Facebook's Mobile App Install Ads Now Driving iTunes Movies, Downloads

Facebook's mobile app install units are a hit. In spring 2013, Facebook had announced that 25 million app downloads had been driven through the iTunes App Store and Google Play. At the time, over 40 of the top 100 top grossing apps for both iOS and Android were leveraging Facebook's mobile install units.

The unit's success makes sense because:

1) those applications are natively integrated with Facebook (so it's efficient, familiar and easy) 2) they are social and data rich (ie "150 friends are using the application") 3) ... which in turn means that the game / application itself is inherently social and welcoming

Yesterday, I saw the following unit for the first time, which is a natural extension of the install unit... but driving traffic around media. The unit promotes the movie Elysium and links directly to iTunes. As Facebook experiments more and more with ratings, reviews and public content (ie hashtags, celebrities, etc) - this becomes more and more engaging.

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Black Friday, Email Marketing and GMail's New Inbox

It's Saturday, the day after Black Friday, and my inbox is loaded with promotions about expiring offers, extended sales, and upcoming Cyber Monday. It reminded me that this shopping holiday relies heavily on email, GMail's new format now has a very significant impact, and that I had written an unpublished, related blog post about the subject early in November... Here it is! email promotion

Much has been made about the new Gmail interface and it's implications on email delivery / readership. Gmail now organizes emails algorithmically (Primary, Social, Promotions and Updates). This effectively filters emails from brands and commerce providers into sub-folders like Promotions and Updates. And while it is consumer friendly (I much prefer it) - it has significant implications for on commercial providers.

There are some good pieces about those effects - including from MailChimp who claims that open rates across their network drooped from 13% to 12%. Litmus did a similar study and noted a 7.75% decrease in Gmail open rates.

Perhaps that is why Bonobos sent the following email over the weekend. Instead of merchandising new products or a sale - the emails's primary (and only!) purpose is to have recipients move Bonobos into the Primary inbox.

Not only is that savvy - it is proof of how important email is to merchants... and how important these interface changes can be.

Bonbo

Hello SportsCenter App & 8 Takeaways

On Thursday, we launched the new SportsCenter Application, an update to ESPN's existing and popular ScoreCenter application. With 50m downloads and millions of daily users, ScoreCenter is certainly successful and our hallmark application. We didn't set out to replace it; rather, we set out to expand the experience and better present the vast array of content that makes ESPN so special: video, articles, imagery, television clips, social activity, statistics, and more. You can get it here: - for iOS: http://es.pn/scapp - for Android: http://es.pn/scappandroid - Or, dial **SC from your cell phone

sportscenter app

A handful of product highlights

- Scores / News / Now: ScoreCenter delivered scores and stats... SportsCenter does that alongside News (video, highlights, articles, analysis) and ESPN Now (tweets and live scores) - SportsCenter's Best Of: The SportsCenter Tab is the best stuff of the day (games, breaking news, analysis), merged with your favorite team scores. - Personalization & Inbox: The focus of the app is on delivering a personalized experience through alerts, favorite teams, and the new Fan Inbox (which is a personalized feed of your favorite teams' news, highlights and scoring alerts). - Clubhouses: My favorite enhancement is the introduction of Team Clubhouses. Fans can quickly access each team's scoreboard, newsfeed and social feed... and set alerts directly within the Clubhouse.

Here is a screenshot of the Duke Football Clubhouse which is noteworthy for a few reasons. First, it is relatively long-tail content that would not elevate to the national level - but it is important to me. Second, the content is fantastic. These are in-game highlights, streaming live into the feed seconds after they occur on the field. It's a tremendous experience that is highly personalized.

duke clubhouse

That's the new app. I hope you download it, enjoy it and pass along feedback. I also thought it would be worthwhile to share some takeaways:

It's a Mobile World

A couple weeks ago, I wrote about ESPN's recent digital patterns. September was a record month for ESPN in three ways: 1. we saw record overall traffic 2. during that period, more fans accessed ESPN via mobile than desktop 3. over 36% of users accessed ESPN exclusively via mobile

It's a mobile world. The focus on re-imagining ScoreCenter was predicated on better serving our fans in an increasingly mobile world. And if you haven't done so already, read Benedict Evan's Mobile is Eating the World deck.

It's a Native Mobile World

It's a mobile world... but it's also a native world for applications. Long gone are the days or porting a single app from platform to platform. Users don't want this... and neither do the platforms themselves. Experiences have to be built and designed specifically for the platform and the device portfolio. The challenge of course is to maintain brand familiarity and consistency while also designing differently and specifically for each platform. It's a difficult but critical balance.

Native also applies to platforms beyond the mobile operating systems (ie iOS, Android, etc). For instance, we took care to make sure that the application leverages native integrations with Twitter and Facebook - both within the application and within their own platforms. This, for instance, is a screenshot of the new Twitter Card integration:

twitter cards

Disrupt Yourself

AllThingsD wrote a nice piece on the SportsCenter launch entitled: "ESPN ScoreCenter App Is a Hit, but It’s Getting an Overhaul Anyway: New Name, More Video, More Stuff". It's an important mentality: don't wait for something to break before considering / forcing change. The world changes too fast - technology, platforms, standards, habits - to sit still.

Scaled, Pre-launch Distribution and Usage

Between services like TestFlight and Google Beta, it is relatively painless to distribute pre-launch builds and collect usage data / feedback from large numbers of relevant users. It's the purest form of user-testing and user-feedback. For SportsCenter, somewhere around 1,500 fans played with the application ahead of launch. Others like Facebook are doing that at grand scale using the Google Beta program:

facebook google play

Press as Pre-Launch Users

My friend Matt Schlicht of Hipset recently wrote a nice Medium piece about driving press for your startup. My strong opinion here: treat everyone as a user and a fan. SportsCenter received some excellent coverage and those writers had access to the test builds of the application for several days (or more). That translates into more organic coverage (good or bad), deep insight, and some unique perspectives. It is also how pieces like Ryan Lawler's on TechCrunch get written - where he had a fantastic, in-depth usage video.

Advice: trust that your product is high-quality and give users and writer's full, early access.

A couple other pieces: - TechCrunch: ESPN’s SportsCenter App Combines News And Highlights With New Personalization Features - AllThingsD: ESPN ScoreCenter App Is a Hit, but It’s Getting an Overhaul Anyway: New Name, More Video, More Stuff - PandoDaily: ESPN Launches Personalized SportsCenter Feed Web App, Proves It Just Gets Digital - AdAge: This Is 'SportsCenter'...on Your iPhone

Twitter As Real-Time Customer Service

This is obvious for most: Twitter is immensely powerful as a real-time insights and customer support platform. During launch, we were seeing 50+ tweets per minute. Between sentiment tracking, bug monitoring and usage habits - we had an immediate understanding of how fans were engaging and interacting. This isn't shocking to anyone... but one point worth noting: I have spent a lot of time responding to tweets of all ranges: positive, negative, open questions, etc. Users were almost always happy to hear from someone connected to the product. Feedback was universally helpful and, even when a user was unhappy, the outcome was positive.

It's Iterative

There are things we got wrong. There are things we had to cut due to time. And there are things we didn't get to but are on the roadmap.

It's an iterative process. It has to be... in part because user feedback will dictate changes and time won't allow for everything to built. The challenge is determining what viable release requirements are... and communicating iteration to users.

I'm Old

Along with the core team, we read every single tweet. The big lesson: my vocabulary is very out of date, emoji are king, and I'm clearly old.

twitteremoji

Coin: A Viral Launch

This is the definition of a product launch gone viral... and it's only for pre-orders. Of course, the product itself is compelling, intriguing, cool, and priced for mass appeal ($55). Product or content quality is a prerequisite... and Coin seems to have achieved that. But the launch itself was also well done and took advantage of the product-to-be's intrigue and interest: a great launch video, a gorgeous one-page site and order form, launch pricing (50% off), a viral loop + referral program, and easy sharing tools. The result:

Hours after launch, 46 of my Facebook friends had purchased and shared Coin (note: those are only the ones who shared on Facebook). And one purchase by me.

coin launch

ESPN Digital Traffic, by the Numbers: The Mobile Tipping Point

The month of September was noteworthy for ESPN's digital properties for a few reason. First: scale. Not only did ESPN reach a record 72.7 million unique visitors - it marked the the largest monthly reach ever within the entire sports category. ESPN accounted for 30% of all sports category usage - more than the Nos. 2 and 3 sports properties combined (Yahoo! Sports and NBC Sports Network, and NFL Internet Group). Second: this was the first month in which more unique people visited ESPN mobile (mobile web and applications) than ESPN.com (47.4m vs. 46.1m). As technology, habits and our product portfolio changes - this trend will continue. And if this shift in usage hasn't yet occurred on your properties... it's a matter of time.

Third: related to the above point, ESPN saw 26.5m users exclusively access ESPN via mobile.... an even more pronounced shift in usage.

More: - ESPN Media Zone - MediaPost - Poynter

Wordpress + Facebook [Embeds]

Facebook recently enabled embeddable posts (see announcement here) - theses embeds can include public status updates, images, videos, etc and enable social sharing directly within the unit. On Wordpress, it's particularly easy: simply paste the Facebook URL between the Wordpress embed tags. That easy. For Facebook, this is important for two obvious reasons: first, it encourages public posting for users and celebrities (brands are already public). And second, it gives publishers and brands a simple way to amplify their on-Facebook content - which in turn enables social sharing directly on the publisher site. Twitter has had great solutions here for years - Facebook's embeddable post can be an equally powerful mechanism (content dependent of course).

[embed]https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=638282669523912&set=a.166942843324566.37299.147262525292598&type=1[/embed]



[embed]https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=613289692051124&set=a.114588455254586.5908.104266592953439&type=1[/embed]

Google's Moto X: Hardware + Software Customization

I am a big fan of personalized products like NikeID (including both my running sneakers and golf shoes) and their corresponding web / application experiences. The latest Google Android device - the Moto X - combines hardware and software customization in a way that only Google can do. It's very well done. The Moto X can be purchased online at Google's Play store (Moto Maker). There, users customize three aspects of the phone: styling (color, shell, etc), features and accessories. The hardware customizations are relatively obvious - but also fun in a way that is similar to shopping on NikeID.

The unique part: users can attach their Google ID by authenticating their Google login. This then enables users to customize the software (ie backgrounds and welcome messages). It also enables Google to deliver an authenticated phone already connected with a user's synced apps, contacts, etc. In effect: once the user inputs his / her password, it's a fully custom phone from appearance to application / content.

motox

motox2

ESPN's new College Football Play Center

Yesterday was the first saturday of college football's 2013-2014 season. And at ESPN, this is a holiday of sorts: from College Gameday (fun USA Today piece here) to the dozens of exclusive ESPN games available via Watch ESPN & ESPN3 on your Apple TV, iPhone, iPad and Android devices. Using the Watch ESPN Apple TV app - I was able to watch the Duke football game on our family room TV. And while we have plenty of options (from TV to apps) for you to watch individual football games - we wanted to create an experience that shows the breadth of the day's activity. For that, we created the College Football Play Center which launched yesterday on ESPN.com's homepage and will reappear throughout college football saturdays. Scoring plays, highlights, and on-air clips will stream into the feed seconds after they occur on the field. In the screenshot below - you see sequential scoring plays from Texas A&M to Maryland to NC State. You can view top plays as they stream in - or dig in specifically to individual games.

college football homepage

college football homepage2

Introducing the Watch ESPN Live Toolbar

We just released a major update to the WatchESPN app on iOS for iPhone and iPad. The latest WatchESPN version introduces several new enhancements, including Live Toolbar, which enhances content discovery and introduces more interactivity. Live Toolbar – available for iPad only – is designed with three main tabs across the bottom scroll of the screen.

- Live TV Lineup – an interactive channel guide that allows fans to easily navigate between ESPN live programming without exiting video - Scores – allows fans to navigate between live, upcoming and concluded games with scores, stats and video highlights - Top Videos – robust on-demand video offering of the latest news, highlights and analysis. Fans are able to watch Top Videos in spilt screen mode simultaneously with live programming Additional enhancements to the update for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch include:

- Access to ESPN3 for college students and military personnel on the WatchESPN app via on-campus (.edu) and on-base (.mil) Wi-Fi networks - App to app linking to the WatchABC app which enables easier navigation to view ESPN on ABC events

You can download the WatchESPN application here.

WatchESPN_iOSAppUpdate_LiveTV_081513-730x547

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More:

- Todd Spangler / Variety: Fox Sports TV Everywhere Service Is No-Show, as ESPN Beefs Up iPad App - Peter Kafka / AllThingsD: Multitask Nation: ESPN Lets iPad Users Call Up Scores, Clips, While they Watch Live Video - Ryan Lawler / TechCrunch: ESPN's WatchESPN iPad App Adds A Live Toolbar With Scores, Stats, And On-Demand Clips - Jordan Golson / MacRumors: WatchESPN Updated With - Split-Screen Live and On-Demand Viewing for iPad [iOS Blog] - Jordan Kahn / 9to5Mac: WatchESPN app updated for iOS 7, adds ‘Live Toolbar’ that lets you stream two videos at once - Janko Roettgers / GigaOM: Good news, college students: ESPN now lets you stream for free to the iPad - Paul Sawers / The Next Web: WatchESPN for iPad now serves up stats, scores and on-demand clips via a live toolbar