Make Tonight or every night count!

Tonight iPhone Application – Mustard’s review

Tonight application “home page” interface

Tonight is a new iOS application that has just hit the Apple store. We’ve had our hands on it and love the concept of sharing your plans with your friends, people in the neighbourhood or to the entire world. Its a location based application that allows you to key in your daily plans (in particular, for the night only) and share them with your friends who are around the area.

The application’s interface is user friendly and the features are easy to understand. The error pop ups are engaging and may instigate a laugh or two. NIce work there mate!

Here is a video taken from Tonight’s website that introduces the application concept to you:

YET, WHERE THERE IS A YIN, THERE IS A YANG. – AREAS OF CONCERN:

1. One Way of Signing up: There is only one way of signing up i.e. through your Facebook account. This might deter some from signing up to the application. There are many out there who do not want to associate everything with their Facebook account in order to avoid unnecessary junk on the wall. In addition, we know Facebook is big and you’re considered someone from Mars if you don’t have a Facebook account, yet there are still many out there that do not use Facebook or have deactivated their accounts for whatsoever reason. This application doesn’t cater to such people, making it rather unfriendly.
2. Privacy Concerns: We feel the application will have a lot of negative views from people who do not want to share their private life with the world or even their friends. In our lives, like it or not, but we do have people we’d want to avoid, yet due to peer pressure, list them as friends on Facebook. Shouting out our nightly plans may not be an issue when you have few friends using the application and following you, yet would not be appropriate when you have hundreds.
3. Like the concept, but nothing new in terms of features: We’ve got Foursquare or Facebook checkin’s that can serve the exact purpose of letting your friends know what you are doing in the night. The only advantage for using Tonight over the other two is that we are more likely to shout out our plans in advance to a niche circle. You might want to consider adding in few other features such as perhaps prescheduling a checkin with an integrated map that allows your friends to see exactly where you’d be at what time?

Mustard wishes you all the best and hopes to see some cool features being updated in the app soon!

The new sizzle at Yahoo, CEO Marissa Mayer

Once known as the first female engineer and the 20th employee to be hired by Google, is today the CEO of Yahoo. On 15th July 2012, Marissa Mayer resigned from being the Vice President of Local, Maps and Location Services at Google and the following day joined Yahoo as the next promising CEO of the worldwide known corporation.

Mayer, now 37 years of age,  was born in Wausau, Wisconsin, to Margaret Mayer (an art teacher) and Michael Mayer (an engineer). She graduated with honours from Standford University with a B.S in symbolic system and M.S in computer science.

Here is the press release:

Yahoo! Appoints Marissa Mayer Chief Executive Officer

SUNNYVALE, Calif., July 16, 2012

Yahoo! (NASDAQ:YHOO) today announced that it has appointed Marissa Mayer as President, Chief Executive Officer and Member of the Board of Directors effective July 17, 2012.  The appointment of Ms. Mayer, a leading consumer internet executive, signals a renewed focus on product innovation to drive user experience and advertising revenue for one of the world’s largest consumer internet brands, whose leading properties include Yahoo! Finance, Yahoo! Sports, Yahoo! Mobile, Yahoo! Mail, and Yahoo! Search.

Mayer said, “I am honored and delighted to lead Yahoo!, one of the internet’s premier destinations for more than 700 million users.  I look forward to working with the Company’s dedicated employees to bring innovative products, content, and personalized experiences to users and advertisers all around the world.”

Most recently, Mayer was responsible for Local, Maps, and Location Services for Google, the company’s suite of local and geographical products including Google Maps, Google Earth, Zagat, Street View, and local search, for desktop and mobile.  Mayer joined Google in 1999 as its 20^th employee and led efforts for many of Google’s most recognizable products, including the development of its flagship search product and iconic homepage for over 10 years.  Mayer managed some of Google’s most successful innovations, launching more than 100 features and products including image, book and product search, toolbar, iGoogle, Google News, and Gmail – creating much of the “look and feel” of the Google user experience.

Yahoo! Co-Founder David Filo said, “Marissa is a well-known, visionary leader in user experience and product design and one of Silicon Valley’s most exciting strategists in technology development.  I look forward to working with her to enhance Yahoo’s product offerings for our over 700 million unique monthly visitors.”

“The Board of Directors unanimously agreed that Marissa’s unparalleled track record in technology, design, and product execution makes her the right leader for Yahoo! at this time of enormous opportunity,” said Fred Amoroso, Chairman of the Board of Directors.

—–

Ms Mayer, you’ve done wonders as a Googirl. You’ve set high hopes for all Yahoo fans and given the organisation a new reason to compete (and maybe win) against Google. We look forward to what Yahoo has in store for us!

Apple launches iOS 5, Twitter to benefit

Not surprisingly, news and social media have been aflutter over iOS 5 following Apple’s June 6 announcement.

As iOS 5’s paramount feature, iCloud allows for PC free setup and automatic, wireless syncing across multiple devices. The free iCloud service also includes  5GB of storage for backing up personal data, in addition to any content purchased from the iTunes store.

Other attractive iOS 5 features include:

• Notification Center
  Alerts users to all new email, texts, reminders and other notifications with discrete banners. The pull-down Notification Center then sorts notifications by app for easy use.
• Twitter integration
  Allows users to Tweet directly from Apple native apps, for instant sharing from Safari, Photos, Camera, YouTube, Maps…
  (As noted by Mashable, Apple have really left Facebook out in the cold with this one.)
• iMessage
  Allowing free unlimited messaging between two or more iOS 5 devices via Wi-Fi or 3G. (A further snub towards Facebook and its convenient group messaging?)

However, not everyone’s patting Steve Jobs and team on the back just yet. Some commentators have been quick to point out the many of iOS 5’s new offerings are very similar to existing  smartphone services. 

In Other (Gadgets and Social Media) News…

• The Twitter team has announced, via their blog, new services including streamlined photo sharing and shortened link sharing, eliminating the need to visit external sites for these features.
• Microsoft has purchased Skype for $8.5 billion.
• 5 years after the launch of the mega-successful Wii console, Nintendo has announced its next-generation home console, the Wii U, featuring a touch-screen controller.

iPad app outmodes hands

Anyone who claims they can follow recipes without getting oil, flour or other foodstuffs on the page/screen is either highly skilled or lying. For those of us not so fortunate, a new iPad app aims to address this problem.

The iCookbook app is apparently the first of its kind to make use of a voice command feature, allowing users to control the app with simple spoken commands.

Great news for us dough-hands types. Though we hope the iPad’s microphones are up to the challenge so that the experience isn’t reminiscent of early voice dialing: ‘Call Graham’ – Dialing Judy – ‘No – CALL GRAHAM’ – Samsung does not recognise command.

The benefits of f-commerce: Win-win?

Announcements regarding Facebook shopping continue to snowball, furthering widespread suspicion (well, at least within the Mustard office) that the site is moving from merely giving ‘people the power to share and make the world more open and connected’ to becoming an all-encompassing platform through which we experience the Internet.

Warner Bros. has recently launched Facebook movie rentals, starting with The Dark Knight, which is available to rent via the film’s official fan page. The 48-hour digital rental costs 30 Facebook credits, or $3. Just in case people weren’t already spending enough time on Facebook.

In other news, Heinz has launched a limited-edition flavour ketchup, available exclusively to Facebook users who ‘like’ the Heinz page. Heinz fans or not, it’s expected that users will jump at the chance to purchase something ‘exclusive’. Never mind that it will be available in stores a week later.

Of course, the purpose of businesses participating in social media is not merely to sell products but to cultivate trust, raise awareness and facilitate brand discussion. However, f-commerce is sure to change that somewhat, as more and more retailers open online stores exclusive to their Facebook fans.

Another venture: Malaysia Airlines flights are now available for purchase via Facebook. How long before airlines offer exclusive deals to Facebook fans?

It’s easy to see the benefits of f-commerce to businesses: A secure and trusted ecommerce platform offering a robust customer base, advanced marketing opportunities, Facebook support and increased consumer interaction. In order to access the online shopping or be privy to exclusive deals, customers will have to ‘like’ official pages. Companies can then directly promote to their ‘fans’ and expect a greater amount of consumer engagement with the brand.

Certainly, increased brand engagement and secure online shopping is also of great appeal to customers. However, the major benefit of f-commerce being touted to consumers is convenience. We are no longer burdened with having to open a new browser tab to shop online. We can simply stay connected to Facebook while we book the next holiday, purchase the resort wear and contact the nanny.

Hopefully, heightened consumer engagement brought about by f-commerce will make brands more accountable, as Facebook pages allow for discussion to take place in the same place as shopping. Because customers can scour recent comments from other Facebook users before making a purchase, it’s likely that businesses will want to appear responsive and helpful if they are to retain consumer trust.

Although Facebook is said not to profit directly from online sales, they’re set to benefit hugely from the revenue brought in by more targeted advertising.

Bing’s TV Ad “Manifesto” launched

As Google’s dominance as a search engine is nigh on absolute, the challenge for the marketer’s of Bing is (aptly) to communicate its relevance into a market place happily served by the ubiquitous magical white page of search results.

Inherently, there is nothing wrong with Google search. Most times we find what we want in seconds – usually within a couple of clicks.  In fact, Google’s dominance is both perception and reality. They have made a business out of being a technical think tank and attracting some of the best minds on the planet to work for them.  For Bing to challenge them on “better accuracy” would be somewhat on the kamikaze side.

So the team at Bing have clearly sought to make a weakness out of the search giant’s best known feature benefit – its hundreds and thousands of its returned search results.  The attribute that best communicates this idea is Bing’s use of a 5+ page pagination for search results compared to Google’s 10+.  It’s subtle. As is the idea.

Targetting the category of people who have a vague idea of what they’re looking for definitely can extends the usage occasion for search to include the bored or the brainless – and lets face it, we all feel a little like we need someone else to give us inspiration and directions on tedious search tasks sometimes.

But it is disappointing. The marketing is slick, and the stock archive footage is very pretty.  But the message is logical, not emotional and therefore, wallpaper.

Furthermore, the adage that actions speak louder than words is made abundently clear to anyone who, based on the initial promise of a “difference” are led to try the service.  Beyond the optimistic and vibrant homepage, Bing’s SERPs are styled in the familiar Google-esque blue, green and grey link palette. With the core content looking so similar to its major competitor, surely Bing has committed the ultimate cardinal sin of not living up to its promise of “difference”, and instead, simply joined the masses of Google replicants battling it out for the <20% of search traffic that isn’t Google initiated.

Google Wave. Ripple or Tsunami?

Is this the way you'll be communicating later this year?

At the same time that Microsoft got their bing bling on, Google announced the personal communication and collaboration tool which they have branded, the instantly marketable moniker –  “Google Wave”.

In typical Google tradition, Wave will be open source for developers to experiment with and create addons and apps for. It will also be written for HTML 5.

Wave is a mashup of email, instant messaging, social networking and a wiki.  In addition to its social application, the Google Wave team are also hoping the wave will catch on in the business community as an application for collaborative documentation.

It’s also a local innovation, engineered by the same team that developed Google Maps out of Sydney.   Go Aussie.

With a suite of innovative features and functionality, the in-browser application offers as its irresistable publicity proposition, “Wave will be the new Email”.

Much has been written of the supposed extinction of email particularly in the age of social networking and instant messaging. However, after viewing the developer demo, we are prepared to catch Wave-fever, for 5 main reasons.

1. Firstly, it’s faster than email – as it appears to be based on instant messaging conventions and user-experience principles.
2. Secondly, every “wave” can be edited, viewed or responded to by multiple invited recipient simultaneously – also in visible real time.
3. Thirdly, there is private messaging built in, as well as permission and view setting options meaning that each collaborators Wave experiences will be uniquely their own.
4. Fourthly, each “Wave” moves to the top with each update contributed by any of the recipients of the “Wave”. This means instead of lots and lots of communications, you just have the most recently updated/relevant version.
5. And then, there’s the “playback” feature which allows you to see each wave, update by update on a scroller-based timeline.

And so on.

As an in-browser application, Wave will undoubtedly become a major reason for Google’s  influence in the inevitable global cloud computing ecosystem of the future.

But is it the category killer for email – a 40 year old paradigm?  Is it more hype than hero? Or, to add a bit of paranoia to the mix, did the product take its name and inspiration from a young-adult literary reference?

We can’t wait to see what happens!

The semantic search battle begins. Bing it on!

It's coming, per your request.

Microsoft, today unveiled its much anticipated semantic search engine –  or “decision engine” as the marketing spin would have you refer to it. Its called Bing, and its soooo Web 3.0.

Bing relies on key words and algorithms to provide results for online searches that tries to deduce what you are searching for. The engine introduces some lovely click candy to the mix, intended to give its users  a more seamless, on the page experience to help them make key decisions such as where they are going to eat that night, how to get there, and so on.

Its a bold idea, and will require a significant branding job to detach the new brand from the cynicism that surrounds the behemoth company. How will Google and Yahoo respond, and can Microsoft convince the world that they should be empowered to tell us how and what to think?  Set up your RSS feeds, now – this is one to watch.

For the full mind programming, view the publicity video here:  http://www.decisionengine.com/Default.html

Sunny conversations from Samsung

The ecomarketing gloss has come off a little since the global financial crisis. But at Mustard, we’ve still got a soft spot for greenovation. And the solar powered Samsung Blue Earth mobile looks like it’s heading in the right direction.

Made from recycled water bottles and bean extract (yep, that’s right), with a solar panel on the back, the pebble shaped, touch screen device also features an “Eco Walk” function to let you keep tabs of your carbon footprint – literally.

A full solar charge takes 10-14 hours – enough juice to gab on for 4 hours. If you don’t like the idea of your mobile sunbathing lazily for hours on end, the device will include energy efficient chargers that will plug into a standard electrical socket. There’s also talk of a solar powered charger and even a good old fashioned hand-cranked version. No release dates have been officially released yet, but we look forward to the buzz leading up to the Blue Earth’s launch.

The Twitterverse expands with another $35m boost

Twitter has secured another $US 35million in funding, despite the fact that it still doesn’t have a revenue model!

With this injection into its already substantial coffers, the microblogging phenomomenon is well positioned to consolidate its reputation as the next big thing in social media.

According to its blog, Twitter’s active users have jumped 900% in its last year.

Many commentators speculate that an adword-style advertising scenario will evolve from the service. With a fickle audience at the heart of its customer base, we’re not quite convinced that Twitter can maintain its loyalty with this model way. The idea just seems a little exploitative and icky. Instead, we’d be pleased to see Twitter meander down the commercial route touting more user-friendly and sustainable ideas such as mobile software licensing arrangements, brand licensing, mobile-commerce or maybe even a sponsored mobile phone?