Armchair Theorist

Note: This article was originally published on iMediaConnection.com.

More so than ever before, progressive companies today are exploring the use of experimental digital marketing to help them gain an edge over their competitors. Explore how organizations are leveraging technologies from companies like Microsoft and Adobe to build next-generation online experiences for innovative and experimental marketing.

There are many different kinds of experimental marketing techniques in the arsenal of a digital marketer today. However, I would like to focus on one particular kind of digital marketing tactic today, which is to leverage rich interactive user experiences to market your brand. This tactic can potentially not only increase customer loyalty, but also improve customer interaction as well as increase lead generation.

The idea is simple, although it’s easier said than done:

1. Build an online website, which may be a long-term micro site or an extension of one’s main company website.
2. The website is commonly promoted as a online reference or even a game, instead of a glorified online brochure.
3. Most importantly, this website must offer users an experience that is so cool, that they will have a reason to come back again and again, even though they may already be familiar with your company or product.

A good example of a forward-looking company which successfully leveraged this tactic is Hard Rock International.

Hard Rock Memorabilia

Since its inception in 1971, Hard Rock Café has accumulated over 70,000 pieces of rock memorabilia, which is physically scattered all around the world in its 146 restaurants and venues. In late 2007, Duncan/Channon, Hard Rock International’s worldwide marketing agency, proposed that its client share that collection – beyond the confines of its Cafes, Hotels and Casinos – with the entire world. This would also help Hard Rock to emphasize the authenticity of the company’s brand and to differentiate it from mass-market theme restaurants and hotel chains.

Duncan/Channon, together with interactive agency Vertigo, built the Hard Rock Memorabilia website using Microsoft’s Silverlight and Deep Zoom technology to bring users a unique online museum experience showcasing close to 900 pieces of the company’s memorabilia.

What is unique about this Webby-honored virtual museum is that the technology literally allows the users to zoom in and interact with the displayed objects in a way that is both unique and natural. Beyond horizontal and vertical scrolling, viewers can seamlessly zoom in – extremely close – to an object or group of objects to inspect its every detail and to learn the history behind that object. Over 2 billion pixels worth of memorabilia images were available on the site for inspection by the users using a simple user interface.

Here are five reasons why the Hard Rock Memorabilia site was successful as a digital marketing tool:

1. By empowering the users to closely inspect and interact with the memorabilia, the technology helped build an online experience which was able to capture the tangible spirit of rock ‘n’ roll. As Sean Dee, Chief Marketing Officer at Hard Rock International said, “Hard Rock’s Memorabilia site reinforces that our brand stands for that personal, authentic connection fans have with rock ‘n’ roll music and its heroes.”
2. As an online museum that constantly keeps its contents up-to-date, the Hard Rock Memorabilia site gave users ample reason to return to the site, and to develop loyalty with the brand. The site launched in early 2008 with only 500 items and gradually grew to the 900 items on display today, which resulted in an increase in site stickiness.
3. It also helped attract new visitors to Hard Rock’s website solely based on the attraction of the memorabilia museum. After the memorabilia site launched in early 2008, the Alexa ranking for the entire hardrock.com domain improved by about 50%.
4. The fun and interactive way the content is displayed in the virtual museum also dramatically improved the average time spent per user on the Hard Rock website. The more time users spent on the memorabilia website, the more time users will likely spend on the rest of the Hard Rock website.
5. Finally, the memorabilia museum also acted as a useful lead generation and referral tool. Every single piece of memorabilia is marked with the physical Hard Rock location that the item is located at. Users who are interested can follow direct URL links to the various Hard rock venues to conveniently find out information about the venue for an offline visit. Some items even provide direct URL links to the Hard Rock online store, thus giving the user a convenient way to make a purchase.

Building a rich and sticky web presence may not be an easy or cheap undertaking, but if it is done right, it can be a potentially rewarding one. As Hard Rock has clearly demonstrated, a well-executed online digital initiative can yield a very real and tangible ROI. Finally, web technologies from companies like Microsoft and Adobe are readily available today for companies to jumpstart the development of their own rich interactive websites.

OK, I really have to stop using that silly “un-prefix” gimmick.

unConference 2009 came and went this past Saturday. Except for a few technical glitches early on, the event was very dynamic and well-run, which is expected for an e27 event.

Like I mentioned in my pre-coverage of the event, I was really stoked to go, and thankfully I wasn’t disappointed one bit.

After last year’s Unconference (notice the subtle difference in the capitalization? Ah… branding), I hunkered down and wrote a 1800 word essay on the event.

Well, this year I’m not going to do that, for a couple reasons:

• Firstly, I really don’t want to write 1800 words for any single essay again. Ever.
• Secondly, whatever verbiage I can come up with at 3am on a weekday night won’t be able to top the great coverage already provided by folks like Young Upstarts, Andy Croll and Techgoondu. So I’m not going to bother.
• And lastly, we already have a perfect play-by-play coverage of the entire unConference 2009 from beginning to end, along with every opinion, emotion, commentary, and reaction attached to it, organized in one neat information stream for your consumption pleasure. It’s called Twitter, and really folks – it’s the next big thing.

So… I’m gonna do something different this year instead.

You know how you study two years of macroeconomics during university and the only thing you really get out of it is supply and demand?

Or you went through three years of physics in high school and the only thing you remember is E=mc^2?

Well, unConference 2009 had a lot of speakers, and all of them spoke a lot during the event. I’m gonna try and distill every session into just a few key lessons for your easy consumption. Saves me time, and saves you time.

Without further ado, here it goes. All the topic titles are copied verbatim from the official unConference schedule. I will only comment on sessions I actually attended in person.

Keynote – Market Size, Not Magic! (Scott Rafer)

• Lesson 1: Copying is OK and in fact encouraged.
  In fact, here is Scott’s money quote (via Andy Croll): “If you see something working well: copy it. There is no such thing as new ideas only good execution. It’s the right thing to do, just change the 20% you need to to make it work for your users.” So don’t spend so much time coming up with original ideas to change the world! Instead your startup should focus on what will likely be my new favorite phrase for the next few months, “innovation arbitrage”.
• Lesson 2: Always look to exit.
  Don’t bother about building a long-lasting company. Aim for achieving a turnover of over $1m-3m USD a year within 36 months and get the heck out!
• Lesson  3: A startup is really just about the math.
  It’s all about market size. The recommendation for success? Be late to market, be boring, copy, compete on price in targeted markets with enough potential users.
• Lesson 4: Google is EVIL.
  I didn’t say that. Scott did.

Panel – Innovation in Asia and Where is it heading? (Benjamin Joffe, Lu Gang, Lai Kok Fung, Wong Hoong An and Scott Rafer)

• Lesson 1: In panel discussions with five seasoned entrepreneurs, don’t bother paying any attention to the panel title.
  The moderator and speakers had a very entertaining and lively discussion around everyone’s own experience in their own startups, but the session had absolutely nothing to do with “Innovation in Asia and Where is it heading”. Not that I minded though.
• Lesson 2: An entrepreneur has to be like a cockroach.
• Lesson 3: Businesses pay, consumers don’t.
• Lesson 4: Good ideas always emerge over beer.
  Last three lessons courtesy of Hoong An from HungryGoWhere.com.
• Lesson 5: Freebies (either legal or illegal) will bring in traffic.
  Words from Dr. Lai, spoken in front of no doubt many government representatives within the audience. He’s just warming up for what was coming up in the next session.
• Lesson 6: Cloud Computing is the biggest competitor to venture capitalists.
  As a cloud computing evangelist, I definitely agree with Scott Rafer on this point. Imagine being able to slash your upfront infrastructure expenditure by over 95%. Who still needs VC money?
• Lesson 7. Google is EVIL.
  Again, not my sentiment, but implied by the panelists.

Talk by MDA (Priscilla Joy from MDA)

• Lesson 1: When you have an audience consisting of 85% males, expect “male-like” behavior when a hot girl is presenting on stage.
  No need to rehash what happened here; Young Upstarts covered it well in his blog post (along with visuals, courtesy of Hisham). At least she seemed like a good sport about it.
• Lesson 2: Old successful entrepreneurs that are past a certain threshold of age or success won’t show you any mercy, no matter how hot you are.

Breakout Session 3: Trends on Online Social Networks in Asia: Where and when it is heading (Bernard Leong)

• Lesson 1: Twitterfall is an awesome tool for live tweeting events.
  This weekend was the first time I’ve ever used it, and I became an instant fan.
• Lesson 2: Yung-Hui Lim from GreyReview is an absolute Twitter monster.
  He can simultaneously pay attention to Bernard’s talk, speak with the guys from Malaysia Entrepreneurs, show me how Wolfram|Alpha works, and still be able to pump out about 10 tweets a minute! That’s just godly…
• Lesson 3: You can’t make money out of Friendster.
  Claims Tyler Projects, creators of the uber-popular Facebook game, Battle Stations.
• Lesson 4: There are a whole bucketload more social networks in the world today than just the US-centric Facebook and MySpace.
  From Chinese Facebook-ripoff Xiaonei to dating-free Japanese network mixi to private luxury social network SENATUS, there are literally dozens of other successful social network services around the world, particularly outside of the US. And there are no economic moats in social networks.

Conclusion

Just like last year, this year’s unConference was a blast – but perhaps doubly so. The quality of content, interactions, and attendees are simply a step up from last year. And the whole place constantly had an air of vibrancy and excitement surrounding it.

Here’s hoping that next year’s unConference will be a two-day event. Just make sure you fix the Wi-Fi, clear the toilets, and triple-check the auditorium projector next time.

Regardless, I will definitely attend unConference again next year. Great job, e27!

Startups

You didn’t think I would finish this post without mentioning the 32 startups, did you? Ha!

Well… I am actually tempted to skip this part, since I’m pushing 1000 words already, and there were simply too many startups this time around for me to give a detailed rundown of all of them like I did for Unconference 2008.

Instead, I’m going to pass the buck and point you to Aaron Koh’s 30 second interviews with some of the startups at unConference this year. Alex (a.k.a. Mr. Steel) also has written some capsule reviews of the nine startups who did their pitch in front of the audience.

However, I’ll leave you with this. Here are the three startups that I saw on Saturday that I feel have the most potential. And not just commercial potential, but game-changing potential.

Thus, apologies to Klout, iTwin and OrSiSo – all promising startups with cool products that I love – since I would not consider them as game-changing… yet.

Here are the three startups with game-changing potential, in my opinion:

1. eJAMMING AUDiiO – Social network + bands + live broadcasts + music collaboration. Despite it’s unwieldly name, there are seriously so many possibilities this startup can pursue. Online concerts, musical training, artiste management, entertainment, you name it. If executed properly, eJamming has potential to evolve into the next MySpace. Seriously.
2. Human Network Labs (HNL) – These folks have an unique RF-based locationing technology that have serious potential. Have you seen the Microsoft Productivity Vision video yet? That kind of scenario (particulary the scene at the airport) is precisely enabled by technologies like this. If they can figure out how to distribute their chipset out to every single mobile device (before the handset makers come up with their own technology), the sky is really the limit for HNL.
3. MakeAffinity – This two-man outfit is seriously flying under the radar. They weren’t even one of the nine startups to pitch in the main session. Yet, I find their concept so alluring – a YouTube-like service, but instead of users contributing videos, users can contribute interfaces to their own real-world robots and hardware devices, which can then be used by other users. And all this is done over the Internet! Talk about bringing “user-generated content” to a new level. How much will you pay to be able to safely play with and fire a machine gun at a shooting range situated in another continent? Or remotely control a deep sea submarine for some underwater sightseeing? And we haven’t even started looking at what applications the porn industry can come up with.

Finally, the last word: If I were a VC and I absolutely must invest in one of the 32 startups and nothing else, I will have to say I will choose… eJAMMING AUDiiO.

Update: Singapore Entrepreneurs also wrote a pretty comprehensive report for the event. Fresh Baked Web also had a short writeup on the event.

I had a great time at the unConference last year. I even blogged about it.

Naturally, I was really looking forward to this year’s unConference organized by e27. As I went ahead and visited the event website last week to register, I looked over the event details:

Same place…

Same time (almost)…

But many times the price… What? Ticket prices this year are three to six times more than last year’s prices?

Since the unConference last year and through various events since then, I have gotten to know Mohan Belani, e27’s young director, reasonably well. So I needed a straight answer from him – Wat up with da ticket prices this year?

So I messaged him over Windows Live Messenger a few nights ago, and we ended up chatting about a whole bunch of stuff – from startups to Southeast Asia to Microsoft to branding and even the science of managing expectations. Oh yeah, and about the unConference also.

Anyway, here’s the transcript:

Jonathan said (11:44 PM): Dude!

Mohan Belani says (11:44 PM): how u been man

Jonathan says (11:45 PM): not too bad.

Jonathan says (11:48 PM): Anyway, I put a banner to unConference on my blog – I also want to do a pre-event interview with e27 for a blog post. I had a great time last year. looking forward to this year

Mohan Belani says (11:48 PM): appreciate it. i hope the event will be better this year

Jonathan says (11:49 PM): well, looking at the program so far – it certainly looks like it will trump last year!

Mohan Belani says (11:50 PM): yup, that’s what i hope too man. should have done it 2 days though. internally, we regret it now

Jonathan says (11:50 PM): Well, there’s always next year. Anyway, this year’s speakers seem to have a heavy “international flavor” to it.

Mohan Belani says (11:53 PM): yeah, you noticed the theme this year

Jonathan says (11:53 PM): Singapore may be in a recession, but I think China is where all the action is right now

Mohan Belani says (11:55 PM): Yeah, Singapore is alright, but honestly, the market here is limited

Jonathan says (11:55 PM): But frankly speaking – and you will know a lot better than I – don’t you think the entrepreneurial community in Singapore is really picking up these last couple years?

Jonathan says (11:56 PM): I mean for once we have startups that are comparable in technology and quality to those you can find in Silicon Valley, like gothere.sg, fusion Garage, etc.

Jonathan says (11:56 PM): And don’t forget the government here loves to give out money to startups

Mohan Belani says (11:57 PM): very true… fusion Garage is a true example, but they had their roots way back in 2002. gothere.sg is cool, but i’m just worried that they don’t have a scaling strategy. but i definitely do laud Singapore startups for getting this far

Mohan Belani says (11:58 PM): I used to naively think that southeast asia had a market (this was way back in 2006)

Mohan Belani says (11:58 PM): language, culture, uneven broadband penetration, social/political issues

Mohan Belani says (11:59 PM): sadly, unless southeast asia bundles up, the market is gonna be overly fragmented

Jonathan says (11:59 PM): Any startup in Singapore must immediately think of Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, and even China markets to start

Mohan Belani says (11:59 PM): brilliant. you got the point. now u totally understand the theme for unConference 2009

Mohan Belani says (11:59 PM): i hope to pass this message to all of the Singapore startups

Jonathan says (11:59 PM): Which is sad when I see like successful local startups like HungryGoWhere.com, Yum.sg, gothere.sg and stuff all focusing on the Singapore market. That’s too bad.

Mohan Belani says (12:00 AM): HungryGoWhere actually did an excellent job with scaling (that’s why they’re on the unConference panel). they managed to penetrate Hong Kong, which had entrenched competition, and even Australia!

Jonathan says (12:01 AM): Cool! I didn’t know they were in Hong Kong and Australia!

Mohan Belani says (12:01 AM): same here, i didn’t know until i spoke to Hoong An, and boy did they do an amazing job with scaling

Mohan Belani says (12:02 AM): actually, every panelist on the panel, has a specific market outside Singapore that they’re company has captured

Jonathan says (12:02 AM): I think that’s a great message for this year

Mohan Belani says (12:03 AM): i think i did a poor job of communicating this message in the website. darn

Jonathan says (12:03 AM): It’s alright – I think the unConference will still get more than enough attendees

Mohan Belani says (12:04 AM): yea.. ironically, a high majority of the people who have paid so far are folks we have never met. so we’re wondering why our “regular” folks aren’t signing up yet

Jonathan says (12:04 AM): Well, Sometimes, I feel the tech/blogger community here may have a bit of a sense of entitlement

Jonathan says (12:05 AM): it’s like they feel that they should be invited to the event for free or something

Mohan Belani says (12:05 AM): EXACTLY! fark!

Jonathan says (12:05 AM): And ironically, I’m speaking for myself too! hahaha

Jonathan says (12:05 AM): It’s also a matter of expectations

Jonathan says (12:06 AM): You see – last year, the ticket cost was dirt cheap. $10 bucks right?

Mohan Belani says (12:07 AM): yup

Jonathan says (12:07 AM): This year, it ballooned up to what $60 even for early bird tickets?

Mohan Belani says (12:07 AM): $30 for early bird

Jonathan says (12:07 AM): ok. $30 – which is still 3x last year’s price

Mohan Belani says (12:07 AM): yes agreed, but if u compare both events, its a much bigger leap

Jonathan says (12:08 AM): That is true, but…

Mohan Belani says (12:08 AM): it’s really a very big leap from last year

Jonathan says (12:08 AM): but that is not something that is immediately apparent from the website and other communications that you guys sent out!

Mohan Belani says (12:08 AM): agreed

Jonathan says (12:08 AM): People will still see that – oh, it’s still at the same venue… it’s still the same duration (fine, it’s a bit longer this year)

Jonathan says (12:09 AM): Yes, you guys got foreign speakers this year – fine, but folks assume that your sponsors cover all that

Mohan Belani says (12:09 AM): (they don’t)

Mohan Belani says (12:09 AM): lol… but yes, i agree with your points

Jonathan says (12:09 AM): so why is e27 charging me 3 to 6 times more money this year? That’s what everyone will think

Jonathan says (12:10 AM): And an Unconference by definition – I guess is sort of like a BarCamp – has a certain grassroots or bottom-up feeling to it

Mohan Belani says (12:10 AM): the funny thing is that we made a lot of these comparisons clear from the start… through the site (speakers and startups are right on the front page) and through multiple blog posts comparing last year’s and this year’s

Jonathan says (12:10 AM): I know, but people may still think of unConference as something social, interactive, open-sourcish, free…

Mohan Belani says (12:10 AM): i feel that the issue, it that we call the event “unConference” – our own brand is killing us

Jonathan says (12:13 AM): If this year was positioned as a more professional conference, perhaps in hindsight you guys should of branded it something else, but hold an unConference track in the afternoon or something like that

Mohan Belani says (12:13 AM): i was thinking about it and i realized that it should have been re-branded. i guess we were overconfident that the unConference brand would help

Jonathan says (12:13 AM): But regardless, I know you guys will still have a really kick ass event.

Mohan Belani says (12:13 AM): no Microsoft employee has signed up so far :p

Jonathan says (12:13 AM): Hehe… we are all cheapskates

Jonathan says (12:14 AM): But I’ll definitely be going. See you there!

Mohan Belani says (12:15 AM): Alright, see you there!

Mohan Belani says (12:15 PM): Anyway, just to let you know, but if i ever joined a corporate and i had to choose between Google, Yahoo and Microsoft, I’d choose Microsoft man

Mohan Belani says (12:16 PM): Microsoft’s a lot more active in the community here *pat on the back*

So there you have it.

If you are even remotely interested in the tech scene here in both Singapore and around the region, do yourself a favor and register for the unConference 2009 if you haven’t already.

Yes, the price is different this year compared to last year.

But if the e27 folks are right, it’s also going to be an entirely different event this year compared to last year.

I’m stoked. I’ll see you there.

Hey, let me share with you a few brilliant ideas I came up with recently!

1. Let’s propose to Google (72.39% search market share) the following – on the top of every search results page, instead of providing a link to only Gmail, Google should provide a link to Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail as well. While we are at it, let’s put links to Hulu and Veoh next to the link to Youtube.
2. Also, how ’bout if we ask Apple (~70% portable music player market share) to give users a direct link within iTunes (or maybe even from within the iPod itself) to buy music from the Zune Marketpace and Rhapsody?
3. Or maybe we should request Adobe – who’s Acrobat Reader is found on virtually every PC today – to forcibly install Silverlight and the .NET runtime during the Acrobat Reader installation process just like it forcibly installs Adobe AIR?

And the reason for these proposals?

Because if we don’t do it, consumers will be hurt since they won’t have “choice”.

Because if we don’t do it, consumers will be absolutely incapable of downloading and installing Silverlight themselves or typing in the URL for Hulu or Rhapsody under their own power.

If these ideas sound ludicrous to you, it’s because they are. No one will ever be able to bring up these silly proposals without being laughed out of the room.

Unfortunately, this exact silliness is happening right now during an antitrust case brought about by Opera against Microsoft in the European Union (EU).

Here is the money quote:

Opera execs said last year that Opera is in favor of seeing Microsoft be required to distribute its competitors’ browsers via its Automatic Update mechanism and/or to bundle its compeitors’ browsers with Windows.

Let’s put two and two together, shall we?

1. Either due to an inferior product, poor marketing, or bad management, Opera has not been able to grow their web browser market share over the last decade (0.7% web browser market share). Even though browsers like Safari, Firefox, and Chrome (which all didn’t have the headstart Opera had) managed to grow their market share organically during the same period of time.
2. Opera is an European company based in Norway.
3. Norway, while not technically a country under the EU, is required to adopt much EU legislation due to its participation in the European Economic Area (EEA). Additionally, Norway has chosen to opt into many of the Union’s programmes, institutions and activities.
4. The EU likes to protect their European interests and stick it to the big, bad American corporations.
5. Opera is incompetent to compete, so it goes for the easy way out and files a complaint with the EU against Microsoft knowing that it will have a good chance of getting a favorable result.

You think Opera really cares about punishing Microsoft via monetary fines? Of course not! All they care about is getting Opera browsers out onto as many users’ desktops as possible. And if they can “legally” force itself upon a competitors platform to help them distribute their browser, all the better.

Folks, I hope everyone can see that this is not about justice or anything like that, but simply a desperate ploy for a company who have struggled to gain desktop browser share for over a decade.

Remember, antitrust legislation is supposed to be about protecting the consumer and antitrust cases are supposed to be about proving harm to consumers. While Microsoft’s web browser bundling policies – and I use the word “bundling” loosely, since the web browser is a necessary component for many internal Windows functions – *may* have a case to be made that it hurt competition, I find it hard to prove that that Microsoft’s policies have hurt consumers.

It is no different than what Google, Apple, Adobe, or any other company does to leverage their market positions to promote and grow their other offerings and businesses.

Let’s call it what it is – the whole exercise is simply Opera’s desperate ploy to try and gain undeserved market share. And lucky for them that they just happen to have a government ally that’s willing to be their hatchet man.

Historically, when Microsoft tries to do creative or viral commercials and promotional videos, it has been met with mixed results.

Some folks love it that Microsoft is stepping out of its comfort zone and trying new things. Other folks hate it just because they bare an illogical hate for anything Microsoft. Most folks are somewhere in the middle.

Whatever, I love the fact the Microsoft is doing viral stuff.

Yes, I do work for Microsoft, but I’m speaking objectively – I just love viral videos and creative marketing campaigns, period. I love it when big boring corporations flaunt their creative muscle and don’t mind making fun of themselves once in a while.

Anyway, here is Microsoft’s latest viral video – the first part of a series of episodes promoting Microsoft’s Web Platform. Check it out!

If you ever spent any time watching Magnum, P.I. before, don’t you love this parody?