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L2 Think Tank (@L2_ThinkTank) reports that, according to Union Square Ventures Partner Andy Weissman (@aweissman), we’re moving into “the ambient computer age,” where our connected devices are becoming smaller and more powerful. The implications of this changes our media habits, the way we socialize, and much more. In an attempt to quantify this impact, Weissman outlines the 8 places in our lives where mobile will have the biggest near-future impact on investment:

Reading – A new breed of mobile-primary reading formats are emerging that allow us to consumer and share media in new and different ways.

Social – Our always-on devices give us instant access to sharing at all times.

Payments – In Japan people are already paying for subway rides with their mobile devices. Before long we’ll be using what was formerly a voice device for transactions, and this trend is already well underway in the United States.

Learning – We can now absorb information from our mobile phones and use the classroom as a venue for discussion and collaboration.

Location-Based Innovation – One in 3 searches on mobile devices have local intent.

Media – Facebook holds the biggest archive of photos in the world. Media in the mobile world is fundamentally conversational.

Blurring – The smartphones we keep with us on our hip at all times create a blurring effect in the world of connectedness. We’re no longer just connected on our laptops, but wired-in everywhere.

Medicine – Today patients share data and information with doctors in real-time.

Read this in full.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you take advantage of mobile trends to advance your brand.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

Project Glass is what Google is calling its exploration into eyeglasses that promote constant virtual reality to the wearer.

Nick Bilton (@nickbilton) writes in The New York Times (@nytimestech) about the soon coming debut of wearable glasses that serve as computer monitors.

Later this year, Google is expected to start selling eyeglasses that will project information, entertainment and, this being a Google product, advertisements onto the lenses. The glasses are not being designed to be worn constantly — although Google engineers expect some users will wear them a lot — but will be more like smartphones, used when needed, with the lenses serving as a kind of see-through computer monitor.

“It will look very strange to onlookers when people are wearing these glasses,” said William Brinkman, graduate director of the computer science and software engineering department at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. “You obviously won’t see what they can from behind the glasses. As a result, you will see bizarre body language as people duck or dodge around virtual things.”

...Like smartphones and tablets, the glasses will be equipped with GPS and motion sensors. They will also contain a camera and audio inputs and outputs.

...Through the built-in camera on the glasses, Google will be able to stream images to its rack computers and return augmented reality information to the person wearing them. For instance, a person looking at a landmark could see detailed historical information and comments about it left by friends. If facial recognition software becomes accurate enough, the glasses could remind a wearer of when and how he met the vaguely familiar person standing in front of him at a party. They might also be used for virtual reality games that use the real world as the playground.

Read this in full.

Also see our previous blogpost, “Point – Know – Buy.” And browse our blog’s Future tag.

What does this next advancement in technology mean for your publishing strategy? Will you seek to publish content for the exclusive consumption on these types of glasses? Write your comments below.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you identify blue ocean strategy for your brand.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard; including the Futurist News tab.

In Fast Company (@FastCompany), NYU journalism professor Adam L. Penenberg (@penenberg) interviews self-published author Charles Orlando, who’s written two volumes of The Problem With Women… Is Men. Orlando has sold upwards of 15,000 copies of his work as a Kindle, iPad, and iPhone ebook, as well as a traditional paperback, generating around $130,000 since its release in November 2008.

Which self-publishing service did you choose?

BookSurge Publishing (now CreateSpace, @CreateSpace). BookSurge was partnered with Amazon.com, and once I was published, my book was automatically included on Amazon.com (this was 2007/2008, before there was a real ebook publishing effort). It was print-on-demand with really good quality, so I didn't need to hold an inventory and I didn't need to be part of the backend stuff: shipping, fulfillment, returns, chargebacks, etc. Plus, I would get all the benefit of being grouped with best-selling authors, receive reviews, and more. They had multiple levels of service – editing, marketing, public relations, custom covers, and much more – but I elected to go with a flexible offering (allowing me a custom interior, custom cover, and no more than 10 interior illustrations).

What did all this cost?

Editor: $500 (flat fee)

BookSurge publishing package: $900 (now priced lower)

Cover design and all artwork: $750

25 copies (for review): Free.

Total: $2,150

He goes on to explain how he marketed his book.

I started a blog: three posts a week. Simultaneously, I spun up my Facebook and Twitter (@charlesjorlando) efforts and started publishing my blog posts to my Facebook Page. But I could see that readers had to leave Facebook or Twitter to interact with what I had written. As a test, I just wrote on Facebook, using the Notes application on my Page. And... voila... increased engagement and interactivity; more comments, more sharing on individuals' Walls. I took down my blog at the end of 2009 and in an effort to meet my audience where they "lived" I transitioned all my efforts to Facebook (and some on Twitter). My Facebook Fan Page was now a few hundred strong.

Read this in full.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you with your publishing, marketing, and branding needs.

Be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard; especially take advantage of the list of self-publishers in the Publishers tab.

The popularity and sustainability of technology depends to some degree on its favorable use by consumers. Often the “next new shiny thing” bursts onto our radar and we get excited, which feeds the hype, creating momentum, until we drop it for the next new shiny thing. Unless we judge it to be valuable and necessary. So it is with social media. And marketers today must understand this technology cycle if we are to properly and efficiently communicate our marketing messages.

Analyst firm Gartner Inc. (@Gartner_inc) describes this process as The Hype Cycle. It identifies peak points in visibility over time for technologies, highlighting the common pattern of over-enthusiasm, disillusionment, and eventual realism that accompanies each new technology and innovation:

·         The technology trigger

·         Peak of inflated expectations

·         Trough of disillusionment

·         Slope of enlightenment

·         Plateau of productivity

It’s a useful chart to understand both the trajectory of technology and the actions of consumer behavior.

In the 2011 Emerging Technologies Hype Cycle, activity streams, wireless power, Internet TV, NFC payment, and private cloud computing are some of the technologies that have moved into the Peak of Inflated Expectations. And ebook readers are moving up the Slope of Enlightenment. (Compare the 2011 Cycle with 2010 and 2009 above.) Gartner dissects 4 themes in current technology trends:

The connected world: Advances in embedded sensors, processing and wireless connectivity are bringing the power of the digital world to objects and places in the physical world….

Interface trends: User interfaces are slow-moving areas with significant recent activity. Speech recognition was on the original 1995 Hype Cycle and has still not reached maturity, and computer-brain interfaces will evolve for at least another 10 years before moving out of research and niche status. However, a new entry for natural language question answering recognizes the impressive and highly visible achievement of IBM's Watson computer in winning TV's Jeopardy! general knowledge quiz against champion human opponents. Gesture recognition has also been launched into the mainstream through Microsoft's Kinect gaming systems, which is now being hacked by third parties to create a range of application interfaces….

Analytical advances: Supporting the storage and manipulation of raw data to derive greater value and insight, these technologies continue to grow in capability and applicability....

New digital frontiers: Crossing the traditional boundaries of IT, new capabilities are reaching levels of performance and pricing that will fundamentally reshape processes and even industries. Examples on this year's Hype Cycle include 3D printing and bioprinting (of human tissue), and mobile robots….

Read the news release in full.

Read the Hype Cycle Special Report.

Let Somersault (@smrsault) help your brand take publishing and marketing advantage of today’s developing technologically.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

How do people discover books in the digital age? Digital Book World (@DigiBookWorld) reports that, according to a survey presented at the Digital Book World conference (#dbw12) in New York last month, nearly half of readers discover new books through the recommendations of family and friends, and nearly a third discover them at bookstores.

·         49% - Family and friends’ recommendations

·         30% - Bookstore staff recommendations

·         24% - Online and print advertising

How will readers discover, buy, and read new books as e-reader and tablet ownership increase and traditional books sales channels are challenged?

See this article in full.

A new service that wants to help in this regard is Small Demons (@smalldemons). It takes all of the meaningful data from all favorite books and puts it in one place. Small Demons collects and catalogs the music, movies, people, and objects mentioned in books and makes those details searchable, creating a universe of book details, or as the service calls it, a storyverse.

Book Baby (@BookBaby) says Small Demons CEO Valla Vakili was so intrigued by the description of Marseilles in Jean-Claude Izzo’s Total Chaos that he replaced the Paris leg of his trip with Marseilles, an experience so inspiring that the concept of Small Demons was born.

In a recent interview with GalleyCat (@GalleyCat), Small Demons VP of content and community Richard Nash explained: “If you are an author, we are going to create verified author pages. You’re going to be able to add biographical information, information about your own books and other features. You will also get access to the editing tools that we are using to fix the computer’s mistakes. We know algorithms can’t get everything right and even when they get something right, they can’t necessarily provide the nuance that a human being can.”

Nash continued: “A computer can tell us how many times a song appears in a book. But it can’t tell us that it is the song that the couple dances to at the wedding reception or the song the jilted lover plays after being dumped. It can’t tell you the emotional resonance of it. So we are going to be relying on librarians and authors and gifted amateurs to come in and help us fix and add and weight and evaluate all the data we are generating. Individual authors will have that ability over an extended period of time.”

Read this in full.

Other services that aids in discovering new books are Rethink Books (@RethinkBooks) and its FirstChapters (@first_chapters) platform, and Findings (@findings), a tool for sharing clips while using Amazon Kindle.

Other articles about the challenge of finding books:

Enhanced Editions (@enhancededition), “On Book Discoverability, Discovery, and Good Marketing.”

Austin American Statesman (@statesman), “‘Discoverability’ key in publishing industry's transformation.”

AARdvark (@digitaar), “The Key to Saving Publishing and New Writers — Branding the Publisher to the Consumer.”

GalleyCat (@GalleyCat), “Amazon's Book Search Visualized: Check out this nifty, homemade book recommendation engine.”

The Digital Shift (@ShiftTheDigital), "Libraries Still an Important Discovery Source for Kids' Books, Says Study."

Also see our previous blogposts, “BookRiff (@BookRiff): A Marketplace for Curators” and "How Ebook Buyers Discover Books."

Along these same lines, you’ll want to read StumbleUpon’s (@PaidDiscovery) “Creating an Infectious Brand” and “Recapping the 5 Keys to Brand Discovery.”

Stay current with publishing news when you bookmark and use daily our (@smrsault) SomersaultNOW online dashboard., especially the Book Discovery Sites tab.

Internet users in Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Japan, the UK, and US were surveyed, representing more than half of the world's online population and more than 60% of the world's gross domestic product (GDP).

For the first time on the survey, Canada reports that the Internet is now more influential overall in purchasing decisions than family and friends. Comparatively, in the US, the Internet rates about equal in importance (46% compared with 47% for family and friends). The Internet's greatest sway is in Asia, where the gap between the influence of the Internet and that of family and friends is 9% in China (79% to 70%) and nearly twice that in India (79% to 60%).

Overall

·         66% of contributors say the Web has an impact on their purchase choices

·         61% for guidance from friends, family and colleagues

·         51% for email

·         43% for newspapers

·         42% for television

·         37% for direct mail

·         28% for magazines and radio.

When looking online for information about products

·         89% use search engines

·         60% visit brand websites

·         50% access user-review platforms

·         24% post a question on a forum

·         18% turn to the brand's Facebook page

·         14% go to the corresponding feed on Twitter

·         12% search Twitter for comments in this area.

The average participant of the survey spends 13.7 hours per week using the Web, vs. 9.8 hours watching TV and 4.7 hours on a mobile device.

Regarding social media, 42% of the sample have “liked” a brand on these services.

·         79% became “fans” to learn more about a brand

·         76% were seeking discounts

·         73% sought exclusive information

·         69% wanted to give positive feedback.

·         67% hoped to share opinions

·         59% had ideas to submit

·         58% wished to “display an affiliation”

·         57% liked being part of a community.

Read the survey in full (pdf).

Read the facts and figures ebook (pdf).

Bookmark and use daily our (@smrsault) free online dashboard SomersaultNOW; especially the Research tab.

Thinkmodo (@thinkmodo) dreamed up a publicity stunt for the movie Chronicle about three teenagers who get superpowers and can fly. The stunt? Create people-shaped motorized kites, video record them flying over New York, and hope the video goes viral. It has. In just four days, the video has more than 5 million views on YouTube.  Discovery (@Discovery_News) explains the technology behind it all. And here’s a CNN report about it.

Also see our previous blogpost, “How ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas’ Reveals the True Meaning of Viral Content.”

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you get people talking about your brand.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard, especially the Social Media/WOM tab.

On Practical Ecommerce (@practicalecomm), contributing editor Paul Chaney (@pchaney) says blogs have advantages over social media platforms when it comes to brand marketing, including the ability to improve SEO results and the chance to add a personal touch by having one person communicate the brand's message directly. Here are his 5 points:

1. Blogging Can Improve Search Engine Optimization

2. Blogs Add a Personal Touch

3. Blogs Help Build Brand

4. Blogs Attract Media Attention

5. Blogs Exploit Marketable Niches

Read this in full.

Let Somersault (@smrsault) help you manage your social media marketing strategy.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard; especially the Social Media/Word Of Mouth tab.

Brand owners must pay attention to their “digital balance sheet” as the rise of ecommerce, the popularity of mobile devices, and the growth of social media reshape the trading climate internationally, according to The Digital Manifesto: How Companies and Countries Can Win in the Digital Economy by The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) (@BCG_Consultant).

The management consultancy says the Internet economy of the G20 countries — a group including Brazil, China, Germany, India, Japan, the UK, and the USA — should hit $4.2tr in 2016, up from $2.3tr in 2010 due in large part to the rapid expansion of the Web user base, which is set to surge from 1.9bn to 3bn during the same period (45% of the global population).

“No company or country can afford to ignore this development. Every business needs to go digital,” says David Dean, a coauthor of the report and a senior partner at BCG. “The ‘new’ Internet is no longer largely Western, accessed from your PC. It is now global, ubiquitous, and participatory.”

The BCG report charts several major shifts in the use and nature of the Internet:

·         From a Luxury to an Ordinary Good.

·         From Developed to Emerging Markets.

·         From PC to Mobile.

·         From Passive to Participatory.

BCG says companies that make extensive use of the Internet — including social media — to sell, market, and interact with their customers and suppliers grow faster than those that do not.

The study recommends that brands focus on their “digital balance sheet:”

digital assets comprised of

·         Information and analytics about customers, suppliers, employees, and competitors

·         Connectivity and feedback loops that lubricate the digital enterprise

·         Intellectual property that bestows a competitive digital advantage

·         The people, culture, and capabilities needed to execute and deliver

and digital liabilities (ways of working that handicap the ability to exploit their digital assets) of

·         Organizational structures, incentives, and cultures that collectively discourage adaptability and risk taking

·         IT systems, processes, and tools that limit flexibility and focus

·         Rigid strategies unsuited to a volatile business environment

Read the news release.

Read The Digital Manifesto (registration required).

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you determine your own brand’s digital balance sheet.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

Social media outlets including blogs, Twitter, and Facebook, have had an upsurge in credibility over the past year, according to the Edelman Trust Barometer 2012 (@EdelmanPR), which examines trust in 4 key institutions — government, business, media, and NGOs — as well as communications channels and sources, measuring attitudes across 25 countries.

Trust in government shows an exceptionally sharp drop in the 2012 Barometer. Trust in business is also decreasing. But trust in social media has taken a dramatic increase.

Overall, there is a huge drop in trust for CEOs while trust in persons such as regular employees and “a person like yourself” is increasing dramatically. In other words, people tend to distrust messages communicated by CEOs through traditional corporate channels, but have increased trust in messages from their peers, communicated through for example social media channels.

Read more here.

In this video, Richard Edelman introduces the findings from the 2012 Edelman Trust Barometer.

Read the Executive Summary.

See the Slide Presentation.

Bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard for marketing and publishing professionals.