you?

• More than 97% of all emails sent are unwanted according to a Microsoft security report published this week.
  

• AT&T uses Twitter to inform cell phone subscribers about outages. Smart!

• Homer Simpson will be a new 44 cent stamp on May 7th.

Well maybe Homer has nothing to do with it, but his face on a stamp that will cost another penny is a sign of the time, no?

What do you think?

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News of the Week - What does it all mean?

I found the news of the week to really be a sign of the times....

• 1 million Skype iPhone application downloads in 48 hours - story
• The parent company of Verizon's Yellow Pages, Idearc, files for voluntary bankruptcy
• President Obama gave the Queen of England an iPod
• Twitter's co-founder, Biz Stone, appeared on the Colbert Report
• Google's making money from Twitter & rumored to want to buy it.
• 56% of the opening weekend box office revenue of Aliens vs. Monsters came from theatres showing it in 3-D - costing $2-4 more per ticket - story
• 45% drop in tech job availability on tech job board - Dice.com - story
• The Boston Globe threatens to shut down

And lastly, to round out the week, Robert Reich, posts a blog after the March unemployment numbers were released suggesting unemployed and underemployed is now 1 in 6 Americans and we are in a depression (albeit not nearly the "Great Depression").

I'm not sure yet what it all means but it's surely a clear indication of massive change we, and our children, need to aggressively deal with!

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