Cross-posted at TheTrendwatch.com

Original Flickr photo by badjoni

E-commerce was at first a personal activity, where each user was a self-determining agent regarding products and services. With wishlists, customer reviews and ratings, recommendation or referrals it evolved into what is now usually called Social Commerce.

The past few months have brought some new patterns, that further confirmed the importance of the social graph for e-tailers as confirmed by recent studies by comScore and Performics/ROI Research , with consumers connecting with brand channels (40%), recommending products and services (32%) and finding out about new deals on social networks (37%).

Another study by Sage Pay, revealed that while on average 7% of visitors to an online store make a purchase, when directed from social media network, the percentage of visitors who will go to the transaction section goes up to 71%. Social proof is even more important for e-commerce, as Simon Black, managing director at Sage Pay, says: “The modern shopper often looks for reassurance from a positive review, a special offer to make it more affordable, inexpensive delivery options and a quick, easy and secure way to pay.”

Video case of Levis Friends store

Adding the social dimension to e-commerce websites was once difficult, but with the release of social plugins by Facebook (Like buttons, Recommendations, Activity Feed) e-tailers have now instant access to a network of more than 400 million people, used with succes by global brands like Levis or TripAdvisor. It has also expanded the reach to social services and platforms such as LivingSocial, SocialAmp or Fluid Fan Shop . And you’re not limited to Facebook: with Cheap Tweet, the best deals right are delivered to your Twitter timeline, with the site picking the best ones ranked by users’ votes and re-tweets. Altough this latest service risks becoming obsolete with the announcement by Twitter of @earlybird.

Image by Emarketeer

Entertainment, by definition, is one of the more promising areas where to apply this new social dimension of shopping. Take for instance the Facebook app Tickets Together created by Disney that lets users buy tickets fo Toy Story 3, not only for themselves, but also inviting their friends.

Not only does this app makes it easy to choose where to watch the movie (local listing) but it lets you engage with the ones you’d probably will watch the movie with, and invite them right on Facebook, by integrating with ticket-buying services like Fandango.com.

Exciting as it is, these are only tools and technologies. What’s really interesting are the new behaviors brought by the social web and connected consumers.

Group Buying

Making purchases together is one of the biggest web trends in 2010. It’s easy to understand why: when users reach for their friends to get a deal (usually a minimum number of buyers is required), a viral loop is created. New models of authentication to social networks (Facebook Connect, Friend Connect, OAuth) have only made it easier and faster. From limited time offers, to price anchoring (show how much it would cost on a normal purchase), it’s one of the most effective ways to generate word-of-mouth.
These deals are available on social web services like Groupon, This Next, Tippr, LivingSocial, TownHog, Homerun , Milo or even as integrated applications such as ‘Special Deal’ group-buy app by preferred Facebook partner Wildfire.

Groupon

Groupon is the biggest player, with a simple proposal: advertise a special business offer, only valid if a certain amount of users purchase it immediately.
Launched in November 2008, it has sold over 7 million online coupons in 70 cities and is now expanding worldwide (UK, DE, ES, PT). Paying attention to small details is their main strenght: from putting a phone number on every coupon to 2 way ratings (customers rating merchants and vice-versa) it created an engaged community. Even unsubscribing from their newsletter is funny.

Graphic by Compete.com

From June 2009 to January 2010, the number of monthly visitors went from 26,000 to over 2.1 million, increasingly engaged with an average of 2.5 visits per month for each user. And what’s really amazing is that these visits are not coming from the usual sources. Last January, Facebook represented 44% of all referrals, Twitter 8% and search only around 3%.

Growth happens not only in visits but also as a platform, helping third-party developers and affiliate members get the word out about its daily specials. Groupon’s API has become available both as Division API (about cities) and Deals API (about daily deals for specific locations), further explored by integrating with Groupon’s geolocation service.

Another example on how groups and communities will become increasingly important in shopping is Woot.

The basic idea behind Woot is to offer only one discounted product each day, a “One Day, One Deal” policy until the stock is sold out, with no announcement of what’s the next offering. Innovative events and product specials like “Woot-Off”, “Bag Of Crap” or “2-for-Tuesday” coupled with bold marketing have built one vibrant community where it’s members actually have fun shopping.

Woot shows their different business culture, on their Amazon’s acquisition wicked celebration rap

Recently acquired by Amazon, much of the coverage focused on how Amazon captured the opportunity of real-time shopping, but the real value might be on the social side, venturing into new business models where communities represent a bigger role than the usual 20th century e-commerce.

Collaborative Consumption

The concept of collaborative consumption is the subject of the upcoming book “What’s Mine is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption” by Rachel Botsman and Roo Rogers.

Recently speaking at TEDx Sydney, Rachel explains that “collaborative brands make it easy for communities to act on behalf of their brands”, where we are no longer defined as consumers by our personal possessions, but also by what we are part of, what we share and the groups we belong to.

Original Flickr photo by boostventilator

New trends like swaptrading (such as Swaptree.com, sort of online dating service for all of your unwanted media), reveals new models of commerce, where trust mechanics and collaborative behaviors are principal. This groundswell of collaborative consumption is further accelerated by the rise of mobile communication.

Rachel Botsman defines 4 big drivers of the shift to collaborative consumption:

1. A renewed belief in the importance of community
2. A torrent of peer-to-peer social networks and real time technologies
3. Pressing unresolved environmental concerns
4. A global recession that has fundamentally shocked consumer behaviors

People are starting to share resources without sacrificing their lifestyles or personal freedom, supported by 3 clear systems:

1. Redistribution markets (stretch the lifecycle of a a product, reducing waist)
2. Collaborative lifestyles (sharing of resources like money, skills and time) – coworking, couchsurfing or even landshare (http://www.landshare.net/) will become mainstream
3. Product Service Systems, where one pays for the benefit of a product without needing to own the product outright. Examples include rental services like Netflix or Zipcar .

You can get an overview of this new model of consumption on the promo video below:

Collaborative Consumption Groundswell Video from rachel botsman on Vimeo.

After the financial crisis, consumers are adopting these new behaviors that will impact e-commerce for the years to come. Group buying and collaborative consumption are the latest of these trends that brands will need to pay attention to and embrace the value of social capital and not only the monetary side of commerce.

If you know of more examples or want to discuss how communities are impacting e-commerce, please drop a note in the comments.

Last week Steve Jobs put one more nail in Adobe’s Flash coffin, further confirmed with Microsoft’s support to H.264 codec for HTML video on Internet Explorer 9. What i find amusing was the fact i left serious Flash development almost 3 years ago, becoming increasingly interested in open standarts, not only XHTML or HTML5, but also on the interoperability between systems, almost as important as “openess”.

Trying to figure out trends is on of the key assets for a creative technologist like me. Dealing with social media before it became popular, playing with Flash when it was still version 3, getting curious about OAuth in 2007, or betting that Facebook would become huge in Portugal, i wonder if this isn’t only a confirmation bias.
So, what are the tea leaves that i’ve been reading lately?

• Digital Curation
  Steve Rubel was one of the first to highlight it, but now we’re seeing it at a micro-level, with tweets becoming the new quotes. Who will organize the best content? Or maybe it’s just an exit strategy for journalists.
• DIY@home
  The main theme at Shift10, this trend has been building up since the maker manifesto. What will happen when movements like Fabrication become accessible to the regular Joe?
• Portable profiles
  Taking our digital identity TVs or cars, plugging our Facebook profile to our train seat, downloading a ticket using RFID authentication, adjusting enviromental data through sensors, it all feels to much like science fiction. Or maybe not.
• Democratized video publishing
  What happened with blogging will happen again with video. We just need cheaper cameras and easier video linear editors.
• Ad rating
  Ad people be afraid. We’re seeing it already with the like button on Facebook, and it’s not far fetched to expand the notion to all online advertising. Because clicks don’t matter neither your Cannes Award. It’s the consumer, stupid.

Maybe i’m dead wrong in a few years, but prescience delivers great new challenges.

Helpers-EU.com is not your traditional campaign, but rather a web series promoted by the European Union to raise awareness about the dangers of tobacco.

In partnership with Daily Motion, but also with a Youtube channel the animated films are a fun way to inform young europeans, but also engaging them with the web series by allowing them to vote on the theme/tip for the next episode.

The series depicts 3 super-heroes who try to save smokers and non-smokers from the negative effects of tobacco, by giving them absurd tips and advice. Chuck, Skinny and Loona, accompanied by Tapas, a masochistic freak of nature that won’t leave them alone, unify their strengths for better or for worst.

You can also find the Helpers on Facebook and Beebo.

Advertiser:Help-EU
Agency:Ligaris

Cross-posted at Osocio.org

A short break on these holidays didn’t helped to pick up my regular posting schedule, as i forced myself to unwire my lifestyle. As i resume a lot of on-hold projects, and decide what to do in 2010 on this digital canvas, time to do a short mention to another place were my writing goes, Osocio.org, that has recently announced the nominees for Best Social Campaign of 2009:

- Message from the Gyre by Chris Jordan

- Storytelling: Choose a different ending by AMV BBDO for the London Metropolitan Police

- Watermarks make the flood visible by Chris Bodle

- The trillion dollar campaign by TBWA\Hunt\Lascaris for The Zimbabwean

- Before you turn away put yourself in my place by David & Goliath for the Weingart Homeless Center

- Just add water by Kennedy Monk for Yes Men + Bhopal Medical Appeal

- The smoking plant by Fischer America

- Contemporary beauty ideals by Ogilvy & Mather Frankfurt for ANAD

- Going west with the New Zealand Book Council by Colenso BBDO

- TubePetition by Mizbala

The winner is to be announced next week, and hopefully 2010 will bring a new fature: “Campaign of the Month”. For more details, check the original post at Osocio.org.

Land’s End is sponsoring this year the Big Boston Warm-Up, an effort to make the season warmer for the homeless people in the Boston area. Collecting one coat at a time (donated at Sears), but also setting up a beautiful website, developed by Firstborn NYC.

The infographic rich website also informs about the installation at Boylston Plaza with 738 figures waiting for a warm red heart, meaning that 10 people have donated coats for each figure.

Finally, do check the also special and personalized video after the jump.

Source: @brianjeremy

Cross-posted at Osocio.org

Many countries around the world have been implementing smoking bans as public health policy. In Brazil, the state of São Paulo has issued last month a ban on indoor smoking, with the usual controversy amongst citizens.

Instead of taking sides, ad agency Fischer and digitial agency PIX, elaborated the installation “The Smoking Plant”, where 2 plants on a glass case where placed side by side, but with one of the sunflowers exposed to cigarette smoke. The whole experiment was live on the Internet during the past 2 weeks, with the results shown on the video below:

During the 97 cigars smoked, the project updated the progress on Twitter and created a great amount interaction with users, offering also a screensaver to follow the experiment from the desktop.

Many thanks to Carlos Merigo, for hastily providing the video subtitled in English.

Credits
Agency: Fischer America
Interactive: PIX
Production: D3 Estudio
Film: Conspiração Filmes

Cross-posted to Osocio.org

Not Fab from fabulous, but rather Fab from making and using fabbers, machines that can make almost anything, by printing three dimensional objects.

From commercial to the more open-source hardware and software solutions at Fab@home, these machines will enable people to download and print objects, experimenting with shared projects and try out new materials. Fabber owners improve these models and share physical objects with other fabbers, with the same enthusiasm as the pioneers of open source movement.

The wave of innovation brought by Web 2.0 technologies, with a sustainable co-creation by thousands of users, is now expanding to the physical world. The signs are there: from hacker (in the creative sense) communities like Make, Instructables or the more neo-Craftsy website Etsy.com, people are getting more comfortable with the idea of building something with their own hands. It’s about feeling empowered, the hands-on experience of building something, appealing not only to our darwinian survival skills but also have a bit of science fiction premonition (remember Luke Skywalker building C3PO as a young kid?). Yes, because even young kids are starting to love the tinkering, as shown on the TED Talk below, by Gever Tulley:

If all this seems futuristic to you, just try to imagine how IKEA will look in a decade: instead of boxed items, dozens of 3d printers are available at the cashier. You just take the blueprints and super fast hardware will print that out. Or even better: for smaller items, you just download the schematic at IKEA Fab Store and print them at home.

Yes, it seems far fetched. But so did Augmented Reality a decade ago. I just hope the media won’t hype Fab as much as they did with AR. Universal manufacturing is something that could change society in unexpected ways, the same way Internet did, by redefining industries and democratizing innovation. It comes nonetheless with a new set of dilemmas, such as the degree of experimentation or control of outputs.

As for companies, they’d better start thinking how their old models of patents stand up to this new paradigm, with a product’s life cycle being dramatically redefined. And, who knows, maybe even involve the consumers in true User Generated Products.

Article cross-posted at TheTrendWatch

I’m rather curious to find out more this stuff at the workshop by Audiencia Zero on 3D printing with Zach Hoeken , but probably won’t have a chance, unless they open a special vacancy on the already full registration list (hint, hint).

From civil war to natural disaster, Mozambique has been plagued with an uncertain future. ImaginingMozambique.com brings to attention this daily struggle, exhibiting the works of several artists as an inspiration to the African country.

123Klan, Carlos Serrao, Catalina Estrada, Akinori Oishi, Balint Zsako, Florence Manlik, Giuliano and Federico, Marcos Chin, Matt Maitland, Parra, Superdeux collaboreted on this effort for ASEM, a charity founded to help the children of Mozambique.

On the website, developed by Studio Cartelle,  a firefly shotboux allows users to leave their messages of support to the cause, with a exhibition gallery featuring the works.
The traveling art show premieres 27th August at Maxalot Gallery, Amsterdam until 10th September, later residing in the offices of Wieden+Kennedy

Crossposted from Osocio

The story of the last great supply of fresh drinking water on Earth. The changes affecting the Great Lakes. A beautiful soundtrack for an epic journey. Now on the web, developed by Jam3, at http://waterlife.nfb.ca/

Winner of the Special Jury Prize at Hot Docs 2009, the film is narrated by Gord Downie, featuring music by Sam Roberts, Sufjan Stevens, Sigur Rós, Robbie Robertson and Brian Eno.

Just enjoy. And think about it.

Source: Osocio