Social Software Explored

A major travesty is happening inside the walls of the United States largest Toy Manufacture and one of the worlds most famous board games will soon tell us how the US is not bigger than the Internet.  It could be a marketing flaw (or plan) or it could be by design, but if we don’t hurry up and do something we might see the US being shut out of the latest version of Monopoly.

I found out about the new Monopoly Game (Here and Now: World Version) solely because I was on site as a vendor doing some training for the new content management system they purchased (CommonSpot).  I happened to be there the week that the site first launched.  And when it launched – it launched with a bang – a huge bang.

The new Monopoly site launched on Tuesday January 29th and it recorded more traffic then all of the web sites owned by Hasbro – combined!  That’s more than hasbro.com, transformers.com, playskool.com – over 50 of the top toy branded sites were eclipsed by the madly popular voting site.

Site visitors are encouraged to register and vote for their favorite city.  Top cities are are already registered and you can vote on up to 10 cities a day.  Additionally, you can “write-in” your own favorite city if it doesn’t appear on the site already.  Rumor has it the “write-in’s” will make up the two purple slots – previously held by Baltic and Mediterranean.  The site is actually a good idea and while its usability leaves much to be desired it will not be the focus of this post.  What I came to talk about was the poor showing amongst the US major cities.

When I first visited the site a few weeks ago,  New York was in 3rd Place ( which put it as the 3rd highest property on the board – or Pacific Ave.).  Since the last time I visited I have seen no commercials on television, no website ads, no magazine ads and nothing on the news (except for this morning).  New York has now slipped to 9th place.  On top of that – Canada (which holds the top spot) has 2 cities in the top 20 – and holds the 21st spot with Toronto.  Some other notables posting higher vote percentages than any US City – Latvia, South Africa, Serbia, and Turkey (holy crap!).

So my question is this:

1.) Is this a hugest marketing blunder in US History (again no commercials, no web ads, no articles or TV appearances)

2.) Is this a calculated marketing push to push the Monopoly game into the hands of foreign buyers at a time when the US market is at a record low

3) Or – is this just a hint of the power of the Internet and Viral Marketing at its best.  I didn’t even now that they sold Monopoly in Latvia.  I would guess maybe South Africa but Latvia ?? (kind of cool if you think about it).

I did see my first TV appearance today on the Fox News channel (Sunday morning on a station that probably has the lowest news ratings for that time slot than any other network).  They had the Monopoly bus and a Uncle Pennybags look-a-like whooping it up with the host.  It is possible that other morning news networks (a spot where I could see this kind of marketing being effective) are working the story but as of right now there is only 11 days left.

I don’t see the US getting the top spot I guess I am more concerned about it not getting a spot at all but I would say it certainly deserves to be in the top 3 and would be an undiably better choose for Boardwalks postion than Montreal.

So, I know that you wives have you going to HDTV.com to win the 2008 Dream Home (you can give up now on that because I will clearly be the winner) – but I must implore you to vote today (and every day – for the next 11 days). And don’t vote for your city (Portland and Orlando will never make it).  Just vote for the front runner – have some pride and save the heritage of this wonderful game!

Yeah – I know – which is why I was so intrigued by the article. It’s located over on CNN.com with the title “Microsoft tinkering with scary-smart ad spots” and it definitely grabbed my attention.

With the impending bid for Yahoo still looming news about Microsoft’s latest advertisement projects are very interesting. We already know how a company like Microsoft can use distribution channels (the OS) to drive revenue to other products (Desktop Publishing and Workplace Communications). Now it seems that the purchase of Yahoo is another mechanism for Microsoft to exploit one channel to benefit from another.

Unfortunately, it is genius and, it represents a big push for the company to continue its strife to take over the world. Scary – very scary.

I am a big proponent of smarter ads and also could care less if my “actions” on the Internet are tracked by “big brother”. Look, the Internet is a tool. If it doesn’t get smarter what good is it. So, I have stated before here that I want the Internet to learn about me and understand what I like and don’t like. Present me with advertisements that make sense. Don’t show me things that I would never be interested in.

Part of me feels that if we get more targeted ads, then we won’t need so many. Instead of having to blanket a site with many ads hoping to reach a site visitor, they could have one spot that is guaranteed to reach visitors. If I can go to a page – look at the ad – say quickly “yes” or “no” then move in it wouldn’t bother me. So, I am glad that someone (Microsoft or not) is working hard to turn this crazy out of control advertisement world on its head. Shake out what doesn’t work.

One of the projects that they are working on stated that it could “… scan(ned) videos for surfaces where product images could be inserted…”. Who knew that vidoes had “surfaces” but I guess if it did then we could certainly use them for product placements.

Another project built “transcripts” from a video using voice recognition so that it could supplement the video with targeted advertisements (on the side of the video) which correlated with the content of the video. Hell ya. I am in.

Building systems that make advertisement companies smarter will help us – we are consumers – we buy things. What are we really afraid here (besides the impending takeover of the world by Microsoft)?

With all of the discussion around the Internet today centered on the potential acquisition of Yahoo by Microsoft (which I have to admit I am not fond of), one must consider Yahoo’s community and Microsoft’s lack of community (besides the Developers Community of course) as a major reason we are at this point.

Many of the discussions so far, center around the Yahoo’s search engine and Microsoft’s desire to stay in the advertisement race. In my mind, it is not the technical abilities of Microsoft’s search which makes them unsuccessful it is the fact that they have no compelling content or applications which enhance an external community. Most people that go to msn.com only go there because it is the default page in the IE browser that they are “forced” to use.

Communities are hot (apparent when Microsoft attempted to buy Facebook). They represent excellent channels and offer great support for brand loyality. And with the growing numbers in advertising (and targeted advertising) dollars – a community site or set of applications make sense.

Take Flickr for example – many people were upset when Yahoo purchased Flickr (myself included). Since Yahoo is favorable in the public eye, the “sell-out” to Yahoo was more digestible than a “sell-out” to Microsoft however. And while Flickr does have some pretty nice technical features and it is easy to upload photos, it is the community that drives that site. What happens when the community falls out of the picture?

Obviously, Flickr would come along with the Yahoo purchase and I bet that the thought of being under a Microsoft umbrella makes Flickr members unhappy (go Picasa).

So the question that I ask is “Can you really buy a Community?” I think not. Communities grow organically, and most of them grow because people involved carry some of the same beliefs and share common ground.

You can’t buy that. This will fail.

Updated: Ok, after reading this article “CNN.com readers weigh in on Microsoft’s Yahoo bid” it seems that the “public” are concerned about Microsoft’s purchase of Yahoo as a method for them (Microsoft) to compete with Google.  I would agree on that if you think about search – other than that – Google is leaps and bounds above Microsoft when it comes to innovation.  Unfortunately, the folks over at Yahoo may not be innovative enough to help Microsoft.  Oh — this is sooo exciting.