Marketing Pilgrim Published: “New Google Maps for Android to Render 3D Street Level” plus 3 more

New Google Maps for Android to Render 3D Street Level
Could A Mere $183 Million Spell Trouble for Groupon?
The Cancellation of Terriers and The Importance of First Impressions
Rise in Mobile Pushes Rise in Global Ad Spending

New Google Maps for Android to Render 3D Street Level

Posted: 07 Dec 2010 05:32 AM PST

Local is the new black. Sounds corny but it's true. Now that I have that out of the way, let's take a look at just how Google is taking local to new levels of interesting with their Maps 5.0 app for Android, which is soon to be released.

Gizmodo reports

Google has just unveiled their new, refreshed Maps 5.0 app for Android, launching soon. What’s new about it? Well, it renders buildings in 3D, loads faster, works offline and will automatically rotate the map according to the phone’s compass.

Thanks to the small file size and scalability of the new dynamically drawn vector graphics in Maps, the app now renders in realtime, and maps download about 100 times less data—which leads to faster load times and super smooth zooming. (Previously, maps were downloaded as a bunch of tiles and zooming was more of a “snap to” experience.) The new 3D building models will start to appear as you get down to the street view level, and you can even tilt the map using a two-finger swipe gesture, altering the map’s vertical orientation to offer a sense of a building’s height. Imagine popping out of the subway in NYC and instantly recognizing where you’re at by checking out the buildings around you in 3D. 100 cities, like New York, will be supported from the outset.

Here's what it will look like.

Search Engine Land's Greg Sterling gives even more insight with

Initially there will be 100 cities that get the new maps. According to Google, "70 within the US (including SF, NYC, Boston, LA, New Orleans, Chicago, Tampa) and more than 30 internationally (such as Melbourne, Toronto, Vancouver, Copenhagen, Dublin, Florence, Madrid, Milan, Munich, Venice, Zurich, and Buenos Aires)."

The point was made to me that Google Maps for Mobile had always been "North and flat." Now the map's orientation will change with the user. As you move through a city, the compass will rotate or shift the map's orientation so the rendering of streets and buildings will correspond to the your perspective on the physical world (akin to Google Navigation).

The second major enhancement is "offline reliability." The new Maps for Mobile will work without a persistent data connection. It extends to rerouting in Google Navigation, while not connected. And this starts to give Maps for Mobile the persistence of a paper map.

Here's a before and after shot that was offered up in the SEL piece as well which shows how maps will continue to render on the iPhone v. Android when this new app is rolled out in the very near future.

As a recent convert to the Android platform, I have to say that this is pretty cool. While calling it 3D seems a bit over the top (after all I won't need to wear glasses and I don't expect buildings to jump out of the screen like a hologram or anything) this is a very cool next step for Google to take.

No matter where you think the Apple v Google wars are going this is one area where Google has a distinct advantage. If Google decides to not offer enhancements to the iPhone set (which is unlikely but you never know since Navigation is not available yet) this will be a real reason to consider one platform over the other (depending on your personal needs of course).

All I can say is that from a local perspective my iPhone envy is about completely gone. Since I am not a game person (other than those freakin' Angry Birds) and I really like a big screen (thank you DroidX for helping out screen weary eyes) plus the concentration on Google Places with incredible map and navigation technology to boot, Google is holding its own in the mobile space.

In your opinion, is this kind of technology for the Android enough to make you decide Android over iPhone? If not, what, if anything at all, would? This is getting very interesting for sure.

Could A Mere $183 Million Spell Trouble for Groupon?

Posted: 07 Dec 2010 04:18 AM PST

Yesterday, I took a look at whether Groupon's decision to pass on Google's ridiculously generous offer of around $6 billion for the 2 year-old company was a good move. One thing that wasn't looked at was the investment that was made in the competing deal site, LivingSocial, totaling $183 million ($175 million from Amazon and $8 million from Lightspeed Venture Partners). In the end, could an investment that equals about 3% of what Google offered Groupon be the beginning of the end of Groupon's dominance of the online deal space?

With LivingSocial their investment didn't come from just anyone. No, in fact with Amazon leading the way this money is very real and it bodes well for the company currently viewed as the 'other guy' in the space (not to mention the myriad smaller players and branded versions of Grouponesque offerings as well.).

Bloomberg reports on what kind of impact on LivingSocial's way of doing business this cash will have.

LivingSocial will more than triple its employees next year to 1,800 and more than double the number of cities where it offers deals, CEO Tim O'Shaughnessy said in his first interview since the Amazon.com investment was announced last week. That would bring the service to 300 markets, about the number that Groupon now serves with its staff of 3,000.

LivingSocial has at least one sales representative in each of its 120 geographic markets. It will use the recent investment, which includes $175 million from Amazon and $8 million from venture-capital firm Lightspeed Venture Partners, to expand overseas and begin rolling out programs to help merchants retain shoppers. Most small and medium-sized merchants don't have any form of customer relationship management, an opportunity for LivingSocial, O'Shaughnessy said.

In other words, LivingSocial now has the financial chops to come in behind Groupon and benefit from the current market leader’s mistakes. This could be the best time to really grab a piece of this market that, in the end, could make Groupon's decision to go it alone look like the once in a lifetime opportunity it likely was.

Imagine if someone had made a serious run along side of Google back in the late 90's as the search game was shaping up. What might things look like today if there had been two real competitors in the search space (at a minimum)? With the barriers to entry being much lower in the case of online deals (after all you don't have to index the entire web and have thousands of servers to run your operation) and the ability for this market to quickly fragment with smaller players taking enough pieces of the pie to make a living without needing to be the biggest player in the space, this game is now wide open.

How do you see this playing out? At this point the two main players have been established with Groupon and LivingSocial having the lead in this market segment. In addition, it doesn't take much digging to find other smaller players with either slightly different takes on the model (like one I am familiar with that allows site owners to easily offer deals on their own site but that doesn't require any programming as well as being very affordable to every SMB) or smaller aspirations than the big boys.

Everyone loves a deal so this idea is not going away. Will there be a clear-cut leader in the space? That remains to be seen. Will it be Groupon or LivingSocial? That's not a lock either. In the end, there seems to be a very real possibility that Groupon CEO, Andrew Mason, and his employees could be looking back at what could have been while struggling to fight off the pack of wolves at the gate. Then again, the Groupon group may look back and laugh at how they did their own version of Facebook (turning down big money early on) and made people like me look silly.

That's for the future to decide isn't it? What do you think this space will eventually look like and will Groupon, LivingSocial or someone else rule the roost?

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The Cancellation of Terriers and The Importance of First Impressions

Posted: 06 Dec 2010 04:42 PM PST

FX has canceled the TV show Terriers. You’re probably not too crushed by the news. It’s safe to say that the majority of the people who will read this blog post never even heard of the show before today since less than a million people watched the premiere. A million may seem like a lot but 13.5 million people watched the Lost finale, so in TV terms, not so much.

What does the cancellation of a low rated TV show have to do with marketing? I’ll tell you. Or rather, I’ll show you. Just look at the ad FX used to advertise the series. It was one of a couple of graphics that all featured snarling dogs. Add that up with the title of the show, “Terriers” and you gotta figure its about dogs, right? Wrong.

Terriers was a series about two friends who become unlicensed private detectives and stumble into a major conspiracy theory — I think. I’m not really sure. I couldn’t find a proper description of the plot on IMDB or even the show’s actual website.

I did find critics saying that this was one of the most innovative, action packed, quirky crime dramas on TV. Who knew? I didn’t and apparently, I’m not alone in that.

The point, if you haven’t figured it out by now is that the old adage is true. You only get one chance to make a first impression. Trying to be cute and clever can be confusing and though people may remember your ad, they won’t remember what it’s for.

John Landgraf, the President of FX, chose to comment on the situation, a very unprecedented move, by saying that the marketing was not at fault. He told Deadline Hollywood:

He ordered a study with 600 people who had not seen the show that examined the effectiveness of Terriers’ TV promos that had dominated the series’ marketing campaign. The testing showed that the promos “represented the show extremely well and explained very well what it was about.”

He goes on to say that marketing is being unfairly blamed for the show’s poor performance. Maybe, but if four million people had watched the premiere then only two million returned for the next episode, you’d have a case against the show itself. But when less than a million tune in in the first place, then you really can’t blame the series, can you?

When it comes to marketing a TV show, a website or a product, the first thing you have to do is get people in the door. And clearly, this was a marketing campaign that failed on the first step.

Rise in Mobile Pushes Rise in Global Ad Spending

Posted: 06 Dec 2010 01:03 PM PST

The United States accounts for 5% of the world’s population but 34% of total worldwide advertising. That means we're the largest ad market but it doesn't mean we're the only market. According to a new study by Ad Age, China is one of the fastest growing countries in regard to advertising dollars. With 20% of the world's population, they currently account for only 5% of the worldwide ad budget but experts say they're on track to displace Germany as the third largest market come 2011. Sitting in the number two spot? Japan and they're likely to stay that way.

What's being advertised globally? Personal care items and automobiles took the top two spots followed by food, drugs and entertainment. When it comes to drugs and entertainment products, more than half of all ad dollars are being spent in the US as compared to the other categories that are only 20 – 30% US heavy.

When it comes to trends in advertising, expecting the rest of the world to respond as American's do would be a mistake. AdAge says that newspapers on on the rise in Asia, Africa and Latin America which is totally contrary to newspaper sales here and in Europe. And while mobile is big everywhere, it's key in countries such as China, Brazil and India where phone service is cheaper than internet service. This same trend will drive users toward ebooks and tablets. Cyber cafes continue to flourish in countries such as South Korea and Brazil – perfect places to sell gaming pre-paid cards and social media driven products.

Where we are alike is in TV consumption. Everyone is watching TV, even poor households have to have one these days. The average person the world over is watching more than three hours of TV a day and much of that is sports, reality competition shows like American Idol and soaps (which are much bigger in Latin America than they are now in the US.)

To learn more about trends in global advertising, check out AdAge's "10 Trends That Are Shaping Global Media Consumption" or purchase the full white paper, Global Media Habits 2010, by Greg Lindsay, at AdAge.com.

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