Buying a Kindle DX ten months ago and now an iPad (delivered in the first batch on April 3rd), it really struck me recently how messy (or exciting!) everything is getting.  Mash-ups of business models are happening everywhere, and at an accelerating pace.  Here are a dozen big trends that I'm watching for this year, some relevant to Bazaarvoice and others not so much:

1. After Amazon.com launched the Kindle, it quickly became their number-one seller.  The free wifi to download a book from anywhere was just too compelling to pass up, along with the very easy to read screen.  Amazon projected that it would increase compulsive buying of books to the point where the wifi was subsidized by Amazon.com.  And it is working (for now).
2. And while we're talking about compulsive buying, consider Amazon.com Prime for "consolidated" buying vs. other retailers.  Other retailers have tried to emulate Prime and failed to do so.  It is difficult to do – you have to be very quick to ship (i.e., many distribution centers), with the availability (i.e., tons of inventory), to really trigger the compulsive buying effect.  There are profound implications on the long-tail as Amazon.com expands.  And, in their most recent quarterly report, Amazon's same-store U.S. sales were up a staggering 75%.  It seems that both the Kindle and Prime are triggering the compulsive buying effect, coupled with Amazon's long-tail inventory.  Many retailers same-store sales are flat to down as we come out of the Great Recession, and Amazon.com's stellar performance has to be noticed by them.  Our Chief Marketing Officer, Sam, blogged about this in November of 2008 and it is even more true today.
3. Enter the iPad.  The week Apple launched the iPad it sold 450,000 units with 600,000 books (via iBooks) shortly after.  Now that I have had the iPad for awhile, I don't just think of it as competitive with the Kindle or other eReaders or "tablets" – it is also competitive with netbooks (another mash-up), as Steve Jobs eagerly stressed.  Just project out a few years when the iPad has 256gb capacity, instead of the 64gb my model has today, combined with the new iPhone 4.0 OS (coming out at the end of this year) that enables multitasking, a micro-USB port or two, and wireless streaming everywhere allowing for seamless connectivity no matter where you are.  The iPad already has a keyboard docking station, which I also bought, and, of course, bluetooth for connecting to wireless keyboards.  And new TVs and DVDs are coming out with built-in home network and wireless capabilities, allowing you to stream TV to laptops, netbooks, desktops, iPads, iPhones, or whatever you choose to use around the house (or while you are on the road if you have a Slingbox or something similar).  The bottom line is that the genius author, Kevin Kelly, got it right in this Wired magazine article (comparing tablets to a portable window into the world).
4. Will the iPad hurt Kindle sales?  Many Wall Street analysts and journalists think so.  My personal take?  Well, I was skeptical about whether or not I would enjoy reading books on it as much as I do the Kindle.  Initially we were just buying the iPad as a family device for watching movies, playing games, and keeping up with blogs, Facebook, and Twitter.  But now with the Kindle app loaded on my iPad, adjusted to a sepia "paper" color and 60% brightness, I can read for hours just fine.  But to really see how the iPad transforms books, just check out the book it comes pre-loaded with (a Winnie the Pooh children's book, which is, of course, in beautiful color).  No color on the Kindle.  Every try to read a no-color book to a child?  And then check out the app, The Elements, which has gorgeous color, 3D illustrations, and full-on video.  Or look at what Wired magazine may be planning to do with tablets.  I was watching Alice in Wonderland with our daughter recently, and Alice said (shortly before falling down the rabbit hole), "What is the use of a book, without pictures or conversations?".  Just look back in history at the adoption rates once color television came out vs. black-and-white television.  It is just a matter of time before our children are carrying interactive tablets in their backpacks instead of heavy textbooks.  Yes, I think it is going to impact Kindle sales.
5. Ok, let's talk about mobile.  Google's Android (open platform) continues to gain traction vs. Apple's iPhone OS (closed platform).  It wasn't surprising to me when Eric Schmidt resigned from Apple's Board of Directors.  I moderated a panel of amazing venture capitalists at NRF and Shop.org's Innovate conference back in March, where my good friend Peter Fenton of Benchmark Capital predicted that Android would overtake the iPhone OS over time.  Of course, Android will power tablets too.  We've seen this movie before as Apple stayed closed vs. the PC world being open.  Will the movie be the same this time?
6. Mobile is now at a tipping point, with GPS built in, good camera phones, and great web browsers (e.g., Safari and Chrome).  We'll see a lot of mash-ups in this area as mobile is increasingly used by consumers while in stores, which will one-up the mobile use we've seen in social commerce so far.  Interestingly, the VCs on my NRF and Shop.org panel in March thought it would take several years, so our prediction about "the year of mobile" in 2009 may have been a bit early, although I would argue that the iPhone's rapid adoption that year did change the game.  And it certainly hasn't slowed down Mary Meeker at Morgan Stanley to produce the most comprehensive report (at 424 pages) I've ever seen on the state of the mobile industry, nor did it prevent NRF and Shop.org from having a Mobile Boot Camp at the March conference.
7. How about blogging?  My guess is that blog-post length has decreased (this post aside!) as Facebook has increased to a longer status format and people have become more and more used to Twitter's 140-character length updates.  Perhaps blog views have also decreased.  This leads to more "lightweight", or surface-level, conversations than the deeper-thinking conversations on blogs.  But we'll survive just fine.  I simply don't buy Nick Carr's arguments but I'll debate that later if you wish.
8. Although this would be the obvious place to discuss this trend, I'll purposely stay away from Facebook Like vs. Google Buzz vs. Google AdSense as my co-founder and our Chief Innovation Officer, Brant, is addressing that in a future post.  But needless to say, social is permeating the Web and that trend is accelerating, so we will continue to innovate quickly in this area.
9. Let's talk about transparency.  At the Liberty Interactive NetLeaders Forum in 2008, I remember Rich Barton, founder of Expedia and Zillow, presenting, "everything that can be reviewed will be reviewed [on the Web]".  He showed us examples of CEOs being reviewed on Glassdoor.com.  My opinion?  This will lead to a company culture revolution, which is part of the reason I feel so compelled to write my forthcoming book, How to Make Your Company Suck Less.  And Chris Fralic of First Round Capital as well as Kamal Kirpalani of Bazaarvoice recently asked me to review them on Unvarnished.  I wrote about transparency awhile back, based on a leadership talk I gave at The Wharton School.  In short, I think this is a very profound trend that will not only cause a renaissance in commerce but also in politics, government, and all types of human activities and relationships.
10. At Bazaarvoice, we're leading a revolution of marketing and merchandising with social commerce and user-generated content – or (my preference) digital word of mouth.  Digital word of mouth is quickly becoming the central point of insight for marketers and merchants.  We are writing the marketing and merchandising textbook of the future in our work with our clients (read my previous thoughts on this, from when we reached out 100-billion-impression milestone in February).  Digital word of mouth is getting mashed-up versus the aging focus group, NetPromoter, customer survey, and other methods that get "close" but aren't nearly as pure as how customers speak to each other with no bias vs. how they communicate while in the context of talking to the company.  Things for you to consider here: a) the market has always been based on conversations (read this chapter that was the namesake of our company), b) reviews are the new advertising as we are already beginning to commonly see, c) consumers write reviews to help each other (i.e., altruism, or with no bias), and d) this trend is why Google and Nielsen partnered with us.
11. Channel marketing is becoming more wired.  We see a major trend in this area with the adoption of our BrandVoice and BrandAnswers solutions.  We are at the beginning of this shift, and it is logical to think that, just as offline to advertising shift has fueled online advertising, we will see a similar accelerating trend as suppliers of retailers become more savvy at online channel marketing in a world where 80% of consumers read reviews while they are shopping (Nielsen's most recent stat).  And, of course, mobile is a major accelerant of this trend.
12. Finally, the digital executive will continue to rise in prominence as companies work hard to make sense of the rapid shift to a more digital, hyper-connected world.  For some early indicators of this, look at Raul Vazquez's promotion from CEO of Walmart.com to EVP and President of Walmart West.  Or Toby Lenk's, the founder of the original eToys, rise to President of Direct at Gap.  (I should mention that both are among the best speakers we have ever had at Shop.org events, where I proudly serve on the Board of Directors.)  These are very exciting times for those who really "get it" in digital.

For the long-term potential of the Web, I recommend you check out Kevin Kelly's speech at TED in Dec 2007 or his similarly brilliant article in Wired magazine.  And if you have time to get really far out in thinking about technology's impact on the world, just read chapter 1 (trust me, it's enough) of Ray Kurzweil's The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology (thanks to my good friend, Ethan Holland at American Eagle, for suggesting it to me).

I wanted to hear all sides, so I posed the question on LinkedIn – which city is the “capital” of social media? I got a lot of great responses, but the answers left me with more questions.

What makes a city the “capital”?

“…I guess you'd have to set the context around what makes a city the capital.”
Alicia Benjamin, Social Media Manager at MeYou Health (LinkedIn)

“You'd have as many capitals as definitions of social media.”
Daniel Alfon, trilingual online marketing specialist seeking a new challenge (website, Twitter)

Biggest SM user base? Most integration of social into daily life? Most Twitter, Facebook or Foursquare users per capita? A hub of social-centered startups? Is there even a rubric we can all agree on to evaluate this question?  Based on the varied definitions respondents seemed to create for “social media capital”, probably not.

“Las Vegas, of course. We enable the most social interactions- online and off. C'mon.”
Michael Perhaes, Assistant Vice President, Marketing, MGM Grand Hotel (LinkedIn, Twitter)

“LA is the capital of social media. It's the center of entertainment-oriented content, a seat of innovation, a denizen of app-crazy dining aficionados and ground-zero for a great deal of lifestyle-oriented communications.”
Barry Berkowitz, VP, Digital Mktg. Solutions @ infogroup Interactive (website, Twitter)

“San Francisco. Since it's social media, it's all about the people, and the Bay Area has literally thousands of very plugged-in people, most of whom work for extremely innovative organizations. Don't just take my word for it…attend a conference or a Tweetup there and see for yourself!”
Todd Castor, Area Director, eCommerce at Marriott International (LinkedIn)

“According to Chris Brogan, Pittsburgh is number one, based on the entire community and tribes crossing over to foster a cohesive community. If you judge by SXSW standards, Minneapolis is number one with the largest chapter in the world of the Social Media Breakfast groups, with Boston and San Francisco rounding out the top 3. Austin may host SXSW but that doesn't mean that Social Media is practiced there more.”
Christopher Lower, Co-Owner Sterling Cross Communications (website, Twitter)

Can there be a capital at all? Should there be?

My favorite comment challenged the question altogether.

“I thought the point of social media, the internet, crowdsourcing, cloud computing, et cetera was that there isn't a capital?”
Matt McCoy, Online Strategy Manager at Volt (Twitter)

The fact that our answers come from all over the country and globe begs the question:  If social media is a borderless world, can there even be a single capital? Maybe there can be multiple capitals, or perhaps social media should never have a capital in the first place. After all, traditional capitals are nodes of centralized power and top-down governance, ideas that seem contrary to the ideas behind social media.

So you tell us: What’s the capital of social media? Can (and should) there be one at all?

See who you know at Bazaarvoice.

Connect with BV employees on LinkedIn, and participate in discussions like this one.

1. Empower male Facebook fans to show their support

According to the report, males are far more likely (52%) to cite “to show others I like or support this brand” than women (34%) as one reason they become a fan of a brand. In fact, nearly one in four (23%) men cite this as their main reason for becoming a fan, compared to about one in seven women (15%). Men are also more likely to cite “being the first to know information about the brand” (29%) than women (9%) as their primary reason for becoming a fan.

To capitalize on this, give your male fans more ways to show their love than just becoming a fan. Enable them to publish UGC on your Facebook page, and encourage them to share this content on their own pages.

2. Give female fans what they want: discounts and promotions

Women, on the other hand, are most likely to name “to receive discounts and promotions” as their primary reason for becoming a fan of a brand. Women indicate this reason more often than males for both Facebook (30% vs. 18%) and Twitter (34% vs. 23%).

Give your female fans what they’re looking for on both social networks. Promotions are also a great way to encourage UGC submission.

3. On Twitter, capitalize on the shared need to be an insider

Men are more likely (59%) than women (43%) to become a follower of a brand on Twitter at least in part because they are already customers. But both men and women on Twitter seem to be driven by a desire to be “brand insiders” – with women seeking discounts and promotions, and men seeking to be the first to know information about the brand. Both genders list “to gain access to exclusive content” as another top reason for following.

Provide your Twitter followers with special content they can’t get elsewhere, and feed their need to feel like an insider with your brand.

What do all of these findings mean for social media marketers? To risk stating the obvious, they mean one size does not fit all in social media. While that conclusion may invoke thoughts of “duh,” take a moment to consider what it means. Coupons and promotions that work well for brands like Venus may not work for brands with even closely related products, like Gillette. Followers on Twitter may want something different from your brand than fans on Facebook.

Asking why your prospects and customers would interact with you brand is only the beginning. To be effective, your messaging needs to appeal specifically to both genders, so be sure to incorporate both sets of motivations into the mix.

Which brands would you say are doing this well? Which could stand to improve, and how?

Your brand is determined more by what customers say it is than by what you say it is.

Whether you’re encouraging them to or not, your customers and prospects are talking about you and your products online. At any moment, shoppers can get the instant feedback they crave from both strangers and friends online – Trendwatching calls it “NOWism.”

This isn’t to suggest that companies no longer have a hand in branding. The key to branding in the social age is to feed the conversation. As Sam Decker wrote on our blog last year, successful social media marketing is about soliciting structured feedback relevant to shopping and buying, and making this feedback available to customers making purchase decisions. Enable conversation between your customers, publish this content where it can help other shoppers, and join the conversation wherever appropriate.

Source: CMB's "Why Social Media Matters for your Business"

Social media – it’s not just for B2C anymore.

Once viewed strictly as a B2C tool, B2B companies are increasingly embracing social media. According to the report, 60% of B2B marketers plan to increase social media spending in 2010. 46% of B2B marketers cited “getting customer feedback” as a reason they use social media, the third most indicated reason behind “demonstrating thought leadership” (60%) and “generating leads” (49%).

B2B providers stand to gain from customer feedback on products and services just as B2C brands have. And due to the more relationship-focused nature of most B2B operations, B2B brands may have even more to gain from opening up to customer interaction.

Fans and followers are more likely to buy and recommend than before.

Refreshingly, this report doesn’t attempt to imply causation. Correlation and causation are confused and misrepresented too often with regard to social media. We can’t yet point to why, but the report notes that survey respondents indicated that they are more likely to buy from at least one brand since becoming a fan of the brand on Facebook (51%) or a follower of the brand on Twitter (67%). Respondents were also more likely recommend at least one brand since becoming the brand’s fan (60%) or follower (79%).

These conversations are already happening on social media, and they are affecting the behavior of your customer base. Having a concrete social media marketing strategy isn’t just icing on the cake for marketers anymore. Social media matters for your business now, whether you’re B2C, B2B, or both.

Is your brand tuning in? Do you have a strategy to capitalize on customer conversation?

Research: User-Generated Content Research Brief

Consumers are increasingly turning to each other for product or service information before making a purchasing decision.

Download the research for a look at retailers' perceptions of the importance of user-generated content.

NRF interviewed Julie Bornstein, Sephora Direct SVP, for the post. Some of Julie’s comments really struck a chord with us, and we’d like to share them here.

Julie discussed the brand’s use of MobileVoice, allowing shoppers to access Sephora’s thousands of customer reviews on their mobile devices. “Have you ever tried to decide which moisturizer to use while standing in front of a wall of options?” Julie asked. “Our customers love to talk about beauty and they love to hear what others have to say.” Mobile access to authentic customer opinions helps shoppers in offline channels – in your stores, browsing your catalogue – find the right product for them.

Julie Bornstein, Sephora Direct SVP

On Facebook, Sephora strives to make sure there is value in being a fan. “We make changes as a result of [fan feedback],” says Julie. “Given that the people who tend to interact with us are our more serious beauty mavens, they really know what’s going on. It makes us realize how in touch our consumer is!” Customer feedback offers brands a chance to interact with their most engaged customers, learning from their feedback to improve products and services and generate effective marketing campaigns. “Use this audience as a focus group to help drive business decisions,” Julie suggests.

Integrating social networks like Facebook into UGC efforts offers brands the opportunity to make this content especially relevant for shoppers. “If the first generation of ‘user-generated content’ was Ratings & Reviews, I think the next will be around filtering that input by your own network and friends,” Julie suggests. TurboTax is doing this with its “Friends Like You” feature, which not only allows shoppers to filter reviews by personal aspects like “bought a home” or “had a baby,” but also allows them to find reviews submitted by their connections on Facebook, Twitter, and Myspace.

You can read NRF’s full interview with Julie here. To learn more about integrating your brand’s UGC with mobile and social networks, request a demo here.

Golfsmith, a leading manufacturer and provider of golf and tennis gear, was one of Bazaarvoice’s first clients, and started Tweeting (@golfsmithHQ) and set up a Facebook fan page in spring 2009. Like a lot of retailers, Golfsmith is new to social media, but they’re not new to listening to their customers – the company celebrated their 40th birthday in 2007.

Right now, they’re trying to measure the impact of Facebook and Twitter for their business, and it’s an experiment at this point. According to Eric Mahlstadt, Senior Online Store Manager, and Dillon Smith, Search & Marketing Analyst, they currently have more than 1,200 Twitter followers and almost 7,000 Facebook fans. They track click-throughs from these pages to their site, follow responses to posts and numbers of followers, and are pleased with their results thus far. And it’s part of their corporate strategy of listening to their customers.

“It’s very important to us to walk the line between being engaged and being obtrusive,” said Eric. “The value right now to us as a retailer is not as much about what kind of people these are, but what kinds of experiences they’re having. We’re interested in providing as many choices and platforms as possible for our customers to share thoughts and ideas and provide input. The struggle then becomes having enough engaged ears to hear all the feedback and to be nimble enough to act on that feedback.”

So, for Golfsmith, the next step involves tying these conversations to real commerce. As an early adopter of our new Social Network Accelerators, they’ll have the opportunity to use Twitter and Facebook to directly impact sales conversion on their site. It starts with increasing participation.

“With Social Network Accelerators, we expect to start seeing crossover/cross-pollination to and from customer reviews and Q&A and our Facebook and Twitter pages,” said Dillon. “This comes with using these accelerators to drive more participation with Golfsmith, no matter how our Guests want to reach out to us, then aggregating these reviews and answers to our product pages, to have a direct impact on sales. It’s important to Golfsmith to listen to our Guests, over any channel they choose to use to communicate with us, and interact with them as much as possible. The more we hear from our Guests, the better we can work to improve our customer experience.”

While Golfsmith is innovating with Social Network Accelerators to help drive participation, there’s even more to come. Working with Bazaarvoice can help Golfsmith continue to innovate to help them get the most from social profile information – showing Facebook friends on the Golfsmith site – and distribution – allowing consumers to submit content directly from their social networks.

“As we learn more and continue to strengthen our communication with our Guests, we plan to work to increase the ease of sharing information, opinions and media to and from our Guests,” said Dillon. “We aim to provide social commerce applications and social networking in the format that our Guests would most like to use.”

And Facebook’s acquisition of FriendFeed, an online tool that helps users share information with their friends, further underscores the power of friends and other “people like me.”

Bottom line? If you’re on Facebook, you likely care most about what your friends – and perhaps their friends – think. There’s a reason you’re on Facebook, to share information with the important people in your life.

The power of these people is one of the main reasons we created Social Network Accelerators. When you’re shopping – whether you’re looking for a TV, a new insurance policy, or your next vacation – you automatically ask the people you know best. Social Network Accelerators feed into this by integrating with Facebook. When you go to your favorite retailer’s site to browse, you can see reviews from your friends, and even ask them questions from the site.

With our Facebook Connect application, customers can now shop online with their smartest friends in tow, seeing the products they recommend (or don’t), stories, and questions they have asked or answered.

For years, Facebook users have been able to share their published product reviews with their Facebook friends through applications like ShoutIt!, so their friends can see products they prefer. Bazaarvoice’s Facebook Connect solution takes this a step further, showing friends’ preferences while a shopper searches for a specific product – and guidance on what to buy – online.

This is just one phase of the new Social Network Accelerators we’re developing, part of helping our clients gain value from all their social assets. As discussed in our blog introducing Social Network Accelerators, our Facebook Connect application helps distribute user-generated content among a user’s friends, lets profiles drive which content a Facebook user sees at a retailer site, and lets Facebook users participate on retailer sites when retailers enable users to submit stories, answers, and reviews directly through Facebook.

Our new Social Network Accelerator program, announced today, gives brands a blueprint for plugging into social networks in the right way to drive sales. It all starts with engaging users through social commerce applications such as Ratings & Reviews, Ask & Answer, and Stories – and gives brands an integrated strategy to tap into social networks for better distribution, profile information and participation.

Distribution: With Facebook Connect, for example, customers can automatically publish reviews, answers and stories directly to Facebook to share their opinions with their network of friends. Unlike other solutions on the market, we give our customers control of the message. They decide when and if the content should post to social networks, ensuring the content is moderated and safe for the brand.

Profiles: Clients that integrate with Facebook Connect can let their customers automatically see opinions of their Facebook friends, and find out what products they liked best. This will help drive sales and increase engagement with the site.

Participation: There’s also an opportunity for customers to submit reviews, answers, and stories via Twitter or Facebook and automatically funnel back to a site, directly to the product and category pages, where they can directly influence sales, increase search, and more.

In addition to the superior technology of our Accelerator program, we'll also provide recommendations and best practices through our Community Managers. As part of a broader ecosystem, we recognize that our Radius partners will also play a key role in maximizing Social Network Accelerator results for our clients.

This all adds up to help companies broaden their reach, increase engagement with customers, and increase their intelligence about their customers as a whole. And – finally – companies can use Facebook and Twitter to drive real, measurable results. These are just a few ways we’re innovating to drive value throughout all of social.