The Official Fluid Blog

Last week’s XD Study Hall* brought New York’s Experience Design team to the MFA Design + Technology Thesis show at Parsons School of Design. The show included an array of projects within interactive art, motion graphics, musical interfaces, fashionable technologies and many other inspirational pieces. The team spent a few hours exploring projects, engaging with the designers and simply just getting inspired. More info.

Here are a few of my favorites:

Interfaces for visual music composition
Ryan Raffa

Self Assembling Emergency Housing
Manuel Rueda Iragorri

Radial
Daniel Ward

*XD Study Hall – In the spirit of collaboration and inspiration the XD Team meets weekly off our computers to explore NY and SF. We observe and discuss trends, ideas and all things design.

This week I was inspired. By the power of digital to take a seed of an idea and turn it into a beanstalk as big as the one from fairy tales. And by the fact that great ideas make digital a back up singer to the people who are participating.

I was inspired by: The power of collective action. Open sourcing of ideas. And unabashed sharing that explodes out of the dreams that used to be held in locked diaries.

We talk about these things a lot at Fluid. These examples will fuel our thinking. Here’s what I saw:

1. Inside Out Project: JR won the TED prize in 2011. If you haven’t seen his work this video will move you. It is Banksy with local awareness and impact. It is work that volunteers in the community vs. dropping you in the gift shop. The new addition? A call to action. This week they made it participatory.

2. Open IDEO: The premise: People design better together. It’s an open casting call for ideas that answer socially responsible challenges. The ideas are submitted based on phase of the design process. IDEO is enough to compel a lot of folks to participate.

3. The Internet Wishlist: This one teeters on the edge of a debate over proprietary ideas. That’s why I find it fascinating. A wishlist of ideas for the Internet. Not all ideas should be free. It also matters who’s asking for the ideas (GapLogo anyone?). Who wouldn’t though like the idea of a FourSquare cab-sharing app for when you’re waiting in the cab line at JFK?

Read the rest of this entry »

In late January Facebook launched Sponsored Stories. Here’s our initial POV…

What are Sponsored Stories? A great name for ads created from brand relevant content that is produced by Facebook user actions. Important: These ads are only seen within a users friend network.

The included actions: Likes, check-ins, actions within custom applications and Page posts. User postings on brand walls can also be used.

Best case description: Brands are highlighting relevant content that a user may have missed in the steady stream of their Walls.

Worst case description: User actions are unwittingly being turned into brand endorsements without any kick back.

This is not unlike what Gmail does by selling ads based on keywords within emails, although these Facebook ads are more overt with the identification of the user and their action. Twitter Promoted Tweets are also similar – although Twitter’s solution is more closely aligned with search ranking or a Digg model. It is also based on aggregated, anonymous data.

Why are Sponsored Stories important:

- They are a new ad format for Facebook. They dip a toe in the old Beacon pool but don’t dive in fully. I think this is the major reason why they’re launching with lots of non-profit partners – which is smart. Users are going to be a lot more amenable to, and potentially lenient towards, non-profits than to for-profit brands.

Read the rest of this entry »

Too often when shopping online, I run across amazing lifestyle images featuring a product I would like to buy (or at least learn more about) but the retailer makes it difficult or impossible to find. Typically I’ll click on the image only to be faced with a confusing category page where if I’m lucky, I might find the product I’m after.

The simple fact is that lifestyle imagery is engaging and fun: just look at the stack of Williams-Sonoma or Patagonia catalogs on the average consumer’s coffee table. However, turning that imagery into something web-ready by adding copy takes too much time and specialized resources (designers) and might even detract from the imagery itself. This is disappointing because as in the offline world, vivid imagery is engaging and can both build brand and increase the chance a customer will buy that item.
Read the rest of this entry »

Retailers are bringing it big this holiday. While we, the gift seekers, think of people on our lists, drink hot cocoa and make out under the mistletoe, retailers are busy making gift giving easier.

The four examples you need to see:

1. Etsy’s Gift Guide

The best use of Facebook liking data that I’ve seen yet. Pick a friend and Etsy matches their likes (and interests) to Etsy products. It’s a peep show of the possibilities this public data holds.

2. J.Crew’s Very Merry Gift Guide

This stands out for two reasons: 1. Talk about beautiful, curated collections. It tells a story that makes me forget that it’s cross-sell. 2. Of-the-month offering. Subscription selling finally meets style. Why aren’t more brands doing this? Expect them to be doing so in 2011.

3. Victoria’s Secret Gift Cards (on Facebook)

Sharing gets sexy. Not only can you comment on photos from last night’s holiday party, now you can share a gift card – without ever leaving Facebook. Buying just got easier for last-minute Lucys. (Starbucks has Facebook gift cards too).

4. Coach’s Gift List (on Facebook)

The ripple effect of Polyvore permeates this design (as it continues to do throughout fashion). Drag and drop from Coach’s yummy collection to a wish list within Facebook – and affiliate each item with a friend.

Who’s going to top this in 2011? Fluid has some tricks up our sleeve. Exciting.

Happy Holidays,
Amy

In a head-to-head match between Twitter followers and Facebook fans, Forrester puts their money on Twitter followers. What’s at stake? The winner is deemed to hold the most value for brands.

The score according to the study? Twitter followers are more likely to recommend the brands they follow to friends (33% vs. 21%) and to buy from them (37% vs. 21%).

My interpretation: This is misapplied competitiveness. I’m the first to egg on arm wrestling, cage matches and ego over ability efforts but these channels serve different purposes. Consumer expectations and interactions vary accordingly. The channels can amplify and augment each other. I will be using this data to make the case for each channel independently.

That said, I’m going to cheer on Forrester’s winner with three of my favorite Twitter examples. Share these with your creative team to spark ideas. After all, both mediums need ideas to survive.

Uniqlo’s Lucky Counter: Every tweet means the price gets cheaper. For a set time in September Uniqlo posted a collection of clothing with the simple call to action – more tweets, lower prices. Flash sales meet GroupOn with a twist of simplicity.

World Cup Cheering: Yay open API. The Guardian in the UK created an interface to visually watch the tweets affiliated with each World Cup game. It brings new excitement to goals. Ghana vs. U.S. is my personal favorite.

Diane von Furstenberg’s Fall Collection: In a convergence of social and shopping Diane von Furstenberg integrated iconic lip rollovers on their imagery to let users Tweet or Like in context. (Click on “Shop the Catalog”)

Reminder: I’ve also posted this entry at ad:techNY. Let me know if you’ll be in town for the event next week!

Video.

Apple’s Mac vs. PC campaign changed online advertising with it. Runway shows are no longer exclusive because of it. As video creators and voyeurs we continually turn to it.

In September, ComScore reported that 83.9% of U.S. internet users watched some form of online video content. The average user consumed ~14.4 hours.

Here are four video examples that showcase its power. In each, video relies on compelling content to succeed.

1. Chilean Mine Rescue
33 stories emerged one by one through a claustrophobic hole in the earth. Live. On my laptop at work. During a 33 hour time period, 5.5M of us watched by live streaming video on CNN.com alone. This was 8000% higher than their daily average views. It was social media at it’s finest.

Read the rest of this entry »

Follow Andrew Sirotnik at twitter.com/asirotnik

The universe is chock-full of awesome things coming last. Like retirement, dessert, fat ladies singing and nice guys.

“Last” is definitely the new “first” and our panel at Shop.org, Social Commerce: 7 Strategies That Work is the last-est! Wednesday 3:30-4:30 in the “Customer Experience” track is where all the savvy show-goers will be for the perfect end to Shop.org.

Top 3 reasons you should come…

1. The real deal. We’re going to skip the hype, dive into the details of actual initiatives and get our panel’s point-of-view on social’s real role in digital retail.
2. All-star panel. The top minds from Sears, Jones Apparel Group and Diapers.com/Soap.com will tell us how they’ve used social media to move the needle on their businesses.
3. Happy hour. Yes. Unless the teamsters shut us down

Ron Offir, President of eCommerce at Jones Apparel Group, Josh Himwich, VP eCommerce Solutions at Quidsi (Diapers.com/Soap.com), and Ryan Ostrom, Director of Multi-Channel Brands for Sears, will be sharing the inside details of their social initiatives, sneak peeks at new ideas in the works, and data on what worked and what didn’t.

Topics they will cover…

• Creating the “Everywhere Experience”
• Facebook Pop-Up Stores
• Making In-Store a Digital, Social Experience
• “Like” as the New Review
• Mobile-Friendly E-Commerce Makes Money
• Letting Your Customers Own the Brand
• Using Facebook Connect for your site registration

Plus you’ll hear the top 3 social innovations they think should be on retailers’ radar for the near future. Plus 1 bonus idea from me!

We hope to see you there!

Follow Andrew Sirotnik at twitter.com/asirotnik

Unless you’ve been putting in time at a mountain monastery, you’ve heard about Google Instant: Google’s innovation launched yesterday to deliver real-time search results as you type keywords in the search box.

Much of the buzz has been around efficiency – getting better results faster. For digital retailers, I think the bigger significance is that Google Instant has transformed search into a great shopping jumping off point.

Searching is now browsing.

The experience Google Instant delivers is very similar to guided browsing (i.e. parametric filters) that you see often on ecommerce catalog pages like this one for The North Face. The consumer doesn’t have to know exactly what they want – they can simply select from a list and the site responds to their interests. It’s an iterative experience.

Like everyone else, I want a cashmere camel coat. In the screenshots above, you see that I get relevant shopping results at “camel cashm…” and can then easily browse between sweaters, coats, cardigans and scarves with the results visually updating real-time.

Google Instant will eventually come to Google Shopping.

It’s very significant that “Shopping” is in the primary navigation at top, prominently featured in the left navigation, and a link in the search results (e.g. “Shopping results for camel cashmere cardigan”). You can absolutely count on Google bringing the Instant capability to their Shopping tab, equipping consumers with shopping filters, view/sort controls, and taking the experience one step closer to a full shopping experience completely outside of retailers’ websites.

Portable content + SEO considerations.

What this means for digital retailers is two things at first glance: 1) increasing the quality and portability of your content, and 2) reviewing your SEO strategy in light of Google’s shift. I don’t have “how-to” answers for the above (yet) – there are many great conversations going on right now and what it means, ranging from recommendations that brands refocus on core/root keywords to povs that seo is now irrelevant because “no one will see the same web anymore, making optimizing it virtually impossible.”

What I know for certain is that digital consumers want the experience that Google is making a reality. Savvy brands and retailers will take advantage of it.

Follow Andrew Sirotnik at twitter.com/asirotnik

The title’s a lie. I love Gilt and have no intention of giving it up completely (even though the private sales aren’t private and they seem to selling every brand under the sun). But I did tire of receiving 1-2 emails every day and finally pulled the trigger and unsubscribed.

Treating customer service interactions as new opportunities to engage.

Gilt really gets digital customer experience. Instead of offering the usual insincere apologies, they deliver a beautifully designed ‘unsubscribe’ screen with an unapologetic “How can I help?” attitude that puts the consumer in control and makes them like Gilt more as a result. It’s very easy to choose “reduce the number of emails I receive” rather than severing the relationship completely.

Offering ways to connect on other channels / devices.

Better yet is that Gilt takes this opportunity to showcase other ways to connect that might fit better than email with one’s digital lifestyle, including the innovative desktop app Gilt Clock with a sale countdown timer, preview of upcoming sales and a link to the calendar. It’s not a leap to imagine them successfully promoting their mobile / iPad apps here as well. (Note: I took the screenshot above a month or so ago so they may already do this.)

I conducted a quick survey of other retailers’ ‘unsubscribe’ experiences. Most were purely transactional and forced the consumer to choose between ending their relationship with the brand or resigning themselves to the status quo (nobody wins in this scenario).

This is another example of the pure play retailers reinventing the details that traditional retailers might accept as established best practices. I think consumers appreciate it and suspect Gilt sees a return from the effort.