Zannelers! In order to tidy up the Zannel interface and prepare for some really cool things we have in the pipeline, we’ve made some improvements to the friend and following features.
Firstly, you can now change the alert and feed settings for each friend or person you are following. You can choose if you want their posts displayed in your feed, or if you want to get alerts and if so, what kind.
These detailed alert settings are a great way to control what shows up in your feed. For example, if you are following the user “FlowerPower” and they go on a crazy posting spree with hundreds of daisies, you now have a tool to dial them down. Go to their following settings and turn off the alert and feed options so their flower pictures no longer bury you.
Another big change you’ll notice is that your friends tab in the top navigation bar has been absorbed by the following tab. Fear not Zannelers, your friends are still there! Just click the following tab and you’ll see all your friends listed with their own special friend icons to separate them from the users you are following. You can even sort the list just to show your friends. Since the posts of your friends and people you are following all appear in your feed, we thought it made sense to manage them all from one place.
It might also behoove us (we love the word behoove!) to revisit the difference between what it means to follow someone vs. being a friend. Here are a few important distinctions:
* Following: When you find someone whose posts you think are cool, you can follow him or her. Their new posts will appear in your feed. It’s an easy way to keep track of what you are interested in.
* Friends: Many people want to keep their posts private, or only allow messaging and comments from people they trust. If you’re somebody’s friend, you’re saying you trust each other enough to be sharing posts and communication.
We’re really excited about these enhancements, and have a lot more in store in the coming months, including improving how you find things on Zannel. But we want to hear from you! Let us know what you think and send us a note with your thoughts: feedback@zannel.com
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Zannelers, in a few days we’re going to be releasing some improvements to the friend and following features. You’ll notice some interface changes, as well as a bunch of cool new features including the ability to control who shows up in your feed and what kinds of alerts you get for individual users. The biggest interface change you’ll notice is that your friends and followers will all be consolidated in one “following” tab in the top navigation bar.
When the changes go live, we’ll post another notice in the heads up bar, and here in the blog, so be sure to click through to read more details about the new features.
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The research is by Razorfish, the digital agency, and basically can be summarized by 5 main trends:
(1) The proliferation of the profile. While Facebook and MySpace seem to dominate, “this connected class surprisingly willing to maintain a presence on multiple social networking platforms—so long as a critical mass of people remains. More importantly, we found users actively expressing different sides of themselves on different communities and even managing multiple profiles on a single platform.”
(2) The proliferation of the specialized platform. While super phones like the iPhone and Google’s Android are all about convergence, the Connected Class is ” increasingly willing to embrace multiple devices—even when those devices possess overlapping capabilities and purposes. For instance, they might own a Nintendo Wii for the whimsical side of their gaming lives and an XBOX 360 for competition, or a laptop for managing the business of life, and another littered with stickers for fun.”
(3) The profileration of communications. Users actively seeking to communicate with people they know and people they don’t - but who share a similar life view and/or passions. How they communicate is changing. Phone calls are declining in favor of text messaging and IM. “From a marketing perspective, it is important to note that forms of communication like SMS and mobile e-mail remain incredibly personal, but could be relevant for a select set of direct-response-oriented brands able to integrate into the upper rungs of the user’s social hierarchy.”
(4) The proliferation of self-promotion and social hierarchy. Users are acutely aware of how to use the tools within social networks to enhance their social standing. “For marketers, it is not enough to simply put up a profile and see who comes. Instead they need to consider that users are consciously aware of their interaction with brands that help elevate their social status, or activities that define who they are as a person-whether that is critic or evangelist. The online social activity they choose must offer real social value.”
(5) The proliferation of active brand participation. Increased use of the social web - from the desktop and mobile - means that the connected class has less time to spend consuming traditional media like television and radio.Connected users’ will “soon expect all relevant brands to be where they are and will question those that are not.”
EMarketer forecasts that over 800 million users worldwide will access and participate in social networks via their mobile device in 2012, up from 82 million in 2007. Although the total mobile social network user base in 2012 will be under 20% of the worldwide mobile user population, it is likely these users will have a disproportionate impact on marketing, media and mobile communications because creating and sharing digital content represents much of the social networking experience.
Mobile marketing budgets are poised to increase by more than 150 percent over the next five years even in the face of economic turmoil, according to a new study commissioned by operator O2. The study notes that 60 percent of marketing and IT directors from across the financial services, manufacturing and retail sectors favor mobile marketing channels due to the mobile platform’s capacity to target consumers–85 percent of respondents said their mobile marketing efforts generate a higher response than traditional methods. While 88 percent of marketing directors anticipate behavioral targeting will emerge as a critical tool by 2010, 46 percent said embracing mobile marketing hinges on their ability to specifically target their campaign. Another 43 percent expressed concern that consumers will view mobile marketing messages as spam.
Zannel CEO, Adam Zbar, was recently interviewed by Kevin Tofel at GigaOM’s Mobilize conference. Mobilize is an annual meeting of industry professionals to discuss the future of broadband mobile web as well as to look at the latest in mobile applications. Adam was asked a few questions about Zannel and what people are doing with media and their mobile phones. Here’s what he had to say:
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A group of Zannelers are having the time of their lives at LoveFest in San Francisco. LoveFest is a big street fair/parade where all profits go to charity. The theme is loosely based on the Summer of Love (1969) and the happenings at the intersection at Haight-Ashbury. People come in 1960s regalia, hang out for the day, listen to music, and watch a parade of events.
We released a big improvement to your main Zannel page today, the personalized Feed. The Feed is a place where you can see the stream of Zannel activity that is most important to you. Comments, friend posts, posts from people you are following, or your own posts all show up in that section, and you can configure it to show just what you want. Click on the “feed settings” link to adjust what shows up in your feed.
If you want to see things as you did in the old version of Zannel, you can just select “your updates” in the settings to only see your posts in the Feed. Or click on the “my updates” tab in the top nav bar to see your posts. But maybe you want your feed to display your comments and your friend’s posts? Change the settings, the choice is up to you. Go nuts and try it out.
Ultimately the Feed is a way to make Zannel more relevant to you and your group of friends so you get a better snapshot of what is going on and what people are talking about. Let us know what you think. We’re all ears.
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Many of the glut of presidential polls might be skewed by a couple of points or so because they fail to account for voters — especially younger ones — who have cell phones, but not wirelines, according to a report from the Pew Research Center. In its study, Pew said it found registered voters under age 30 who use only cell phones were more likely to be Democrats than those who also have wirelines. Seattle Post-Intelligencer/The Associated Press (9/25)
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