At 11:30pm on Monday April 29, 2008 I was standing in line at Best Buy in Buckhead with about a hundred other die-hard Grand Theft Auto (GTA) fans awaiting the latest release of the game - GTA IV.

Being a Gen Y kid I have grown up with a video game in one hand and a computer in the other hand. So what’s the appeal of this game that makes me (and millions of other people) wait in front of a store for hours just to get it? Interactive game play.

The world that has been created by the Rockstar team is simply unbelievable. The amount of experiences that a user can have in this gaming world is amazing. For example, you can stand on a street corner and watch traffic, weather, people, and animals all interact with each other and with you all in a virtual world type of environment. The size of the city is mind boggling. In fact, there is such detail that you can roam most of the city and not run into the same character twice, which in the gaming world is very rare.

Truly the biggest appeal for me is the multiplayer component to this game - you and a group of friends can play in a match up to 16 players at one time! People can go to restaurants, clubs, bowling, pool halls, the beach … you name it, you can do it. The way the console makers and video game developers have teamed up to create a completely unique online experience may very well have changed the way we game forever. Fifteen years ago if you wanted to play with a friend you needed to be in front of a television together. Now, you just pop on Xbox Live or the PS3 Network and boom connected to millions of people.

To sum it all up this is a truely unique gaming experience with unlimited possibilities and it simply makes me very excited about the future of gaming and online interactivity.  But, it isn’t just me who thinks so. GTA IV is the first game in nearly a decade to receive a 10 out of 10 review from IGN. Impressive to say the least. Check out the full review.  

Honestly, I could ramble about how great this game is for hours, but I’ll let you find out for yourself. See you online and happy gaming!

MarketingVox just pointed me to a survey conducted by the Luxury Institute. Called the “WealthSurvey”, it uncovered that wealthy consumer membership in online social networks has reached 60% already this year.

This is interesting, but not as surprising to me as it was intended to be. I guess I would have thought that the wealthy - with their financial access to technology and desire to connect - would make them early adopters in social networks. But check this out: “consumer participation is up from 27% in 2007.”

That’s a pretty significant increase. This rise in participation among the wealthy set could represent a lot of opportunities for luxury marketers. The article suggests that luxury marketers should invest time and money in creating their own communities. However, I might suggest that existing communities - Facebook, MySpace, etc. - are equally if not more important, with communities like Facebook already leveraging the “influence” factor in their marketing programs.

In fact, the entire study appears to be based on existing communities: “Participation levels in leading social networks are: 16% for MySpace, 13% for LinkedIn, and 11% for Facebook. The wealthy average membership in 2.8 social networks, with an average of 110 connections.”

The article goes on to say “We are pleasantly surprised at the rapid acceleration in the over 55-year-old wealthy consumers whose participation increased five-fold, to 49%.” Now this is interesting and makes me wonder how much of this age group - wealthy or otherwise - is participating more heavily in social networks.

I’d like to get my hands on the full study, but perhaps this is only for the wealthy - hm, maybe somebody on A Small World can hook me up?

Here’s a quick snapshot of the study’s methodology:
I’m sure our Behavioral Research department would love this part (and be interested in knowing more details)

A national sample of 805 wealthy American consumers, with an average income of $287K and average net worth of $2.1 million, was surveyed online. Survey results are weighted to match demographic and net worth profiles of the same audience according to the latest Survey of Consumer Finances from The Federal Reserve.

This past weekend, I attended SoCon08, an unconference on social networking. During one of the breakout sessions, we outlined the various ways that we as consumers or businesses communicate with businesses. The complete list of communication mediums is below for review.

I found it interesting that as the group shouted out suggestions, it took 4 tries for us to mention email, which is an essential means of communication. I consider email essential because I can safely predict that one of the first things that you do each day in both your work and personal life is check your inbox for new email (well, maybe it’s actually the second thing that you do after sipping your coffee).

This exercise also signaled to me a major shift in way we think about email. Obviously, social networking is leading the charge in the way we think about traditional two-way conversations. But more importantly, I think that the internet continues to play a greater part of our everyday lives and social networking is an incredibly efficient means of communicating when we’re on the internet. In other words, we’re online so social networking allows us to have an online conversation whereas using email feels more like an offline conversation during an online experience.

So am I predicting that the death of email and email marketing?

We’re clearly provided with more opportunities these days to jump on the internet. For example, Starbucks allows you to jump online for free as you sip your latté. We’re also hooked on BlackBerry and iPhone devices to stay connected with colleagues and friends. That means that we’re at the crest of the email “wave”. So in my opinion, email is becoming less relevant as a communication means — instead it is becoming a means to set up to-do lists and archiving. However, I still believe that email will continue to serve a purpose in business communication and this means that the art of crafting, delivering and measuring the response from these emails will become even more important.

Communication Mediums:

• Website (Contact Us Forms)
• Newsletters (Digital and Print)
• Phone
• Email
• Blogs
• Face time
• Instant Messages
• SMS or Text Messages
• Nonverbal
• Networking events

I’m a frequent Adfreak reader. Yesterday, I came across a post that made me laugh.

A Northwestern University report (”If It Catches My Eye“) discovered something *unbelievable* — “Teenagers find online news troubling and a reminder of the world’s dangers. Meanwhile, time spent on YouTube or social networking and music downloading sites as a treat.” No way!!??

The study goes on to suggest that “news organizations should cultivate teen audiences by learning what appeals to them and diminishing their angst.” Seriously? Trying to diminishing teen angst would be like trying to tell salmon not to swim upstream.

But before I was tempted to tear further into this study the way Adfreak did, I did some reading. What I found was a 56-page study, a product of Northwestern University’s Media Management Center - a “qualitiative, in-depth study of a diverse group of 65 Chicago-area teens in 2007, seeking to identify what drives the online news consumption of teenagers.”

The purpose was to help news organizations more effectively attract and serve teens. 65 is a small sample size, yes. But, it does offer some insight into the thoughts, reactions, and behaviors of teens using the web on a daily basis.

My thoughts relate directly to one of my recent blog posts (Another Teen Community?) where I talked about the genuine importance of the teen population as an indicator of future marketing practices. We would be foolish to ignore a study that could provide valuable insight into the behavioral patterns influencing our next generation of adult consumers.

Some key findings from the study:

• Researchers repeatedly heard the phrase, “I will read it IF IT CATCHES MY EYE.”
• Few said they look purposefully for news. Rather, reading news is usually something they do if they happen upon it while doing something else.
• They look at news online an average of two or three times a day on weekdays.
• Teens tend to get news more from giant news aggregators and portals than from traditional destination products or news brands.
• They find the news stressful, not enjoyable.
• Teens don’t seem to differentiate between sites that generate news stories and sites that aggregate them.

My final thoughts:

They’re teenagers. In time, news will be more more interesting to them. The key question is what behavioral patterns will have developed by then that will influence their consumption of news and media?

News organizations - heck, any marketers - need to be thinking about how teens take in information, as this will likely be translated in many ways in their adult life.

The study said “when it comes to news, most teens are grazers.” This is important. Really all of us are grazers right now. In today’s digital society, we consume information very differently than even 10 years ago - we check news and email from mobile devices, we skim RSS feeds for top headlines, and watch headline news channels to gather snippets of the day’s top stories.

Understanding how teens consume information now is critical to marketing and selling to them 10 years from now as adults. The report also provides some interesting and detailed recommendations for news organizations trying to reach teens that as marketers should sound pretty familiar. One such recommendation is “go where they are” - a concept we often discuss when it comes to social marketing and online media.

Over the past year, the buzz has been building about social media and how marketers need to get on the bandwagon. It’s a great time for agencies, like Spunlogic, who has the experience that companies are looking for, not only to build applications and Second Life presences, but also to provide strategic advice and direction.

It’s not so great a time for the marketers who might be itching to get their feet wet but are hesitant because they have no way of justifying the cost to their bosses. Here are a few reasons that you can use.

Reason #1:
Your audience is already talking about your brand using social media. Whether it’s by putting up a Facebook profile with your brand name, twittering about you, or creating a presence in Second Life, using your brand name, they’re there.

Getting in the game provides you the opportunity to control the message you want to have out there.

Reason #2:
Your competitors are, if not there yet, certainly planning on getting into social media in the near future. Capture the market with your big idea and watch the scales tip in your favor.

Reason #3:
Social media is not going away. Consumers are finding and more importantly creating new and different ways to connect to your brand. Being there is really about fishing where the fish are.

If you think that this medium won’t impact user behavior then think of all the current standard online channels: Website, email, search. When companies failed to get in the game early they lost significant market share and spent considerable time and budget to get up to speed. Is that really where you want to be?

So I just watched Mark Zuckerberg (you know, the 23-year-old boy-wonder CEO of Facebook, he who turns down billions of dollars) on 60 Minutes. I had recorded it from yesterday, figuring that there probably wouldn’t be much that I’d learn from it considering how 60 Minutes typically covers such things - 12 minutes tightly pulled together telling us things we’ve known for the last year. You know, true journalism stuff.

But I did learn something. Zuckerberg is amazingly awkward. Like, he’s a real life George Michael. Not George Michael the WHAM! singer (he wishes, that’d be a huge step up in coolness for him, as sad as that is), no, George Michael from Arrested Development is more like it. And if you don’t understand that reference, then buy the DVDs for this show - you’ll thank me and I won’t be so embarrassed by you anymore.

Back to the point. The guy is scary uncomfortable talking to humans. At one point the lady interviewing him says that people say he’s the next Larry and Sergey. He just blankly looks at her. After a few seconds of the most awkward moments on television, he says something to the effect of, “uh…was that a question?”.

Alright, I’m not just picking on the guy for no reason. There is a point I’m hoping to make, once I get done with this, but one last thing. If you get a chance to watch him talk, notice that his eyebrows don’t move. At all. Ever.

Ok, my point is this - how can someone that owns the website that clearly is making all the rules of social networking be so unable to be…social?!  When the whole Beacon thing happened, and he handled it so poorly, I thought it was because he was some kind of steely entrepreneur that had this vision and went after it. But now I realize the truth. He just doesn’t understand how normal humans behave.

And now, for the first time, I’m wondering what the future of Facebook really will be. Unless they quickly get another CEO in there and let Mark focus on things he enjoys, like working on computers…talking to computers…going on long walks on the beach with computers… then I think one day Facebook might, instead of hanging around with its current cool friends MySpace, Google and YouTube, it might end up hanging out with a new group of friends: Geocities, Webvan and eToys.

If you haven’t already heard, it was announced in the last week or so that HarperCollins & MySpace have partnered to create an online community for teens. The Computerworld article I read says: “The community will allow teens to create their own profiles, including photos. The teens can also post their own creative writing stories for review by other teens.”

Certainly there are already hundreds of online communities for teens already?? So, I did a quick Google on the obvious search term “teen community,” which provided dozens of pages of results, including Teenhut.com, Teen Second Life, GreenTeen.org, and many more. I even found an online magazine, Teenink.com, written entirely by teens. Heck, even MySpace and Facebook should count as a teen community (even though old people like me can get in).

Is HarperTeen really just another teen community?

It’s always been my belief - and certainly that of all people in the interactive marketing industry and beyond - that teens are the predictors of future behaviors, technology, and marketing. Unlike folks in my generation - who took a typewriting classes in high school and had a party line (not as fun as it sounds) on their home phone - this “next generation” is a population of people who have literally grown up with technology.

My 9 Year Old Son.
I have a 9-year old son; and while he might not be a teenager, he is an excellent example. Jeffrey has schoolmates who actually have cell phones (and nicer ones than mine at that). He has multiple gaming stations, hundreds of channels to surf on the satellite dish, an active email address, surfs the web in school, and is a member of the Webkinz online community.

Teen Influence.
Beyond the definite edge these teens will have as they wave into the business world, this group has powerful influence right now. In fact, a recent report by Pew Internet and the American Life Project, found that “content creation by teenagers continues to grow, with 64 percent of online teenagers ages 12 to 17 engaging in at least one type of content creation, up from 57 percent of online teens in 2004.”

And, as my Jeffrey example suggests, teenagers have a wide variety of communications options. Because these teens are tech-savvy, they lean heavily on communication methods like instant messaging and social networks. The report shows that “39 percent of online teens share their own artistic creations online such as artwork, photos stories or videos, and “26 percent of online teens remix content they find online into their own creations.”

Bottom line, teens aren’t just waiting around for their turn to influence the development of technology when they “grow up;” rather, technology is constantly being created for them.

HarperCollins & MySpace.
This partnership makes a lot of sense. HarperCollins is one of the world’s largest publishing companies; reaching out to teens now is a wise move. Giving users something unique, and freedom in their participation is what they will need to be successful.

I did dig around a little on the site, and I have to say that it is actually fairly nice - not something I would typically say about a MySpace page. Both the style and functionality are appealing. And, they have 19,212 friends … not too bad.

HaperTeen is also holding a writing contest for MySpace members through January 7th, with a $5000 prize. Certainly HarperCollins has conducted many writing contests in more traditional models over the years. However, this contest does have a not-so-surprising spin, the final winner will be decided on by HaperTeen members. The good news is that people really do seem excited, with nearly every comment relating to the contest, and all of the user-created forums dedicated to it.

From my perspective, the biggest challenge for HarperTeen will be maintaining interest after the contest ends. So I’ll be keeping my eye on this, I’m curious to see how well they are able to foster community over time.

I came across a recent American Marketing Association consumer survey. In a press release issued in conjunction with the survey, AMA’s CMO, Nancy Costopulos, says “more Americans are taking their holiday shopping to social networks instead of the mall…”

Now, as marketers, we’re intimately aware of the impact social media has on consumer (and even business) behaviors. For instance, we already have an idea of how product ratings and reviews can influence online purchases.

This AMA survey sharpens the picture we had in our mind of how companies can leverage social media to inform consumer buying decisions - particularly during the holiday season. Check out this chart, which highlights Prospective Holiday Use of Social Networking Sites:

This chart shows us in black and white (and purple and red) that - if the service were available - almost half (47%) of all respondents said they would go to a social-networking site to download coupons or search for gift ideas. And nearly as many (45%) would use a social-networking site to find out about upcoming sales in stores or discounts on products.

This makes sense. But, why social networking sites and not just the company’s website or email newsletters, where sales and offers already exist?

I wrote a while back about Industry Specific Social Networks. Vertical social sites such as these are strong indicators of what this survey is referring to. People want to leverage their social networks - where people of like interests already congregate - to inform their buying decisions. Social influence and personal opinion is highly valuable.

For an example: On the advice of Shelfari, (who commented on my industry-specific blog post) I installed their facebook widget/application.

(A ’shelf’ in my Shelfari widget. Of COURSE there’s a children’s book.)

What makes this such a good example is not just that I have this shelf, or that people can see what I read; but that my ratings and reviews of them might influence others to purchase these books. For example, my co-worker Travis Bailey also has a ’shelf’ on facebook … and I do look at his book selections and reviews. (BTW - the application, which is very well designed - does allow you to link to Amazon.com to purchase the books you’re interested in.)

Pay attention during next year’s holiday season. I predict an increase in the amount of holiday purchases stemming from social websites.

It’s a confusing thing, trying to figure out how to take advantage of the “new web” - social networking, video distribution, Web 2.0, etc.  I recently was speaking with a large group of marketers in the Atlanta area about social networking and the question that always seems to come up at these things is, “Should we create our own social network or should we try to work within some of the more popular ones?”

And my answer typically is “fish where the fish are”.  I first heard this quote in a presentation by a friend of mine, Tom Daly (who also just launched a great travel blog called Traveling Parent), when he was talking about some of Coke’s online initiatives.  What’s interesting is that Coke actually does a great job of knowing when to fish where the fish are and when to create their own pond.  If you have the kind of brand enthusiasts that Coke has, there are certainly times when it makes sense to create something just for them.

In the November issue of OMMA, an article by Mark Walsh entitled, “It Ain’t Over ‘Til It’s Over“, talked about Anheuser-Busch’s inability to cut ties with Bud.tv.  Granted, Bud.tv has been everyone’s favorite whipping-boy since it launched, and I even got into the act in the beginning.

In Walsh’s article he states that, “Perhaps A-B should think of its online business more like its offline one.  It doesn’t sell beer from a central outlet in St. Louis but through a vast distribution network…(online it should) maintain its niche sites but let third-party sites like YouTube act as brand distribution hubs.  Let Hulu, Joost and others figure out online entertainment networks”.

Well done Walsh, I couldn’t have said it better myself.  Case in point, why go to Bud.tv to watch their fantastic ‘Swear Jar’ commercial, when I can do it on YouTube in an environment I already feel comfortable with?

I chose this morning to start combing through the many magazines that I have let pile up on my desk for the past few weeks. OMMA, B2B, Fortune, Business 2.0 (before it died), Inc., and on and on. I typically use Google Reader to keep up with news and trends but there’s just something about these printed mags that I still enjoy reading. When I have time, that is.

In the course of reading through one of them I came upon a new term: the Innernet. It was an article (and apologies to whichever magazine and author it was that mentioned it, but there’s no way I’m digging through my now overflowing trash can to find it again) that talked about the impact that social networking has had on how we use the Internet.

We’ve kind of gone in this circular phase of initially being bound to a network such as Netscape or AOL, then the web was opened up and we all abandoned any company that tried to control our experience, and now we’re almost back full circle to wanting to form an inner connection of our friends and family and spend most of our time in this new “innernet”. And I say “we” but of course this doesn’t apply to everyone, as I’m sure TS will have a comment about how I’m in love with Facebook and not everyone is a college kid looking to increase his/her friend count status.

Earlier this week I was on a panel at the eMarketing Association event in Atlanta and a decent portion of the discussion revolved around social networking and what it means to marketers. This topic continues to be hot as more and more people flock to MySpace, Facebook or other networks (oh, and Orkut, I have to mention Orkut because I have a sneaking suspicion that Google might index this post a little better the more I mention Orkut), and our experiences day-to-day are confined within these networks.

And now Microsoft just bought a 1.6% stake in Facebook for $240 million. This values Facebook at roughly $15 billion. So I’m no rocket scientist but I have a feeling these social networks are only going to get more popular as time goes on. And the trick will be figuring out where marketing fits within them, if it even does.

Did I mention Orkut?