Such is the online video content war: catalogs grow, compete and find their way into the homes / devices of as many eyeballs as possible…. after all, content wants to be seen and ultimately the economics for all are dictated on content being seen by as many eyeballs as possible. It’s why I believe that over time libraries will exist and overlap on Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, web, app stores, etc. It’s inevitable… And here is:
- continued proof of that trend
- and yet another reason to be bullish on Amazon, Amazon Prime and Amazon Instant Video

And most importantly: Yo Gabba Gabba is now available with unlimited streaming from Amazon. Attention parents – this alone is reason enough to buy the Kindle Fire!!

amazon prime yo gabba gabba

Note: this article originally appeared on TechCrunch: Designing for Mobile: 7 Guidelines for Startups to Follow

As an investor, I’ve seen hundreds of mobile application pitches. And as a consumer, I’ve downloaded hundreds more – some out of curiosity and others in the hope that I’ll find something so useful and exciting that I’ll make room for it on my iPhone’s home screen.

From both perspectives, I am rarely excited by download numbers. What gets my attention is engagement: how frequently an application is used and how engaged those users are. This ultimately is the barometer for an application’s utility and/or strength of community. And if either of those two factors are strong, growth will certainly come. Just ask Instagram, Evernote, LogMeIn and others.

Creating great mobile experiences requires dedication to building product specifically for mobile. It sounds obvious, but it’s so often overlooked. Mobile users have different needs, desires and environments; and as the application creator, you have different opportunities to create utility and engagement. With that in mind – and with the help of my former eBay colleague and Dogpatch Labs resident, Rob Abbott (founder of EGG HAUS and Critiq), we’ve put together 7 design guidelines to consider when building for mobile.

Just like the presentations on leveraging Facebook (both on-Facebook.com and off-Facebook) and Twitter, success comes from building meaningful experiences that are honest to the native environments.

Read all of the startup presentations:
- Leveraging Facebook for Startups: Part II, On-Facebook
- How to Leverage Facebook for Startups: Part I, Off-Facebook
- 14 SEO Tips for Startups
- How to Grow Your Brand on Twitter. 5 Overarching Guidelines. Tons of Examples.
- How to Create an Early-Stage Pitch Deck

7 Guidelines to Great Mobile Design

I write a lot about tailoring your web experience for the environments where it is (and can) be used. That is particularly important for mobile which has its own UI needs, requirements, opportunities and challenges.

Here is the latest example.

ESPN has done a good job creating product & content for specific environments and devices. Example here. While that is an effective treatment – this is not. When ‘watching’ an ESPN Gamecast on the iPad (which is an excellent product) – it requires you to watch it in landscape mode. There is literally no content and no experience otherwise. Even if ESPN believes that landscape is the best way to view Gamecast, you would think that they would either create a light version or showcase some other content? Very strange.

Note: this article originally appeared on TechCrunch: 10 Ways Your Startup Can Hook Into Facebook, Part I: On The Web

Part I: Off-Facebook Strategy
Part II: On-Facebook Strategy

Having already covered how startups can use search and Twitter to find customers, here’s 10 steps for finding people on another key marketing platform: Facebook

Facebook has evolved from a social network into the fabric with which much of the web is constructed: identity, product, data, experience and so on. Even if you chose to no longer use it as a social destination, you would still find immense value in it through your every-day web usage: registration, personalization, sharing, interaction, etc.

This is of course a huge opportunity for consumer-focused startups. Facebook plays a core role in touching each step along the standard product / user funnel:

- Acquisition: virality, referrals, paid traffic
- Activation: conversion paths from new to active users
- Activity: user engagement and retention

Below is a slide presentation with five ways to think about leveraging Facebook to affect those three steps on your web experience. Tomorrow I will share five ways to find success on Facebook.com.

I write a lot about Redbox, in part because I am frequent users and in part because they are terrific marketers. Here’s yet another example of Redbox leveraging SMS to drive promotions (and to collect user data … and create ongoing marketing touch-points).

The promotion: send Redbox an SMS and get discounted delivered via mobile. That’s not entirely unique.

But, it’s smart. As noted above, its a clever way to collect data about their users and create ongoing marketing touch-points… like the example below. Once you SMS Redbox, they follow up with an SMS that allows you download the mobile app (just reply APPS).

And that’s the big takeaway here: be creative about driving engagement. Redbox uses SMS to deliver discounts and drive app downloads. The discount is the incentive for consumers and its a marketing cost for Redbox to distribute their app and drive engagement (a tactic they have used in email as well).

Both parties win. And Redbox has created a simple, low-cost marketing program that drives long-term benefits.

Beats Audio has been a tremendous story. They have done for headphones and device sound what Intel did years ago for computing. And they leveraged celebrity endorsers and users to become ultra popular: Dre, Lady Gaga, Bieber, Lebron, etc.

But the below advertisement really struck me. The HTC Android phone exclusively comes with Beats audio. It’s powerful marketing because those red headphones and their logo stand out – particularly as you compare other devices on a store’s shelves.

However, in this example, the ‘hardware’ is unfortunately less important and compelling than the software. As Intel made famous: it’s what’s inside that counts. And in that case: iTunes wins. And iTunes made the original iPhone so popular (before the app store).

For this to be very compelling, they would need to partner with a major music source in addition to the sound. That means that Google Music would need to ramp quickly or they work with Pandora, Spotify, Turntable.fm, etc… because sound without a great library and UI is just not that useful. Apple knows that.

I write frequently about how mobile web requires a different design and UI than traditional. Great example here. These are two *subsequent* screenshots from the New York Times iPad-friendly website.

First, the NYT homepage is taken over with an American Express ad (albeit a really good looking, custom-built ad).

I can tolerate a page takeover. It’s neither unique nor inexcusable (they have to make money on a free product). But, after it disappears and I click on an article – I get another takeover.

It too is custom (and I give them credit for that)… but that is two consecutive takeovers and, this last example, is remarkably annoying. It should at least appear on the right column so that I can read the article. Why preserve the social sharing screen for an article I haven’t yet had the ability to read?

It’s really shortsighted to sacrifice experience, reduce pageviews (both in this session and in the future) to increase eCPM for this specific visit. The eCPM will be terrific: two huge takeovers on my two pageviews… but I didn’t even get to a third pageview. Is it worth it?

Hulu has introduced a new sharing mechanism that does two things:

1. It allows users to comment specifically on ‘moments’. That then publishes the specific scene to your Facebook wall and stores your comment at the specific moment within the timeline.

At scale that creates a very interesting concept: a dialogue that moves along the video’s entire timeline. At scale that also poses a problem: will I want to read all of that content? Not sure… but interesting.

2. The preview UI is terrific. This is what first caught my eye: the pop-up box showcases the specific screenshot, comment and formatting that will appear on Facebook. That’s really good-looking, unique and powerful.

Why is it potentially powerful: first, because I think users like to feel control over what is published and this is a visually, fully controlled experience. Second, it is different… and that means that users will drawn to it (as compared to a standard like button).

I really like this experience and don’t see why it can’t be applied to other visual mediums like e-commerce.

Below are three screenshots from Google Currents on the iPhone (Google’s Flipboard-like product). Rather than commenting specifically on the Currents product, I wanted to share three themes I was reminded of when first using the app:

1. Mobile UI is really critical and really unique. (you’ve heard this before and will again & again).

2. Mobile UI is very different on iPhone vs. iPad. Different real estate and different behaviors / expectations. The below examples demonstrate why this experience just does not work on iPhone. You have to treat them differently and create unique experiences specifically tailored for each.

3A. The genius of Flipboard is not the content. That’s become more of a commodity: publishers of course want their content in as many places as possible. It is the UI and the interaction. It is the magic users feel when opening, using and sharing.

3B. And it’s that magic that you need to capture within your product(s) and experience(s) – of course in your own, relevant way.

Want proof that JibJab Jr. Books are adored by children?! JibJab Jr. are personalized books for the iPad, updated monthly with new stories, and they now include sound.

Note: Polaris is an investor in JibJab