ShoeDazzle a Facebook Commerce, Comments Launch Partner

Earlier in the week, I explained why Facebook Comments are important. Clearly others agree as Facebook announced launch partners for three verticals: commerce, media and sports. I am excited that ShoeDazzle (a Polaris portfolio company) is part of the launch. Considering ShoeDazzle's strong, active community and deep Facebook ties (725,000 Facebook fans!), Facebook Comments is a powerful two-way publishing platform.

Also worth noting: Facebook's specific call-out to the commerce category is strategically and directionally revealing. You can follow Facebook + Commerce at Facebook.com/commerce.

Facebook's Comment System is Important. Here's why.

Facebook rolled out their long-awaited commenting system today. Like other publishers, I immediately installed it on my blog (just scroll down a little and try it out)... here's why it's important: 1. Identity. Plain and simple: Facebook's authenticated login reduces spam and therefore increases quality. Say goodbye to SEO spam, trolling, etc. I am sure Cialis comments will come over time ... but Facebook social graph highlights relevant comments and friends.

2. Traffic. Facebook's comments publish both ways, integrates into the notification systems and will equate to increased publisher traffic. Whether comments occur on the publisher site or on Facebook - the content moves in both directions. That's a big win:

A comment ocurring on Facebook.com - notice the page title and URL are pulled into the feed:

I replied on Facebook and that content also appears on the blog. win-win:

Old Navy Commercial + Shazam = Hidden Content

Old Navy is currently running a TV ad that features the song Super C-U-T-E by Audio Threadz (a song and band seemingly created for the campaign). You'll notice the "Shazam Now" icon that appears in the corner and prompts viewers to use the mobile app to discover who the unknown band is:

Considering how often the commercial is on TV (the YouTube video alone has ~2m views), it is great co-branding for Shazam. It is also an interesting integration for Old Navy - who can use the promotion to unlock 'rewards': 1. a custom Shazam landing page / experience (fun) 2. the commercial's song (free) 3. "shop the look" - interestingly the commercial does not tout specific products... this reveals the merchandise

But imagine delivering discounts / benefits to users for actions like a Facebook 'like', an email confirmation, some other social sharing mechanism, etc. While most advertisements will not include a custom song and Shazam experience - it represents the power of delivering immediate content and value via the mobile device. We have seen it with check-ins, bar-codes and QR codes, coupons, etc... now it's coming to TV ads in more interesting / powerful way than "follow us at facebook.com/oldnavy".

Ravenwood Fair Passes 10m Monthly Users

I'm a sucker for info-graphics... and here is a really good one to help celebrate the success of LOLapp's Ravenwood Fair social game (note: LOLapps is a Polaris-backed company). Recently Ravenwood Fair hit a few notable benchmarks: namely surpassing 10,000,000 monthly actives and 1,000,000 daily actives.

While the info-graphic is fun... the data and social 'math' is both impressive and important (purchasing habits, virtual goods, LTV, et ). The LOLapps team is deeply analytical (as you would image with a gaming company) and highly skilled at determining ... and affecting ... "social clusters" (which affects virality and value).

Thinking About Facebook's Expanded Like Button

Today Facebook rolled out a rather significant change: the Like button has replaced the Share button's functionality. It's an important transition because, at least for me, it has already changed my "liking" behavior. Auto-publishing a story to my wall makes me think differently about the simple action of liking... which I do several times a day. With this new functionality, that would result in several feed posts and consequently annoy my friends / dilute the importance of my other posts. Below is an example of the feed post that resulted from liking a Mashable article. It auto-selects the image and summary.

In other news though, this post had over 5,000 Facebook Likes (way more than other articles)... so perhaps it does drive traffic:

Facebook Connect As a Registration & Login Flow

Reading OM's article "My web without Facebook Connect", I was reminded of an blog post I recently wrote and regularly reference ("Facebook as a conversion tool: registration flows."). OM's point is that so many sites now use Facebook as a registration / login path that it has become an integral part of accessing the web: "a day without Facebook, is quickly making the web unusable."

Inverted, that also says using Facebook within in the registration and login flows is important:

1. it's becoming universal and therefor familiar 2. users are more likely to pass information through via Facebook than to a new site 3. it expedites the flows and therefore improves conversions 4. it about more than efficiency. For instance: you can add the facepile for conversions, mobile flows can occur with a phone number (rather than an email address), etc

And from the consumer perspective, I prefer it: it's easier / faster and I can change passwords / access universally (more secure).

Facebook's Slick Photo Tagging Interface / Interstitial

Facebook Photos continues to roll out new functionality. When uploading pictures yesterday, I noticed a new post-upload flow: "Who's in these photos?" It is important for a few reasons. First, it shows that Facebook is focused on driving user tags. You can also tell through other features / tests like this...

Second, it seems to be pretty good at facial recognition (or at least similarities). Notice here that I uploaded five pictures - all of our son Dillon. It clustered three photos and two individual photos. Not bad - and as users tag more and more photos, the recognition will get better.

Third, the speed at which Facebook is rolling new Photos features is impressive: higher resolutions, new layout, better tagging, etc.

Techmeme Figuring Out the Blend of Real-Time & Published News.

I had the following post written and in the my blog's queue (which is how I usually write / blog).... and then something happened: Twitter and UberTwitter tussled. And as it broke on Friday, there was a mixture of real-time commentary, news and updates from the companies themselves (namely Twitter / @Support and Bill Gross).

Whether in real-time or as a digest, Techmeme was the best way to follow. Why? Because Techmeme had figured out how to appropriately (and immediately) combine the different news sources and formats... most of which was blurred between news and tweets.

So below is my original, unpublished post (in italics) about Techmeme's effort to better include real-time discussion into the their algorithm (ie Twitter & Quora discussions). And while I was critical of a couple examples - I did expect that:

1) it was the right exercise and product direction

2) Techmeme would figure out the right balance and integration

... and yesterday's developments showed Techmeme's philosophy is right. It is an important direction for news and a balancing act that Techmeme (and others) will solve.

Original post on Techmeme's Twitter integration:

Techmeme has been making an increased effort to move beyond blog posts by integrating Twitter and Quora conversations. Conceptually it is attractive, but figuring out how to cohesively merge the different conversation types is quite difficult.

Techmeme will test their way into the right solution... and I give them credit for integrating Twitter beyond a side-bar widget (most attempts)... but I am not sure examples like this add value to the experience (other than getting to headlines very quickly):