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Research work by Christopher Hsse and his colleagues at  University of Chicago has revealed some interesting traits about human behavior; namely that we are naturally inclined towards idleness to conserve energy, we would rather do nothing, but we are happier and less bored when we are busy.

Therefore finding hooks and ways to make people feel like they are busy or giving them the illusion of busyness is a huge business opportunity for experience creators.

One example given by BPS is making travelers walk further to pick up their bags, rather than making them wait at baggage claim. Given a task like walking to a destination is more pleasurable than simply standing and waiting.

This simple and somewhat obvious insight must explain the massive appeal and success of applications for phones and tablets.

The user feels that that these distractions will keep them occupied for a while and are pure examples of futile busyness, just the fact they exist and are easily accessible is probably enough for most users to hook them in and get them to trial. They are the "digital candies" of the information age.

While many of these apps might lack staying power, for the store owners like Apple, it's the constant stream of new apps and potential distractions that make the store exciting to users. The problem for Apple will come if the rate of application development slows and there are fewer and fewer newer and interesting applications to satisfy user cravings for futile busyness.


Posted by Ed Cotton We are hearing reports of 11% CTRs for the first wave of Apple iAds that have appeared on various applications, then there's this from foursquare..

" our friends at Monique’s Chocolates in Palo Alto have acquired over 50 new customers and saw well over 100 redemptions as a result of running a Special Offer over the past seven weeks:



The owner of Monique’s, Mark, also told us that he is running the same Special in his local newspaper (cost of ad = $300!) and has acquired only one customer with one redemption from that print ad. He adds that for those who redeem the Special via foursquare “more than 25% return regularly to get something, to Check in, to see who the mayor is…the gaming part of foursquare really does resonate with people and we’re excited about it!”

OK, it's a tiny chocolate store, but there are also stories of Starbucks having similar levels of success on a much bigger scale.

While "new" these new platforms are achieving high levels of success because of the novelty factor, they have a huge advantage over their traditional ad competitors in that they can keep innovating, it's in their blood.

We are seeing new developments from foursquare that seek to evolve their existing program model. Then you've got Twitter, long seen as shy in its desire for revenue, coming up with a real interesting idea around promotions, Earlybird.

What these guys can't afford to do is stop, there will be no time to rest on their laurels of success because the novelty value will soon fade. They have to harness their core culture of innovation to perpetually ensure their experiences and their advertising/promotional experiences are constantly refreshed and kept interesting.



Posted by Ed Cotton Traditional magazine art directors seem to love the iPad because it respects the classic rules of the grid and pagination.

When we see examples of future concepts for tablets, most of the time they reference the physical magazine and just build interactivity around it. This is because the tablet is a "lean-back" device, something you read and look at on the couch, rather than "the lean-forward" experience of the computer.

Smart Design has tried their hand at imagining a future magazine concept on a tablet and have some good suggestions, based on solid research with magazine subscribers that gets translated into ideas around browsing, deeper diving and productivity. Their thoughts on the integration between mobile and magazines are especially good.

Smart Design magazine UX concept from Smart Design on Vimeo.

However, Smart's concept take a bit of a "rear view mirror" approach by exploring consumers current experiences to project into the future. In 24 months time we might be looking back at this concepts and finding them surprisingly dated. It's likely publishers and developers will come a long way in that time and create new experiences that don't mirror current magazine or online consumption, but are radically new ways to consume media.


Posted by Ed Cotton Steve Jobs isn't just a genius for his contributions to technology, he was also the first to show us the power of the "happy product walk-through", where actors demonstrate the delights of new technology.

With applications coming on stream everyday and in that battle for attention, these demos are very important, if brands and companies want attention for their applications.

Take a look at this latest from eBay showcasing their latest mobile app.



Check.

1. One happy charismatic actor- full of the joys of spring

2. Spring like music bed- evocative of a new bright future and a life made easier

3. Simple walk through of all the key features- note use of finger

4. Overall air that world will never be the same after using this new application.

Of course, there's something bigger at stake here. With the world moving to mobile these demos are in a small way defining the future of the brand and of the brand experience.



Posted by Ed Cotton Could Apple be sitting on a gold mine of purchase data that it can't be mined?

The incredible volume of purchase on the iTunes store for music, applications, movies and television shows must give Apple an incredible insight into taste patterns and trends.

It should be able to use its own data to know exactly the right music to use for it's iPhone, iPod and coming iPad ads.

It should know the likelehood of liking a certain kind of music based on movie preferences.

All in, Apple should have an amazing tool that can allow it to predict behaviors and understand upcoming cultural trends.

However, it's got to find a way to monetize this data and get people to buy more of the software and hopefully the hardware it sells. As we all know, it's pretty tough to reach people these days especially with 84% of email is spam.

This could be the once reluctant social marketer is now teaming up with Facebook to build fan pages. It seems strange that a brand with such a cult following would need to advertize for fans, but that's exactly what they are doing. It's big push is to get fans for the Application store, so it can use Facebook to bombard them with info about new releases etc.

This points us at a problem, unless Apple is especially smart, it has no way of tying it's fan data to transaction data for the iTunes store, so Apple's just going to use Facebook to deliver a shotgun blast of messaging, rather than the one-to-one rifle shot.

Maybe they shouldn't give up on email just yet, I know I've purchased a ton of applications can got receipts for everyone- surely there's a newsletter and recommedation opportunity in here? I know there's no a Genius function in the App Store, but perhaps people need more pushing.


Posted by Ed Cotton While Apple's iPad has been the subject of a lot of attention ranging, from ridicule and mixed reviews. The spin suggested the iPad would usher in a new era for those in the publishing business by creating another medium for consumers to experience print.

However, the promise suggested by Apple's demos and a number of flashy publisher initiatives is that this new experience is going to be better than a web site, and more satisfying than reading a newspaper or a magazine.

The dream being sold is how our magazines are going to be turned into immersive multimedia experiences (see the Sports Illustrated demo below) where the user takes a joyride through a stream of beautifully designed content and can dig deeper on topics and experience multimedia to their hearts content. While all these seems technically feasible, the big question is who are the publishers who can afford to develop this content on a daily, weekly or even a monthly basis?



It's easy to imagine a scenario where excitement drives the creation of great first iPad editions that succeed in seducing new subscribers into magazine franchises at significant premiums to current subscription rates. However this will not be sustainable because the economics won't map out and the result will be falling quality standards and subscriber discontent. 

The other way of looking at this is through the application lens, where new entrants will come into the publishing space from a completely different direction.These new entrants might find better and more interesting ways of serving up content than the publishing incumbents.

It's likely magazines will never be able to afford to realize the "Sports Ilustrated" dream and instead be forced to fight it out in the App Store with hundreds of thousands of competitors.

The future for traditional publications on tablets has to be more "application like", than "issue like".

I hate to burst anyone's bubble, but I don't believe we are going to get the sizzle of the Sports Ilustrated demo, it's much more likely we will be looking at something like the latest GQ iPhone application.



Posted by Ed Cotton