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Archive for Adam Kleinberg 
The very real state of mobile
Posted by Adam Kleinberg on October 22nd, 2012 at 12:57 pm
I just got back from the iMedia Breakthrough Summit in Austin. The event was almost completely focused on mobile.
Someone cracked a joke within the first 10 minutes of the conference that "once again, this is the year of mobile!"
Clearly, there are a zillion stats I could post (I won't bother) showing we are all using smartphones to access the internet these days. But what does that mean for advertisers? It's a complicated question. I think it boils down to five contributing factors:
Using big data to reach people
The reality of the mobile canvas
Tablets are not mobile devices
Other ways to find our customers
The real mobile opportunity
Using big data to reach people
If one thing is certain, there is no shortage of data that will help marketers find customers on their mobile devices. Media geeks will salivate at the big data being collected to help them target customers. It is impressive. It is terrifying.
One company called 4info showed us how they have collected latitudinal and longitudinal data on 330 million devices across 97 million households so they can target you on your phone.
How? First they look at where you are at night during the sleeping hours to classify you, your spouse and your teenage... Read more
Google's view on mobile
Posted by Adam Kleinberg on October 16th, 2012 at 6:53 am
I'm at the iMedia Breakthrough Summit watching a presentation by Brendan Kraham from Google's mobile sales and product strategy team. He shared some of the exciting new initiatives being explored at Google and some strategic considerations we should be thinking about when it comes to executing in the mobile space.
Google Now
This was the most exciting thing I saw. Google Now combines voice recognition, contextual geolocation and predictive technology to guess what you want before you even know you want it. For instance, Google Now knows when you leave for work and can tell you traffic routes. If you're at a train station it will give you schedules.
This sounds like an Amazon recommendation engine for your life. I'm excited to check it out!
Google Wallet
The big power of this is that it streamlines the purchase process. We're not there yet, but mobile commerce is definitely coming. Google will definitely be a big player in the space.
Chrome Experiments
Google thinks the canvas for the mobile web is very rich. Check out chromeexperiments.com to watch some videos and other examples of what their browser makes possible. Impressive stuff.
Field Trip
Interesting way to curate content. Field Trip is... Read more
3 Tips for Targeted Tweets
Posted by Adam Kleinberg on July 19th, 2012 at 1:43 pm
Twitter just introduced the ability to Target your Promoted Tweets. This is good news for marketers advertising on Twitter—especially ones who want to control the geography or platform of audiences they reach.
According to the Twitter announcement:
We are enhancing Promoted Tweets to help you deliver even more targeted messages. With targeted Tweets, you can now reach specific audiences on Twitter with a message tailored just for that group, without first sending your message to everyone who follows you on Twitter.
Targeted Tweets will be particularly useful if you want to tailor your messages locally and/or for specific mobile platforms.
Specifically, you can now do several things you couldn't before with them:
1. Target Tweets by location.
Want to only reach customers in California? Or Uzbekestan? Twitter now allows you to target promoted tweets by region or country. Obviously, that makes ads way more relevant for many brands and eliminates a ton of wasted impressions.
2. Target Tweets by platform.
You can now create platform-specific messages for the desktop (Twitter.com), iOS, Android or iPhone. Let's say you're selling apps or games for iPhone only—now you can just target iPhone users.
3. Target Tweets outside your follower base.
Let's say your business objective is to engage potential new followers... Read more
Marissa's Choice
Posted by Adam Kleinberg on July 17th, 2012 at 10:43 am
The Twitterverse was abuzz yesterday with #marissamania and with good reason. Marissa Mayer is one of the most exciting personalities in tech who rose through the Google meritocracy not because she was a founder, but because she deserved it.
Marissa has the X Factor, and that's just what Yahoo! needs.
For the Yahoo! board to choose a woman was terrific. For them not to care that she was pregnant should be a no-brainer, but it's terrific too. But it's hard to imagine the digerati so excited if the choice were a Meg Whitman or a Carly Fiorina.
No, Marissa has star quality. Clearly, it's the reason Google put her in front of a microphone so often. And after years of riding a roller coaster of CEO ineptitude, Yahoo! needs someone more than just competent.
Don't get me wrong. They need a competence. A friend in a prominent role at Yahoo! recently lamented to me that the place is filled with brilliant people, but that there is a cultural issue where every decision needs to be approved by 30 of those brilliant people and the result has been a lack of clear vision and a wealth of mediocre decisions.
They will need a competent executive to... Read more
