Its local, direct and personal. I love foursquare for marketing!

Any one that follows me on twitter or is a facebook buddy will know I'm a regular at the Sainsbury's on Clapham Road Bedford or that I frequent the Luscious Fruit Bar on Lime Walk (both historical Bedford monuments for those not in the know), the reason for this phenomenal geographical commentary that allows mere mortals to feel they are in the presence of greatness is the wonderful little social network/game of foursquare.

I'll be honest, I'm not sure the real purpose of this post other than to say I think its a cool service which, when used correctly should enable companies to engage really well with their potential customers at a local level with a direct communication that ilicits a response for very little expense on behalf of the business - a retail holy grail?

Last week Domino's credited its use of foursquare with increasing pre tax profits by 29% (along with a range of other social media initiatives) which alone is an excellent example of a UK organisation taking advantage of location based digital integration but combined with the rest of their social mix makes for some really interesting reading (and a good case study for a few agencies I suspect!)

There is some good analysis of Domino's social activity here - Wavematrix

Another thing I like specifically about foursquare is its seemless integration with facebook and twitter rather than being a rival it syncs superbly and I've a nice little

piece of personal experience on this from a few weeks back. I decided to treat the wonderful Mrs Dutch to a wild night out and went to see Predators at my local Cineworld. Being the social media pioneer I am I let the world know I was there and what film I was going to see with my foursquare sync to twitter... the next day I was tweeted by cineworld asking me what I thought of the film...

I'm still waiting on the years supply of free cinema tickets for my insightful response but in the mean time I'll revel in the warm glow generated by a local, relevant and direct communication I had with a national brand.

For those more interested in making foursquare work for their business there are 7 Quick Steps to Foursquare Marketing here because its clear I've not given up much in this post... I just think its cool and has a lot of potential!

Google Discontinues Nexus One - A Sign Android Is Really Here?

Quite a few headlines around this one today but I'm not sure the implications of the news are as big as some may suggest. My view, for what its worth (that much? Why thank you!) is google knows that android has seriously taken off and as a result they don't need to waste the time and money themselves in supporting it with a flagship phone for a few reasons

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_to_discontinue_nexus_one.php

Handsets
A quick look at one fairly well respected tech site sees the Nexus One ranking in at 7 out of 10 and I know its an awesome phone so all that says to me is since release its been bettered by a range of other phones - http://techie-buzz.com/mobile-news/top-android-handsets-to-purchase.html

Android Take-up
Phones with android operating systems are literally flying out the door, according to the Boss Man himself Eric Schmidt there are 160,000 being activated each day
http://gigaom.com/2010/06/23/android-daily-activations-top-160000-all-verizon-droids-will-get-froyo/ and the likes of HTC and Motorola struggling to build the phones at the same pace they're being sold http://mashable.com/2010/06/10/android-popularity/

App Market Growth
The android market itself is growing, growing, growing. Circa 15,000 new apps a month in May and June 2010 http://read.bi/9HPZ03

So, if the overall android market is growing by the day, perhaps Google have decided its better to concentrate their areas of expertise with their sites (google, youtube etc), apps (maps, goggles, shopper etc) and advertising products (search and admob) and let the specialists develop handsets which google and its multiple products can be plugged into!

So, from my outsider looking in view, I think dropping he Nexus One can be taken as a positive for google and its mobile offering.

Mobile & Social Media Futures

Check out this SlideShare Presentation: I like this guy, have read a few of his decks, mainly I'm jealous as it appears he has an exceptionally cool job.

From my perspective one of the most interesting points he makes is on slide 56, "30% of most advertising budgets will go towards mobile/social/interactive during the next 3 years"... interactive is the element that enables that sentance to be true given it can include current internet as well as the likes of radio, TV and OOH all becoming more interactive within the next 3 years.

slide 16 also interesting, looking at referral traffic for a few sites splitting between social and google and paints the picture that social drives more than google... would love to see the same for a few FMCG brands or perhaps online retailers. 6 of these are news providers so its safe to assume they're all over the social environment creating the referalls. Basically they're getting out what they put in.

Love it!

Mobile & Social Media Futures: Presentation at MedienForum NRW June 2010 (English)

View more presentations from Gerd Leonhard.