This year’s SXSW was the largest interactive event in the festival’s history. An estimated 18,000 participants joined the conference this year up 30 to 40 percent from last year. This is my fourth year in a row attending SXSW and I consider it important both for the aggregation of innovators in the digital space, but more importantly, what that aggregation of folks causes in terms of behavior.

For example, based on the mass of digi-nerds with smart phones and a suite of applications, Foursquare was the clear winner last year in terms of what the audience was using at the conference to connect with friends and find the next drinking location (cough), I mean panel. This year, I watched carefully to see what the masses were doing, and by participating in those activities with a mass of folks, try to figure out where we’re going next in the digital marketing space.

Five trends emerged.

1) Group Texting

Group texting allows a group of people to text each other exchanging information to organize groups. The main competitors of the group texting wars at SXSW were GroupMe, FastSociety, Beluga, & Kik. Above, you can see an infographic tracking online mentions over SXSW from March 11 – March 15^th indicating the winner by share of conversation.

GroupMe, the winner, launched first in August of 2009 with a simple premise of allowing a group of people to text each other. They have since added features to allow sharing of photos and location along with allowing users to join groups.

In second place, Beluga, allows users to send group messages with photos and location as well. Facebook also acquired it in March.

Finally, Kik, commenced operations as an instant messaging application but announced a group messaging feature last week and picked up a new round of funding.

In my own experience at SXSW, I started the conference using Beluga with a group of other digital folks so that we could organize our plans throughout the day both at panels and throughout the night. As I had not turned the SMS notifications off, I found my battery was severely drained as the group texted each other about every panel and party they planned to go to. I promptly turned it off after a day but noted the value in organizing a group around events like this.

2) Social TV

Social TV made a splash at SXSW with a panel devoted to the topic becoming packed 15 minutes before it even began. Jennifer Preston from the NY Times quickly organized a panel next door to the panel room dubbed #rebeltv. The panelists re-convened the following day at the CNN Grill to discuss the topic and again the panel was packed to capacity. Informally, I grabbed drinks with the CEO of Miso, the CEO of ClipSync (technology that runs the social aspects of Showtime, Epix, and CBS, and some other folks from the Social TV space.

In addition, I attended one of the most interesting panels I have seen in 4 years: Social Media in the Middle East coordinated by reporters from the NY Times and attended by MSNBC, NPR, Al Jazeera and others.

Above all, I think the message from both avenues boiled down to the fact that information and conversation is being aggregated across the web on television and in print/online news media to empower the message and the experience. Some highlights:

· People are conversing in real time while watching TV. How do TV networks access those conversations making those moments engaging like the stories on screen? Chloe Sladden weighed in on how Twitter has been integrated with TV on MTV, CurrentTV and others to promote the community conversation.

· What amount of information should be visualized on the second screen while someone is watching TV? The answer is somewhat complicated. A mobile application that will go unnamed has being doing covert tests with its audience and has found that synced content can easily become distracting from the original goal: watching a TV show.

· In essence, TV networks will continue to practice and test with their audience to figure out what works but it is clear that these conversations have a part in the TV watching experience.

3) Anonymity (Canv.as) vs. Personalization (Facebook) on the Web

While waiting for the launch of the rumored Google Circles, Google’s coming social network, the conversation swirled at SXSW surrounding the anonymity the web was founded on vs. the personalized tagging that Facebook has made popular. In other words, the 90’s were about anonymous posts on message boards and the like. Facebook, through its interests in aggregating all of this personal data, has created a network where everything is identified by the person who said and/or posted it.

Christopher Poole, the founder from a site called 4Chan, gave a keynote on the subject discussing the popularity of his site 4Chan but also the social network he’s building (Canv.as) meant to create a social network founded on the principles of anonymity. The site is still in closed beta but Business Insider offers a preview of the site.

4) Social Shopping

Social deal sites have blown across the Internet in a fury, taking with them a path of discount destruction. Groupon, Scoutmob, Livingsocial, & Gilt Groupe were all discussed in this particular panel. In addition to these sites, which create a groundswell around the time-limited deal, the “qualified recommendation engine” otherwise known as friend opinion is of primary importance. Technologies which empower the social shopping concept through mobile or online platforms include QR codes or other mobile tags, near field technology (rumored to be included in the iPhone 5 launch) and location-based services like Foursquare and others.

5) Location-Based Meets Discounts

Location-based platforms like Foursquare and others have rushed to integrate deals within the fabric of their applications. Foursquare launched an AMEX integration days before SXSW. For users who link their AMEX card to their Foursquare account and check-in at participating locations, they will receive $5 back when they spend at least $5 or donate $1 to Grounded in Music. This represents location-based gone loyalty program.

As quickly as deal sites like LivingSocial and Groupon work to integrate location, location-based sites like Foursquare and Gowalla work furiously to integrate discounts. In essence, location and discounts have become interwoven as principal reasons users integrate with these platforms.

Dennis Crowley, co-founder of Foursquare, spoke to Mashable’s Pete Cashmore in a keynote at SXSW on the topic as well as the additional features in Foursquare 3.0. Those features included an updated UI evoking more information for users when they check-in, re-enabling the gaming dynamics, and adding a recommendation engine. For example, when I checked in at a location with my friend Dan Berger, founder of SocialTables, I got a message saying that I hadn’t checked in anywhere with him in several years. Interesting data.

With all of these features, it is clear Foursquare’s ability to surface deals in a way that is organic to the user is most important. Crowley takes a different stance from a Groupon strategy in that he thinks the most important function of the app is the friend recommendation rather than the deal. I think that is true for many folks who happen to use Foursquare but not for many others.

In this same keynote, a girl from the audience asked Dennis Crowley for a hug on stage. This proves that Dennis Crowley is the Justin Bieber of SXSW. It also illuminates the digerati empowered at this event in Austin.

Taking a stance on Flipboard vs. The Daily, two iPad applications which supply news content to their audiences, highlights the friction between old media and new and distinguishes the ways two companies are bringing information to users. Flipboard is a social magazine launched in July 2010 by Mike McCue and Evan Doll touted by Apple as iPad App of the Year and one of TIME’s top 50 innovations of 2010. The Daily launched in February 2011 by News Corp., designed to be the first iPad-only newspaper.

To fully discuss the future of news, I’ve brought together a group of folks with different perspectives for the weigh-in. Below are the three main contributors. Along with these, there are several other powerful perspectives weaved in along the way.

Ashmi Dang: Digital Marketing Consultant specializing in entertainment

Caroline Giegerich: Editor of Daily Marauder, Master of whimsy

David Hayes: Digital marketer in theatrical at a studio and curator of finely wrought bytes at Stilllifewithinternet.com

The Secret Sauce

Flipboard

“Flipboard is the “platformifiication” of publishing, open to anyone who wants to publish through it. The breadth of content available trumps the quality of individual pieces of content, with the experience being different for everyone that uses it. The Daily is “magazines as medium”, and is a literal interpretation of what the future of magazines can be – a multi-dimensional interpretation of a formerly two-dimensional edited, curated document.” Ian Schafer, CEO, Deep Focus

A:

Flipboard allows me to be the secret sauce by giving me control over what I read. My usage is mostly concentrated on my Twitter feeds. Pulling them into Flipboard offers me a way of stepping out of the live steam to do some social listening, as well as responding and ultimately boosting my Influence Score by having dialogue with what I’ve read. An application that simplifies the process of doing all that, through a visually pleasing and unique UI, helps feed my social-networking-news-consuming-junkie needs.

For a newspaper, the biggest draw is the editorial content. The challenge for The Daily is convincing consumers that their version of the news is worth paying for. Right now, there are five categories, one being Sports which I don’t read. Of the remaining four, I’m already able to find most through my existing news channels, and others that are of importance to me are simply not covered. The value proposition and product differentiation don’t exist in terms of my needs with The Daily.

C:

In the days of the newspaper, the news editor was king, culling together a meticulously curated product from the ranks of the professional journalist. In the new era of social media, the control of content has shifted from ‘professional’ to everyone. Twitter, on the short form, and blogs on the long form have empowered the masses to become an army of content creators. Flipboard simply aggregates this new army of content creators to create a new breed of broadsheet. If my broadsheet could speak to me, what would she say? Well, she would most likely say something different minute by minute as the news developed. Flipboard fulfills this promise creating a lean back experience of news that has been curated by both the reader and their amalgamation of friends and contacts.

The Daily, on the other hand, is a traditional newspaper that has been re-packaged simply for an iPad product. One issue is delivered and served with the sections you’ve come to expect from a traditional newspaper. No personalization. No curation of the masses. This difference evokes the glaring friction traditional media has been battling with for so long: ceding control. Content creators no longer require journalism school or fancy degrees. Recognizing this is the secret sauce of Flipboard. Ignoring it is the Achilles Heel of The Daily.

D:

While The Daily is attempting to recreate the experience of reading a newspaper for lean back devices, Flipboard’s aim feels more ambitious: Create a “personalized social magazine.”

Quality as News Source

A:

Flipboard is a platform driven by my work in curating the best content for me and also offers some pretty great optional channels of aggregated content. Ultimately, I’m in charge and it comes down to my willingness to ensure that I’m reading quality information.

With The Daily, Caroline McCarthy, of CNET.com/CBS, made an excellent point while moderating a Social Media Week panel in NYC, “For The Daily to really establish itself as a long lasting fixture, its going to have to start breaking news and getting that exclusive Steve Jobs interview that Time would otherwise be getting.” Its uniqueness in this area is most critical to its success and right now, it’s just not there for me.

C:

Here Flipboard could potentially fall flat much like Twitter. If not carefully managed, a Twitter feed can become a garbage can of ridiculous comments. Flipboard allows the user to pick the inputs from Flavorpill to the NY Times. If a user selects only entertainment outlets, the experience will be limited to that information removing the possibility that the budding protests in the Middle East will make their way through. In this way, Flipboard’s ability to present information is only as good as the human programming it.

On the flip, The Daily is collected and published in one edition and experienced as such by all users.   Flipboard is Pandora. If you decide at some point that you no longer like the blues, some energy is required to remix. The Daily is radio. I worked in radio. We DJ’s lie to you all the time about playing requests. Doesn’t happen.

D:

The Daily is a better way to get the day’s news for the target customer, the type of person who walks by his front door and misses that familiar stroll onto the lawn to pick up the morning paper. The Daily is a newspaper dressed up to look like a spaceship but a newspaper nonetheless.

Flipboard is not a very good way to get the day’s news. Why? Flipboard is the single-most pleasurable experience I’ve encountered on a touch-screen device for…browsing, but it is not a very good app for scanning. Flipboard is both an extremely pleasurable and tiresome experience. It’s a “fifteen minute app,” both in fame and in the maximum amount of time I can stand using it.

Business Model

Flipboard: free. The Daily: $.99 per issue of $39.99 per year

A:

Being free, Flipboard is contributing to their future success. Adoption and usage provide data necessary to understand what’s working and what’s not. Once they figure this out, they have the opportunity to stake a claim in what becomes the norm furthering investment and continued growth. I’d personally like to see an algorithm that pushes the most discussed topics in my feed’s front and center.

As a subscription-based service, The Daily is going to have to significantly set itself apart from its free competitors. More than ever, we are curating our own news. At a Social Media Week panel, Adam Ostrow, Editor-in-Chief of Mashable said, “News Corp has been one of the few companies that’s been successful at charging for content through the Wall Street Journal, and while I think its a bit of a different audience obviously, people will pay for information that moves markets.”

C:

In typical Murdoch fashion, the price is immediate even before the quality of the content has been proved out. This is called ego and the central differentiating feature again between old media and the start-up community. Start-ups focus on the user experience almost with little to no focus on how they will prove out revenue-positive results. Traditional media focuses on how to glean immediate profits before asking consumers if they like the experience. There must be some middle ground here.

D:

If Murdoch succeeds, he’ll have proven that people willpay for the news, even if that news is so bland that it appears to have been generated by content bots. People will pay for information online and that content doesn’t have to be Wikileaks caliber. This is because many people don’t pay for the information itself, but the experience of consuming the information. (i.e. USA Today) For a very specific, very large and very deep-pocketed user base, the experience of reading a newspaper in some version of the old way is worth paying for.

Flipboard has gone the free route and faces that long road of gaining enough users to sell ads against eyeballs. I would have charged for Flipboard. It’s the exact type of novelty I’d pay for just as I paid for FLUD and Pulse. At its core, Flipboard isn’t a magazine. It’s a feed reader, an aggregator, be they social (Facebook), Flipboard-endorsed (FlipTech) or self-curated content. This is no different from Pulse, FLUD, Feedly, Google Reader, etc. Is Flipboard one of the more unique aggregators? Certainly. Can you make real money at aggregation? Ask Google News or Tumblr. It’s tough. Content creators will give you their feeds for free but the second you try to make money off them? Watch out.

Traditional Media vs. New Media

“I’ll bet on ‘produced’ content any day. Right now, everybody aggregates the news, but few are producing. This is where The Daily stands out. It’s early, everybody is learning, but Murdoch took the right approach…conceived from the users point of view, not trying to squeeze a newspaper onto a 9 inch screen.” Rishi Malhotra, Managing Partner 212MEDIA, a NYC-based media incubator.

A:

Flipboard’s approach is acknowledging consumer’s changing behaviors with the widespread adoption of both the iPad and social networking. The Daily has delivered an electronic newspaper in a medium that begs for innovation. Advantage, Flipboard. It is looking toward the future, not reinventing the past.

C:

Flipboard represents a revolutionary way to consume news. The simplicity of the thinking is this: extend the aggregation of news outside professional editors and customize that curation by user. The end links could be the same. For example, my friend may post a link to WSJ which would be curated through Flipboard. Same as reading the WSJ? No. In this case, the WSJ was hand-selected by my friend for some reason, elevating its status like a highlighter elevates text. No one wants to think his or her job is not specialized. Flipboard makes us all editors which empowers us all. The Daily continues with the control traditional media clings to. Control the message. Control the power. Too bad the power already ceded to the community a long time ago. Democracy isn’t just for Egypt any more kids. The news is now ours to create. Move over Wolf Blitzer…

D:

From its old school subscription model to its print style ads to its broad sheet page layout, The Daily is 100% about making its users feel comfortable performing an activity that doesn’t really exist in the modern world: Reading – not scanning – yesterday’s news. This is precisely why Big Media wins in this case. They get their customer’s true needs and wants and are positioning themselves for a specific group of people with a high willingness to pay. That group just might be those 76MM Baby Boomers approaching retirement and ready to unwrap their next iPad.

The startup loses. Flipboard will basically appeal to the exact type of person who understands that it would be ridiculous to pay for yesterday’s news because they read yesterday’s news yesterday in real-time, as it happened. This is the same type of person who has enough feeds to demand a feed reader and needs that reader to be built for scanning and not browsing.

Below is an excerpt from a post I wrote for Mashable. Read on here. All images from the post are included below including the ones which did not get used. Above is a video created for this post including Naveen Selvadurai from Foursquare, Greg Grunberg from Yowza!! (and Heroes of course), Chamillionaire, Nastassia Johnson from the Manila Machine, Todd Dipaola from Checkpoints, & the brilliant Foursquare Cops.

Checking in all began with location but has shifted to allow users to check in to TV, movies, books and finally to brands. Each of these additional options allows us to personally define ourselves by answering the following questions: Where am I? What am I watching/reading? What am I buying?

While each of these choices from location, to content, to brand allows for an additional layer of sharing, they also each call for an additional level of activity from the user. It’s not enough to visit a restaurant or watch a TV show; we now must announce to the world that we’re doing it.

Simply put, we have fallen into the age of the overshare. There is a happy medium to be found, but we haven’t quite hit on it yet.

So, what do these companies think the reward is for users? And what do users think about interacting with these platforms?

Location: Cast of Characters

Why Are We Checking In?

Checking into Content: TV, Movies, etc

Why Are We Checking In?

Checking into Brands

Why Are We Checking In?

As someone who prides herself on being a digital nerdstress, I often field questions from folks looking for mobile app developers. It’s very analogous to that moment where someone texts you looking for a good restaurant or bar in their neighborhood. Inevitably, your mind goes blank and the vestiges of cool locations are lost rendering you helpless in directing your friends to that cool bar you always want to refer people to. Eventually, perhaps you muster up the mental energy to pull a few developers out of thin air, developers who most likely have no additional bandwidth to take on new projects. FAIL.

Enter TheyMakeApps, an online directory of iPhone application developers categorized by location and price. iPhone users have so far downloaded over 3 billion applications from the iTunes store. A recent study from Gartner found that users will download, on average, 20.1 apps per smartphone this year. With that much consumption, it’s easy to see why everyone is looking for a good developer.  With over 100K registered iPhone developers, it’s easy to see the need for something which weeds though that much choice.  The challenge in finding the right person is in finding someone who can execute the vision at the right price. They Make Apps helps it all come together in a slick user interface that makes the process a bit more fun.

How to

Currently, users can browse through apps filtering by price (up to $20K) and by location. The site was developed by Kettle, a NYC-based digital consultancy. Olivier Peyre, Creative Director of Kettle, tells me that search will be available soon. Clearly, search is a critical feature allowing users to drill down on exactly what they’re looking for, be it a mobile app developer specifically or a developer who has worked with a brand of interest. I like that the site allows for users to save mobile developers of interest for a comparative look later in the process.  Any developer can easily sign up on the site to be included in the directory.

Currently, the limiting features for me are the lack of search (which is already on its way), the lack of budget options above $20K, and the lack of Blackberry, Android and Palm Pre developers. Some nice-to-have features would be a way to vote up and down certain developers creating a hot list of preferred vendors and a way to email developers of interest to friends.

TheyMakeApps isn’t exclusively for agencies and developers. SPIN magazine used the directory to find the developer for their latest project. Nick Pandolfi, Digital Edition Manager of SPIN describes his experience:

“TheyMakeApps was a huge help with SPIN’s latest development project. Rather then reach out to all our contacts for developer references, it was a quick way to find locally based developers and see exactly what they specialize in. I’m sure we’ll be using it again soon!”

TheyMakeApps is simply the glue connecting need to the solution. And frankly, I love glue.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Staggering iPhone App Development Statistics to be Unveiled at Inaugural App Exhibit at Macworld 2010 (prweb.com)
• Mobile apps to generate untold riches for developers (go.theregister.com)

Uploaded on November 23^rd to mark the 18^th anniversary of Freddie Mercury’s death on November 24^th, this video has amassed just under 5 million views in 4 days on YouTube alone. Impressive numbers to say the least.

In addition, it’s just really f-ing funny. Mama!!!

Related articles by Zemanta

• Watch This: The Muppets’ ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ (cinematical.com)

Making the Tasty Treats

The first year my mother tried to make a turkey, she apparently over-stuffed the bird and a turkey powder keg blew a hole through the oven door exploding precious white meat all over the wall of our kitchen. Being that I had heard this story on numerous occasions, my first attempt at bird making was very well planned.

Here are a few sites to help get you started using language even the most beginner chef can understand. As an added bonus, after several years of trial-and-error, the Marauder kitchen recommends sage butter (and lots of it) underneath the skin. Also, when attempting to brine, soaking a bird in the crisper overnight is probably not the best idea…

How-Tos:

Videos to impress the giblets out of your friends:

Amazing recipes itemized by course:

Wine Pairing

Gary Vaynerchuk from Wine Library TV offers 12 wine selections to pair with the bird, a somewhat more difficult wine-pairing item.

Giving Thanks

Tweetsgiving

Last year, Epic Change launched Tweetsgiving raising $11,000 for charity in 48 hours. Those donations were used to build a classroom in Tanzania. How’s that for giving thanks? This year, the bar has been raised to $100,000. While many are returning for their third plate of stuffing, Tweetsgiving will be raising awareness across social networks from YouTube to Twitter asking users what they are thankful for. Follow @tweetsgiving on Twitter and tweet about what you’re thankful for from now until the 27^th using the hashtag “#tweetsgiving” at the end of your tweet.

Socialvibe

Socialvibe donates to charity by marketing brands such as Kraft, Timberland, and Powerbar. Every time a brand is successfully marketed, charity benefits. At first, I thought this sounded a little sleazy. But really, marketers scream for your attention on a daily basis. At least in this case, charities benefit somewhere along the line.

Download the Thanksgiving Feast App to play. Every time you add a meal to the table, a real meal is provided through the UN World Food Programme.

Setting the Mood: Best Thanksgiving Song

Sure, this song is old but no has yet to top Adam Sandler on the joys of Thanksgiving.

Talking Tryptophan

Yet again this year, you can get your thanks on via many of your favorite social networks.

Get real-time cooking advice from the Butterball team either on their Twitter feed or Facebook page.

What to do when mom locks herself in the bathroom because your 35-year old brother insists on making fart noises at the table? Butterball may not have the answer for that one…

Get your spirit on with 23,000 of your other friends on the Thanksgiving fan page.

Mobile App Fun

iHost: Thanksgiving

Developed by a Rhode Islander (big-ups to my home state), iHost helps you get organized from menu, shopping list to budget. Their most recent update supposedly added recipes from local Newport, RI chefs. A little Rhode Island flavor has come to southern California. Very nice.

Chef’s Timer

If you’ve cooked with your iPhone in tow, as I always do, you know the device only has one timer. In most situations, that works just fine. But, what about situations where you have three side dishes and a turkey crammed into your tiny NYC oven while your friends stare at your assortment of tiny snacks in disdain? Yup…there’s an app for that.

Thanksgiving = Football

For those of you who know me, you understand why this comes last in the list. I know next to nothing about football. I do know that the grunting emanating from living rooms countrywide leads me to believe that you all care. This year, the NFL is offering a central portal for all 3 Thanksgiving games.

From Marauder’s home to yours, have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Related articles by Zemanta

• The TwitterKids of Tanzania (epicchangeblog.org)
• Thanksgiving Wine Picks: A Trainwreck of Love (dirtysouthwine.com)
• How To Cook A Turkey: 7 Tips From Butterball University (huffingtonpost.com)
• Turkey tips from experts at Butterball University (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Brine Your Thanksgiving Turkey for Juicier Results [Food] (lifehacker.com)
• Recipes for a Vegan Thanksgiving (well.blogs.nytimes.com)
• How To Carve a Turkey (howcast.com)

After previously only having an option to rent HD movies, back in March, Apple added the option to be able to buy HD as well. The problem? A complete and utter lack of options. Even now, some 8 months later, there were only a few dozen HD movies you could buy, and the majority were movies like The Midnight Meat Train— movies you probably had no desire to buy, let alone for the amped-up $19.99 HD price. Yesterday, that changed. (Techcrunch11/10)

While PCs have been able to use Google’s Chrome browser for some time now, the rest of us Macs have been waiting patiently for a proper, non-developer build that we too can use. That day may be coming very soon. (Mashable 11/11)

Well, the spirit of giving arrived a little early this year! For my birthday last month, Google announced it was partnering to offer free Wi-Fi on all Virgin America flights until January 15th. Great, thanks Google, now I have to check the feeds even while flying at 500MPH. But I guess that just wasn’t enough kindness to satisfy the Goog. They’ve just announced that they’re going to be extending the free Wi-Fi to 47 entire airports. (Crunchgear11/10)