Starbucks Already Advertises Against Facebook Places Offers

Today Facebook shook up the local deals space with their Facebook Places announcement: the local deal platform which now competes directly with Foursquare, Yelp, Groupon, etc. Facebook launched with twenty premier partners who represented different industries (Gap :: retail; Palms :: hotel; Starbucks : food; Golden State Warriors :: sports; etc). The platform will quickly expand to 20,000 local businesses and then a self-serve platform. Considering Facebook's size, mobile usage and collection of brands / business owners - this is a big deal.

... And Starbucks seems to recognize that. Immediately after the Facebook announcement, they began advertising with premium Facebook ads - specifically promoting their places offer: "Starbucks will donate $1 per Facebook Places check-in up to $75,000 to Conservation Intl. Help us protect 5,000 acres of forest land."

Today's Top Grossing iPhone Apps

Following up on yesterday's post about the impact Apple and Android are making on the gaming industry... here is a screenshot of today's top grossing iPhone Apps. A couple notes of interest: 1. The highest grossing application is free... meaning that financial success can come from 'freemium' apps

2. ... but don't overlook that it is the NBA App: massive brand and timely app (the season just started)

3. Other than the NBA, every other top grossing in the app is a game

4. Most of those games are $0.99

5 ... and the more expensive ones ($4.99 - $6.99) are associated with larger brands (ie Gameloft & Electronic Arts).

This is not to say that non-gaming applications are unable to succeed... but it is clear that pricing, brand and timing play a key role in popularity. This is precisely why Nintendo and others should be scared: the app-store has disrupted how games are played, shared and purchased ($0.99 vs. $29+). It also changes how those games are produced and marketed.

Lastly - while I find gaming interesting and fun, I would love to see other app categories crack these lists. It is already happening on the iPad... and I expect it will happen with the upcoming Chrome App Gallery.

iPhone & Android Dents Portable Gaming Industry

Two years ago, I wrote about the looming death of portable gaming devices... seems like it happened sooner than we thought. Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal covered Nintendo's revamped 3DS handeld gaming device - which Nintendo is hoping will revive their declining gaming platform and business:

"The Japanese company also reported its first interim net loss in seven years, hurt by weakening overseas sales and the strength of the yen. First-half revenue fell 34% to 363.16 billion yen ($4.44 billion) from a year ago."

While the Nintendo 3DS may be a great device (to be determined).... the fact of the matter is that improved hardware won't solve Nintendo's problem. Asking consumers to buy a handheld device, carry that device, and individually buy game titles (at $29 / disc) is unreasonable.

Consumers already carry iPhone's, iPod Touches, and Android Devices - and those platforms now have large libraries of gaming content. The games are far cheaper (free to $9.99) and wildly popular: 14/15 top grossing iPhone apps are games.

We have learned that with Apple and Android - and to a lesser degree Znyga, LOLapps, etc - consumers value gameplay and social more than game graphics and flashiness.

Google TV: Hands On with Sony Blu Ray

So my hiatus was brief... but I will keep this short to stay in spirit!

Today I got the Google TV (Sony's Blu Ray product). It's remarkable. Quick thoughts:

1. Set up is very, very easy.

2. This is truly a merging of internet and television. The 'picture-in-picture' functionality is the most clear example.

3. The UI is super intuitive. No instructions needed - I am sure there are tons of things to discover, but usage is obvious.

4. The ability to integrate with all providers AND use it without changing TV inputs is game-changing.

5. The Sony remote looks clunky... but it isn't. It is intuitive, easy to hold and great to for browsing / content input.

6. It's bad news for universal remotes (like Logitech): this is bluetooth and controls television, cable and Google TV. Unless you buy Logitech's Google TV product, there isn't a need for an expensive supplemental remote.

7. It's a ton of fun. Can't overstate this.

Facebook Begins Promoting "Recent Checkins"

Facebook often uses their sidebar to promote other products and features:- Image labeling - The friend finder tool - Facebook job openings ... etc Today was the first time I spotted integration of Facebook Places - specifically with "recent checkins". The unit shows checkins by your Facebook friends with timestamps and links to the locations / hubs.

I personally hope that this is the beginning of a larger location feed / map... interestingly you will notice that there is not a 'see more' link. Hopefully that is to come.

Great Action Buttons in Mobile Apps (Instagram as Example)

Have a key action you want to highlight for users? You could takeover the application as Facebook did to promote Places. You could create a persistent notification bar as Quora does. Or you could make the key action button really stand out... as upcoming application Instagram does (read about Instagram on TechCrunch. They are a Dogpatch Labs company.)

Instagram is a photography / photo sharing application (download it in the iTunes App Store)... and the most important action is sharing photos. So while there are other important actions (which all get buttons across the footer: feed, favorites, profile, notifications) - the Share button prominently sits in the middle and is raised above the others. It also protrudes onto the body of the application... such that is is always visible and very clear as to what the application's focus is.

Also worth noting: Instagram has a very clever header. It is slightly transparent, contains the photographer's profile and image title, and it becomes persistent only when you scroll through a specific photograph and it's comments. Once you get to the next photo, the header changes. Great looking, unobtrusive and informative.

Sample picture from Instagram - just to give you a taste of the application. It is a picture from Lake Tahoe:

Twitter's Surprising iPhone App UI

Not previously known as a leading designer, Twitter has been on a roll with their latest iPhone app, iPad app, and New Twitter. Here is a good example of why - but with some learnings / advice on how to design features. Twitter has to accommodate for lots of functionality: reply, retweet, search, favorite, quote, etc. You can easily imagine an application overwhelmed with buttons. Twitter solves this by having the core functions available via footer buttons, a "more" ('...') button and a surprising single tweet pane.

I call it surprising because it was not clear to me that this functionality existed... but if you swipe a tweet to the right, a pane appears that allows for quick functions of that tweet: reply, retweet, favorite, email, user info, etc. It is super useful... but is also surprising because I only discovered it accidentally. And this is a complaint I hear a lot from products trying to solve numerous tasks (no matter how elegant the solution may be). A consequence of simplifying complexity is often having to hide functionality... and that itself can lead to confusion.

It is difficult to boil down layers of options into a simple interface. It is equally difficult to make the interface intuitive and the functionality easy to uncover. That's why it's an art!

One other note: I love the small interactions that Twitter layers in... in the second screenshot, notice the small star that appears is uncovered in the upper right corner. That appears when a tweet is favorited.

Goo.gl Shortens URLs... And Adds QR Codes

By far the most interesting part of Google's new URL shortener (Goo.gl) is that, in addition to a bundle of real-time stats, the URL's Goo.gl page includes a unique QR code. Clearly Google has plans for this to be a major component of Android and a mobile experience. One other short note: The UI needs some assistance. Bit.ly's one click copy, bookmarklet, dynamic refresh, etc make usage so simple. These are small enhancements that Google can / should clearly implement in short order.

See announcement by Google and coverage at TechCrunch