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.

Twitter: Want to keep using Twitter on your phone?

Fascinating.... way too early to have intelligent commentary on the Twitter / Uber Twitter developments (see here, here, here), but Twitter's @Support response is fascinating:

Google Voice & GMail - More 'In the River' Marketing

I write a lot about product marketing and the concept of "in the river" promotion / marketing. As companies more aggressively test and roll out new products / variants to users - in the river marketing becomes more important. And for those reasons, it has also become more prevalent. Here is a great example from Google, who is pushing Google Voice within GMail. To push Google Voice, Google is providing free phone calls for all of 2011. That's an aggressive, compelling promotion.

So how does Google get the message across? They place is prominently on the screen where its users are absolutely engaged and can't miss it: when you open GMail:

Facebook Announces New Facebook Photos With Hover Promotion.

Perhaps because they are continually rolling out new products and split tests.Perhaps because they are terrific product marketers and designers. And/or perhaps because they need to figure out how to message 600m+ users in efficient, effective ways. ... Facebook is the best at "in the river marketing". Yet another example:

This week Facebook rolled out a new Facebook Photos features to all users. Rather than an email announcement, page takeover, or letting users mysteriously figure it out... they promoted the change simply, cleanly and directly at the point of importance. If you had not yet clicked on a photo, Facebook revealed a message upon hover that clearly stated the new change. Once the photo was clicked, the new experience was obvious and the hover over disappeared. Well done.

Lady Gaga Uses Facebook Event to Launch New Single

230,000 have RSVP'd to the debut of Lady Gaga's new single: Born This Way. Why? In part because it is Lady Gaga (who only trails Justin Bieber in internet popularity) and in part because the viral loop of the Facebook Event promoted directly on LadyGaga.com and across Facebook. I have previously written about Facebook's Facepile... but this is interesting because it is an 'eventpile' of sorts. LadyGaga.com showcases the event and the corresponding facepile of those attending and viewers can register for the event (attend, maybe, no) directly from the homepage.

Once you attend, you it publishes to your Facebook feed and showcases you (and your friends) who are attending. That of course gets significant visibility - ~250,000 people have RSVPed and many of their 500 friends are probably aware.

It's a very aggressive implementation of Facebook Event system. And it's very clever / effective. Now imagine the event being tied to Facebook Places, Groups or special access to the song. Lots of possibilities...

LadyGaga.com homepage - primary action / display is the Facebook Event:

~250,000 people are attending. Another 200,000 are undecided (which is effectively no different since it's a promotional event).:

Facebook as a Conversion Tool. Registration Flows as Example.

It is common to think of Facebook as user / traffic acquisition lever (perhaps the best available considering its 600m users, its viral network, and the developer platform and tools). But thanks to a recent, enlightening conversation with good friend Alex Schultz, I have been thinking of Facebook as a conversion tool. A basic example is Facebook's Like buttons and Facepile which adorn millions of webpages. Combined, they welcome new users to otherwise impersonal webpages. This adds social and personal context to individual pieces of content and increases the likelihood of engagement (whether that be pageviews, shares, etc).

Yesterday, Facebook updated its Registration Plugin to streamline user registration:

Registration flows are obviously among the most critical part of the user funnel. Flows that are too cumbersome are overwhelming and scary...and flows that are too lightweight require progressive registration processes as the user matures. The above example is an excellent example of how Facebook can affect conversions.

Here is a live example on eBay Classifieds:

It does a four key things well:

1. It is pre-populated with key information (name, network, photo, etc). Not only does this create efficiency - it validates quality

2. Thanks to Facebook's brand, it is familiar and unintimidating.

3. The Facepile adds social context and is welcoming. Along with point #2, this is particularly important if traffic is arriving from ad campaigns, search engines, etc.

4. It is lightweight (publishers can choose to add fields relevant to the product)

And here is another example from ReverbNation. It is a longer registration flow but you will notice that it is consistent in style and much of it is automatically populated. In fact, the only remaining step is creating a specific ReverbNation password:

Starbucks Cards: Game Mechanics Done Well

Last week I wrote about the "do's and don'ts of gamification"... in other words, how to effectively add game mechanics to your site / service. Thanks to the success of leaders like Zynga and Foursquare, companies across different verticals are layering game mechanics to their product. In my last post, I wrote that the key to successful "gamification" is to make surre that game mechanics [are] natural, rewarding and straightforward.

Here is a great example from Starbucks (who generally always does a great job on the social and marketing fronts).

You'll notice a few things with the below screenshots:

1. It is Natural: Starbucks has not created a new program here... rather, they have tied it in to the Starbucks Card system that has been around for years. This is just an incentive to register and actively use your card.

2. It is Rewarding: In fact, the Starbucks Card program comes from the "Starbucks Rewards Team" and card-holders are notified of their status, their rewards and their goals.

3. It Progresses: As you progress through various levels are membership ("black, green, gold"), you earn different rewards. Starbucks clearly defines your 'status', your rewards and what is needed to reach the next 'level'. Again, the program is straightforward and rewarding.

4. It is Accessible Email, Starbucks.com & Mobile: The program has several reach / access points. The emails are well crafted and targeted to the specific user's 'status' (notice below an email sent to a green member and gold member).

5. It is Social: Below you will also see an example of sharing your purchase and rewards in Facebook. The image is specific to your status / balance and is tied to a check-in via Facebook Places.

Starbucks email sent to a Gold member:

Starbucks email sent to a Green member:

What the check-in looks like on the Facebook feed

And the custom Starbucks Rewards graphic on Facebook

LinkedIn's '2010 Wrap Up', Engagement Email

Your typical email from LinkedIn is text-based and includes some sort of notification about your network, messages, etc. They are straightforward, actionable and likely focus on conversions. A very different email arrived from LinkedIn this week though: The 2010-year-in-review email. I'd love to see the metrics as compared to their normal emails - I assume behavior is quite different... but so is LinkedIn's goal with a 'newsletter' like this. And that's why I like it: very different, very creative and yet still on-brand: - first, it's very different from what I'd expect. There is only one line of text and it is interesting (345 of my contacts started something new in 2010).

- It's highly visual and great looking. Tons of visuals and tons of familiar faces that catch my attention.

- It's clever. The targeted blue boxes draw attention to specific people and do so in a very unique, catchy way (See Paxton's new job!).

- And it's actionable... but in a very different way than the standard LinkedIn email. Simple but strong language.

Huffington Post, Google Promote Chrome Application 'In the River'

I write a lot about the importance of marketing and promoting "in the river" - my terminology for engaging users in the most specific and relevant experiences / locations. This concept is increasingly important new platforms (software and hardware) emerge and as those experiences consequently change. Just the other day I wrote about how Evernote has done a masterful job creating numerous applications for each native environment: iPhone, iPad, desktop, Outlook, browser, etc. This will become the norm... and the result is that targeted messaging becomes tougher and more challenging.

Here is a great example from Huffington Post (along with Google & Chrome) - who is always far along the marketing & experimental curve. If you visit their site in the Google Chrome browser, the header is taken over to promote their new Chrome Application: Newsglide. Simple - but brilliant. This messaging would be overlooked if it were a traditional location. And it would wasted real estate if it were a universal promotion. Furthermore, the promotion is native to the experience (a similar action in Firefox would look different).

It wasn't long ago that I commented on Huffington Post's in-experience promotion of their Google Chrome Application (see example here).