Follow McDonalds on Facebook, Are you Sure?

Several social media best practices - particularly on Facebook - come from big consumer brands: Dunkin Donuts, Starbucks, Rockstar, Vitamin Water, etc. McDonalds is arguably the biggest brand, but.... Go to McDonalds.com and notice prominent links to follow them on Facebook and Twitter. There is more real estate dedicated to each of these than, for instance, to their restaurant locator:

Click on Facebook and a shadowbox pops up that asks, "are you sure you want to leave?"

It's almost as though McDonald's wants to promote Facebook / Twitter... but doesn't like the consequence of having it occur on Facebook / Twitter. It is also bizarre because the call to action is clearly "Become a Fan on Facebook" - so if I have offered to do so, why ask me to confirm again?

The strangest part is the messaging below the Yes / No. The language is not particularly inviting.... nor does it suggest that McDonald's itself is involved with their various accounts:

"You are leaving the McDonald's Corporation web site for a site that is controlled by a third party, not affiliated with McDonald's."

... But we hope that eventually you do decide to follow us on Facebook and Twitter!

If Gilt = Fashion, Does Gilt Man = Travel?

Gilt Group made its name around high fashion at low prices. In their words, "Gilt Groupe provides access, by invitation only, to Men’s, Women’s and Children’s coveted fashion and luxury brands at prices up to 70% off retail. Each sale lasts 36 hours and features hand selected styles from a single designer." It is interesting how different the 'inventory' between Gilt's vertical offering is (Gilt for women and Gilt Man for men). For instance, true to their early success, Gilt.com currently has seven offers... all of which are fashion related. There are four promotional units that all also promote fashion:

Compare that to Gilt Man, which is predominantly travel and vacation related. Four of the six current offers are travel related; the remaining two are men's fashion. There are also two promotional units - which are product related (mobile app and referral program):

Not sure whether it is a comment more on purchase habits or Gilt's ability to drive demand and/or inventory... but the difference is certainly striking.

Whichever side of the spectrum the answer falls, fashion still sells on Gilt Man. Below is one of the two Gilt Man fashion boutiques; within 10 minutes, several of the items were full sold out:

Farmville Defaults to Facebook Credits

I encourage you to read Eric Eldon's piece on InsideFacebook about how Facebook's most popular game, Farmville, now defaults to Facebook Credits and Payments. As location and geo dominate the blog headlines (Twitter, Foursquare, Gowalla), Facebook Credits has managed to stay relatively under the radar... but Facebook's payments platform is important as it is going to be very big. And, despite being young, Facebook Credits is now exposed to Farmville's 84,000,000 monthly actives... that's quite the launchpad.

Brizzly Launches iPhone App & Brizzly Guide

A big, exciting day for Brizzly (whom I have written about more than a few times!). Today they announce two major product launches: 1. Brizzly for the iPhone It is a free iPhone App (download here) and has the same functionality and feel that Brizzly.com has. If you are an avid Brizzly or Twitter user - it's a must:

2. Brizzly Guide

Brizzly has always included Twitter trends with crowdsourced definitions and color. In fact, they also have made it widely available with the Lets Be Trends API. Trending topics each get their own guide pages - which are archived - and feature relevant content from the community, Twitter, relevant sources, etc. You can also access historical information about topics. For instance, Chuck Norris is the #2 trend today (it is his 70th birthday) but you can also see that first appeared as a trend on Jan 16, 2010. In fact, Chuck has quite the robust Brizzly timeline:

You can now read more on TechCrunch: "Brizzly’s Been Busy — Buying Apps, Creating Guides, And Going On Picnics."

Introducing Stickybits

Very excited to welcome Stickybits to the Polaris portfolio and to Dogpatch Labs (both New York and San Francisco). Founded by both Billy Chasen and Seth Goldestein, Stickybits are unique bar codes that can be attached to physical objects and read / shared with mobile devices. You can print off barcodes at Stickybits.com or order a booklet of stickers on Amazon.

How do Stickybits work? 1. Place the sticker on something (like a card or a flyer) 2. Scan the sticker with the free iPhone and Android apps 3. Attach digital "bits" to it (video, photo, music, etc)

The creative possibilities are endless and, when it officially launches at South-by-Southwest next week, we are all excited to see what users come up with. Here is a relatively uncreative example in action: I attached a Stickybit to my laptop - you can scan this specific barcode to see a photo and video of it... or to add bits yourself:

More about Stickybits and the launch: TechCrunch:The Secret Lives Of Objects: StickyBits Turn Barcodes Into Personal Message Boards Peter Flint: Introducing Stickybits DogpatchLabs.com: The Launch of Stickybits

A 'matchbook' of Stickybits (order yours on Amazon!)

Stickybits.com: Register, Login, Track & Share

Facebook iPhone Usage +20% from Post-Logout Promotion

When discussing marketing and product strategies, I sometimes come across as a broken record! One of things I preach is the power of change. A button's color, an ad's call to action, or the placement of a marketing module can each have a profound impact on user interaction. Of course, the only way to understand is to test... and the only way to effectively test is to have proper tracking place (don't yet? try KISSmetrics). Here is yet another example of a relatively minor change that has had very significant impact. It should serve as motivation for web and product marketers to test, trial and iterate.

Facebook recently added a post-logout promotion for the Facebook iPhone app. Nothing fancy... and nothing that required real engineering effort:

The effect: in under a week, Facebook iPhone usage soared by 20% in under a week:

Recruiting For Success: The Right Questions & Job Req

A handful of recruiting-related blog posts were published over the weekend; and whether you are hiring or interviewing, these are important reads.

First, in "Recruiting High Impact Employees", Peter Flint of Polaris Ventures gives a list of questions to ask when hiring. Before joining Polaris, Peter spent several years at Ramsey Beirne Associates and is an expert in building senior management teams for early stage venture backed companies. Peter provides a detailed check list of important questions (attention job seekers: prepare for these!). Here are a few: - Strengths and Weaknesses analysis: Delve deep and follow up any generalized comments by asking for examples. Also get specific examples of failures and successes. Everyone wants to give you just the strengths. - If the candidate is being considered for a more senior role than he has played before, what challenges will he/she face? - Ability to hire well: Get examples. full list here

From a job seekers' and perspective, both Jason Antman and provide advice on crafting job reqs to specifically attract engineers. The two most interesting takeaways:

1. Engineers should write the technical specs... and be very specific about critical skills and nice-to-haves. 2. Pay as much attention to the non-technical specs as the technical. Describe the job, the team and work environment, etc.

According to both bloggers, the majority of engineering ads fail these two bullets.

The New York Tech Scene, Dogpatch Labs Featured in NYTimes

Today's New York Times had a great, thorough piece profiling New York's active and growing tech scene: "New York Isn’t Silicon Valley. That’s Why They Like It."

The article describes various signs of activity: - events: New York Tech Meet Up - companies: Foursquare, Vimeo, Hot Potato - investors: Polaris Ventures, NYC Seed, Union Square - universities (as hubs of entrepreneurship): Columbia, NYU - and inclubators: featuring Dogpatch Labs New York

Some of the more interesting breeding grounds in the city are technology incubators that nurture and mentor young companies. One example is the new Manhattan arm of Dogpatch Labs, which is backed by Polaris Venture Partners, an investment firm in the Boston area.

Dogpatch, which opened in January, offers start-ups a place to work, rent-free, for several months, along with the possibility of securing an investment down the line.

Socks, crumpled pieces of paper, scribbled-upon white boards and empty beef jerky packages are scattered around Dogpatch’s roomy office. “It’s been called a frat house for geeks,” says Peter Flint, a partner at Polaris who spends several days each week in the New York office.

“There is a lot of excitement and interest budding in New York,” he says. “And if we can help convince entrepreneurs to think about staying in New York versus going to Silicon Valley, then that’s a huge win.”

Currently, 13 companies are housed in the space, including Postling, the newest spawn of the founders and early employees of Etsy. Locals cite Etsy, an online shopping bazaar specializing in handmade crafts, as one of New York’s shining start-up success stories, along with DoubleClick; TheLadders, a jobs search site; and the Gilt Groupe.

“There wasn’t anything like this in New York when Etsy started,” said Chris Maguire, a co-founder of both Postling and Etsy. “We worked out of our apartments for the first few years.”

I was able to spend time last week in New York and was struck by the vibrancy of the community, the entrepreneurs and of Dogpatch - which features a collection of outstanding thinkers and companies. With Dogpatch Labs NY, we at Polaris obviously believe that New York is an important and growing center of entrepreneurship. In addition to my home-base of San Francisco and our Cambridge Dogpatch Labs, I look forward to spending more time in New York and to helping drive collaboration among the 100+ entrepreneurs across all three locations.