Latest posts from Danny Brown

Enjoy the latest posts from Danny Brown, and feel free to add your own thoughts in the comments after the post.

The 2×4 Interview: Creativity and How to Improve Yours

Towards the end of last year, my friend Michael Schechter was kind enough to invite me to chat on his 2×4 series.

The idea behind 2×4 is simple: one?series that examines?two?topics, creativity and productivity, by asking those who make things on the web the same?four?questions on both subjects.

I had a blast answering Mike’s questions, and thought it’d be cool to share the answers here. In this first part, we talk Creativity – make sure you drop by on Wednesday for the Productivity answers.

Have you always considered yourself to be a creative person?

I?m not sure. I think it depends on how you?re defining creativity. If a kid makes a mess, is that creativity? Because it wasn?t there before, and the kid had to take actions and bring them to the fore to make the mess, so is that a creative process? I?ve always been passionate about writing and storytelling, and how that can impact on someone?s mindset. But then, that just kinda came natural, so I?m not sure if that counts. Sorry for the lame answer!

What mediums and inspirations do you gravitate towards to realize your creative goals?

Well, blogging is probably my number one medium, both from a writing angle and a reading angle. Some of the best, most outright and questioning content today is coming from blogs. People like?Gini Dietrich,?Adam Singer,?Geoff Livingston,?Olivier Blanchard?and others like them are writing stuff that everyone should read. I?m also a big TED fan ? if you can?t find inspiration from?their channel on YouTube, you?re probably a zombie.

If you had to point to one thing, what specific posts or creation are you most proud of and why?

From a creation, it?d have to be the12for12k project. To see what started out as a simple idea to?use social media to raise funds and awareness for charities?turn into the community it did, has been pretty inspiring. I love the fact that people truly wanted to be involved ? it was a real team effort, and the fact that everyone donated their time for free was just amazing. From a blog post angle, I?d say the one where?I talk about my attempted suicide?is the one I?m most proud of, because it helped others open up about their demons and understand they?re not alone. To me, that?s what blogging is all about ? the human connection and the potential to change lives.

Any suggestions for those who feel they may not be creative take to unlock their inner artist?

Practice doing it. It doesn?t matter if that?s blogging, painting, making movies, taking picture or whatever. Make time every day ? even if it?s just five minutes ? and take a picture, or write a blog post, or shoot something on your video camera. You don?t have to publish it ? just get into the habit of doing it, and learning your trade. You?ll be surprised at how you grow, both in creativity and the strength to actually make your creation public.

image: Imagine24

PinPal Wants to Use Your Friends to Create a Sex Meat Market

Strong title? Probably – but then PinPal deserves it.

Currently in private beta, PinPal is a new start-up that looks to create a casual dating network by using the API’s of Twitter, Facebook, Klout and, as the name might suggest, Pinterest.

From the site’s own description:

PinPal combines the visual magic of Pinterest with the connecting power of your favorite social networks to help you find your perfect PinPal!
After you sign up, we?ll search through your favorite social networks to find your friends ? and more importantly, their friends! Up to three degrees of separation!

In essence, it’s a pretty smart idea and one that, when you think about it, is surprising that no-one else has thought of it. But you know there’s going to be a “But…”, and you’d be right.

The Creepiness Factor of PinPal

Note the key sentence that stands out – “we’ll search through your favorite social networks to find your friends – and more importantly, their friends!”. Doesn’t that set alarm bells ringing?

It reminds me of the issues Klout faced ?a while back when they were caught adding friends of their site’s users to their platform, whether that friend was connected with Klout or not. It’s the same ideals, the same methodology.

Haven’t we learned anything from Klout’s failings when it comes to privacy and abuse of it? Apparently not, according to PinPal.

According to the FAQ section of the PinPal site, privacy no longer exists on the web. Their take on users’ privacy concerns?

Let us ask you a question ? is your privacy safe online anyway? We don?t think it is, as much as we?d like it to be. So, to answer the question of privacy, you have as much privacy on PinPal as you do elsewhere online ? we think that?s the fairest way to go.

So, essentially what PinPal is saying is if you trust other online properties – especially the ones we use to gather your information – then by definition you should trust us. Encouraging…

Especially when you see how the service works.

When you access the beta (invite-only at the minute – I was asked to have a look), PinPal connects your Twitter and Facebook account, and not only gets your information but also, as it turns out, that of your friends.

Whether ?they’re locked down in private settings or not.

They then source that against Klout, and determine if the user is “worthy” of being in the system. For instance, you need a Klout score of 40 or more to progress.

Once your influence and worthiness of being a date partner is assessed, your Pinterest account is then brought into play, and PinPal scours that API to find people of the opposite sex that you’re connected to. That’s added to the Twitter and Facebook friend information – and the friends of the user – to create a “hot list” of potential partners for a casual date.

PinPal creates a private board and the pictures of the “possibilities” go on display for all to see. You pick your chosen Pin, and introductions are made.

As a dating site, that would work well. But PinPal isn’t just any old dating site, and therein lies the issue.

You’re On Your Own, Sport

Online dating sites are ramping up security and their process after an alleged rape of a woman using a dating site in Southern California. It’s tragic that something so awful should have spurred this action, but at least they’re trying to protect others from the same fate.

PinPal seems to avoid this major concern, and almost shows disdain for anyone asking about it. Again, from their FAQs, in answer to the question how safe PinPal dates are:

As safe as any online dating service, with the added security that this is all happening with social media, so if something goes wrong you can let people know about it. That?s pretty powerful stuff right there!

So, essentially, because you can tweet about your date, if something goes wrong – heaven forbid, something as serious as the SoCal case – it’s okay, because your tweet will be enough to create a backlash against your attacker…

At its best, it’s naivety – at its worse, it’s gross negligence and abandonment of responsibilities to your users.

So, in a nutshell, PinPal is creating potentially dangerous situations not only for you, but for your friends too, who may not even be aware they’ve been sucked into PinPal’s questionable practice.

Like I mentioned earlier, it reminds me of Klout at their peak of bad practices. But at least Klout saw sense and offered opt-out solutions for anyone not wishing to be in their system.

From the looks of PinPal, once in it’s very difficult to leave. And even if you do, your friends are still on display for all to see.

No matter how you dress it, that’s bullshit.

I reached out to Jimmy Addison, the co-founder of PinPal, for his thoughts on these concerns, but there’s been no reply as of yet.

In the meantime, if you want an example of all that’s wrong with social media, look no further than PinPal. They’ve got to be a lawsuit waiting to happen…

Click now to read the full story on PinPal.

The Race for Mobile Supremacy and How It Affects Your Business Strategy

If social media was the big thing in 2010 and 2011, then mobile is clearly leading the charge for the hearts and minds of both businesses and consumers in 2012.

While QR codes and push marketing via SMS campaigns have started the flow, the recent uptake in smartphone adoption across all parts of the globe means this year is going to be huge for mobile marketing and commerce.

A?recent report from comScore?emphasizes this point more than ever, and offers business owners and marketers an overview into the strategy they need to be preparing for the coming year.

Analyzing the Data

Some of the key findings from the report include:

Where mobile use was initially strong in the U.S. (and continues to be with 42% of the mobile market there on smartphones), Europe is now leading the charge, with 44% of users in France, Germany, the U.K., Italy and Spain using smartphones.
The clear leaders in the field are Apple and Google, with their iPhone and Android platforms respectively. Android continues to be the lead platform, with almost half of U.S. users on it, and capturing 60% of the five countries mentioned above in Europe.
Shoppers are using smartphones much more when in-store, using apps and search to compare prices and offers, as well as scanning barcodes for reviews and comparisons prior to making a purchase.

These are just some of the stats that jump out immediately. The report also looks at how mobile is driving the amount of interaction on social sites like Twitter and Facebook, as well as cross-platform use between smartphones and tablets.

Simply put, the biggest message coming from the report is that you need to have a mobile strategy more than ever, and sooner rather than later.

So how can your business adapt to the findings if you haven?t already?

Measure, Adapt, Implement

While it can be easier for smaller businesses to adapt than larger ones, due to red tape and the approval process, the need to be adaptable is key across all businesses, regardless of size.

It?s why RIM is currently struggling in the smartphone market after leading it for so long. Poor leadership and products that lagged behind a hungrier competition saw the BlackBerry make fall from grace in a way not seen since Yahoo took a dive in the search market.

So, if a market leader like RIM can fall so bad, it shows the need for your business to be on top of its game ? especially in the mobile world we?re increasingly living in.

Looking at some of the stats from the report, there are a few ways that you can use the information to ramp up your mobile strategy and build successful campaigns around them.

Look at your website analytics?and see how many of your visitors are coming in via mobile browsing (whether that?s smartphone or tablet use). Then look at your site and see if that?s been?mobile-optimized or, at the very least, if it?s mobile-friendly. If it isn?t, that needs to become a priority to resolve.
Take the expense hit and create a simple mobile app?that visitors to your site or offline properties can download. This can be an overview of products; a simple e-commerce app; an inventory checker; a mobile loyalty card; a fun media app; or a number of other solutions. Encourage use of the app by giving special offers or discounts to those app users (you can?track the uptake and success of these by?something like Google Campaigns in your analytics set-up).
Market to your market.?This might sound a lot like common sense, but you?d be surprised how many businesses lack it? Looking at your analytics, as well as monitoring how your content is being shared (are users tweeting about you from an iPhone app versus an Android one, for instance), you can tailor content and landing pages to the preferred platform. iPhone users may prefer a less cluttered design, while Android users may prefer being able to save a sale inside their Google Calendar directly from their smartphone.
Optimize the experience for the experience of the user.?As the comScore report shows, the demographics of smartphone use are very different from standard mobile browsing. Take advantage of this, and build offers, mobile promotions and more around the language and purchase cycles of your demographic. Can you tie a fun, QR-code led promotion for surfers during Spring Break, for example? Or a movie tie-in?special using mobile-exclusive codes for the Twilight saga, and have SMS specials delivered to moviegoers who text your number for the offer?

Again, these are just some basic ideas on how you can measure your audience; adapt on the fly to time-sensitive opportunities; and implement quickly and smartly (no pun intended) to the smartphone crowd.

The opportunities are pretty much endless. And smartphone users have shown that they?re open to offers, especially if they?re well-planned and executed properly.

But with the information available to businesses from a variety of sources, that should now be the easy part. You just need to make sure you?re in the mobile game to start with.

This post originally appeared on the Jugnoo blog. It offers insights into marketing, mobile and social media trends – subscribe here to get our latest posts.

Jack of All Trades, Master of… The Problem with Google

So, it looks like Google is entering the comment system fray.

Never mind that it smacks of yet another “let’s copy Facebook” move. Nor that there are already excellent comment systems out there at the minute – the awesome Livefyre (used on this very blog), Disqus and IntenseDebate to name just some of the third-party options.

Google’s clearly taken a look at how Facebook Comments tie the user into Zuckerberg’s network, and wants a piece of that pie to go along with their recent abandonment of their “don’t be evil” mantra.

While it’ll no doubt attract its fans and users – especially the Google+ aficionados – I can’t help but feel the announcement is just another indication of why Google is struggling when it comes to social.

We Think We Want To Be…

One of the problems Google faces is it doesn’t seem to know what it wants to be. It was a lot easier in its early days, when search was the be all and end all of the Google equation.

But search only gets you so far (in Google’s case, being #1 means you kind of have nowhere else to go). Cue growth time.

Google Ads; PageRank; Google Earth; Blogger; YouTube; Feedburner; Google Voice; Gmail; Google Labs and more. From the small beginning of a search idea between two friends, Google became a fully-fledged multimedia company.

And it seems to be confusing them.

While Google was busy adding cool stuff to its repertoire, it wasn’t really making that cool stuff particularly sticky with the general public. Yes, they own the search space – but think of their real success stories, and they’re mostly external projects.

YouTube, they bought. Android, they bought. Google Earth, they bought. Google Voice, they bought. In fact, when you really think about it, the biggest success story for Google internally is its very first product.

And maybe that grinds them, when they see what Facebook has achieved since its inception back in the middle of the last decade.

It got the everyday user buy-in that most Google products haven’t (yet).
It made the web fun.
It appealed to all ages.
It attracted brands as well as consumers.
It’s continued to innovate internally.

Yet, perhaps more importantly, Facebook has managed to do all this without really needing the search strength of Google to achieve its popularity and success (just ask yourself how many other businesses don’t care about where they rank on Google’s algorithm).

To combat this, Google launched Google+, their own social network and the one that Google is pinning a lot of its hopes on in its battle with Facebook, especially after the abysmal failures of Buzz and Wave.

Early indications are good – 100 million users and reports of the network’s importance to search.

Although numbers aren’t everything – Google forces you to create a Google+ profile?whenever you open a new Google product account, so that immediately adds to installed user base.

And when questioned recently at South by Southwest, the Google representative admitted that they class “active use” of Google+ something as miniscule as clicking the little alert button in your Gmail account, without even going through to the main Google+ site.

So take the numbers with a huge pinch of salt.

And now there’s the news of the Google comments system. Talk about throwing everything but the kitchen sink at the wall…

Too Many Google Pies

As I mentioned earlier, it’s easy to see why Google is going this route. With their recent “One Privacy” announcement, Google are looking to bake all their products into a more cohesive offering.

By doing this, they’ll (hopefully) make it such an integrated experience that you won’t need – or want – to use any other provider. From email to videos, business applications to smartphones, search, social networking and e-commerce, Google wants to be be the kingpin.

The problem is, they’re not doing a very good job of it so far.

If they really wanted to integrate, they’d already be making Google+ the centrepiece for their users, and a simple one at that. Unfortunately, that’s not coming across (currently) in the user experience.

Let’s say I wanted to create a promo video with customer testimonials, for example.

I should be able to grab images from my storefront on Google+ (the one they don’t really provide), collate them into a slideshow, add a voiceover, create a Hangout with some of my best customers, get testimonials, edit into the video, polish and then publish direct to YouTube.

Then I should be able to work in Google Docs to create a promo kit, call up my Circles of journalist friends, and send an invitation to the media kit as well as embedded video for them to watch. Voila, an instant interactive release.

Could this be on the way? Maybe – but if Google really wants Google+ to be truly adopted, they need to be doing this now. Instead, they’re just adding more things and, by doing so, adding to the problem.

Take the Google comments system. Let’s say that’s adopted as Google’s standard system – what happens to all the comments left on a Blogger blog post? Or a YouTube video? How do these get integrated – do they, or are they just cast aside, which seems to be Google’s usual way (just look at Picnik).

And the problem when you can’t merge old platforms or designs with new ones doesn’t always go over well (just ask YouTue users who got pissed at that channel’s makeover, and how it messed up their feeds).

One World or One Success at a Time?

There’s no doubt Google has the resources to take on Facebook and other platforms and businesses they want to compete with. Their Android platform is going head-to-head with the Apple machine and doing very well for itself.

But social seems to escape them, for some reason. Do we really need another comments system, even one that’s baked into Google’s core products? Will that be enough to see Facebook users – or at least the ones used to using their comments system – add Google+ to their repertoire?

Despite their early success, the jury’s still out on Google+ in general, and what Google actually wants to be as a company.

The latest comment news doesn’t really answer any questions; instead, it just poses more. And no matter what company you are, get too many users asking too many questions about who you really are, and that’s never a good thing…

Your thoughts? Is Google over-extending itself, or simply laying the bricks for an unassailable foundation?

Evolutions and Revolutions

There?s only one letter difference between the words ?evolution? and ?revolution? but there?s a whole world of difference ? yet many businesses fail to see it (or ignore it altogether).

When something grows naturally, it?s an evolution. When something grows through a huge dose of innovation and forced change, it?s (usually) a revolution.

Look at some of the biggest changes in the last few years.

James Dyson looked at vacuum cleaners, and how poor filtration and dust-filled bags meant your carpet or floor was never fully clean. Not only that, your health could suffer because of sinuses and allergies.

So he created the self-named Dyson, a bagless vacuum cleaner that worked on cyclone power. Sales went ballistic, and the way we looked at vacuum cleaning changed overnight. That was revolution.

Or look at the Flip video camera. Taking the functionality of video cameras priced at 2-3 times more, the Flip turned a static industry into one that a generation of YouTubers flocked to. Now you could buy a high-definition video camera for under $200 ? a major drop in price.

But the Flip wasn?t revolutionary ? it merely evolved what was already there.

Your Evolution

Look at your life. Personally or professionally ? both tie into each other anyway, so you can look at both. How are you evolving?

How are you taking what you learn and evolving what you?re doing? How are you using the time you have to fill the time you have left? Are you using it, or are you abusing it?

We all have a limited shelf life ? there are a ton of things we can do to make it as fulfilling as we want it to be. For yourself, you could:

Write a book. It?s said everyone has at least one great book in them ? are you writing yours? It doesn?t matter if you?re not a great writer ? there are a ton of resources and people available that can make you better.

Achieve your business goals. A lot of people say that to really be happy in business, you need to own your own. Not necessarily ? you can make your business your career at a company. Look at where you want to be in 1, 2, 5 and 10 years, and look at what you need to do to get there. Then keep pushing yourself to do so.

Be loved and love back. You don?t have to be married or in a relationship to love and be loved ? you can do anything to meet your love quota. Help with a charity; have a pet; be a schoolteacher; volunteer at a food bank. You have the opportunity to offer love in so many ways without ever being with another person ? are you using it?

Evolution and revolution are two words. In business, we often have the chance to use either, or both. In life, we pretty much only have the chance to use one.

Two words. One letter difference, but a world apart.

How will your evolution be told?

image: lamont_cranston