Aaron White

I used to have a Facebook flyer, and now I have some sort of a social ad, and in both cases, I’m trying to hire a web designer, and thought it’d be interesting to post a flyer/social ad, targeting people in Boston who are college grads (a very wide group).

I plan to run my ad for 30 days, as I’m running the same campaign over other various places, all for 30 days. I’ve mentally set a budget of 300 dollars for 30 days per site I post at. 

I set a daily budget of $10 dollars (300/30 = 10), and used the default bid for impressions (.50 cents, and why not just use the default, defaults are important, and no data was provided to me to help me pick any different number).

So far this ad has been running for 1 week, and has gotten 0 impressions, giving Facebook 0 of my dollars.

Given that this is a $300 experiment for me, Facebook ought to be able to realize ALL 300 of it, by helping me adjust my bidding up or down, or providing SOME feedback letting me know why it isn’t being shown (based on data, not on FAQ). I’d be willing to bid all 10 dollars of my daily budget per impression if that was the ONLY way to use up my budget (Then at the end of 30 days, I’d decide if it was worth it or not depending on my results) Obviously Facebook auto-adjusting my bid down from there would be great.

I imagine I’m not the only one running a budgeted Facebook ad experiment given the introduction of the new ad platform. So if you ran a query over all ads that had fixed daily budgets, but 0 clicks/impressions over their lifetime, you could determine how much possible advertising budget Facebook was missing out on. 

And it might simply be because the advertising UI isn’t helping me figure out how to get my ad shown. Or perhaps better instructions. Or something.

So how can I give Facebook my $300?

 Amazon has announced Kindle. It’s sort of the ultimate eReader: great dispaly, good form factor, and best of all, it’s always connected. I probably can’t stress how important that is, but if we believe we are entering the new world of ubiquitous computing, this is a good sign. There is no contract or recurring service fee. If you want a book, you buy a book, and you receive it via cell EVDO connection in minutes. If you want to look something up on Wikipedia, you have the entire thing in your hand.

Is this as fantastic as my iPhone? It’s close. The iPhone can technically do much of the same stuff, but the Kindle is _designed_ to replace books, and wherever books fit, so ought Kindle. I know it’s hard not to think of your laptop as the be-all end-all information device, but if we just posit for a second that EVERY object will one day be online, wouldn’t we still want different objects? I think so: navigating my physical space to perform a function is a viable alternative to navigating links & folders. Whatever works works.

 If anyone has $400 to burn, I’ll happily accept Kindle as a present this season. 

Sure, if they do Landlines & Skype!

We just bought a refurbished Polycomm Voicestation 500 which does exactly that.

Neat! 

This week, Google announced the Open Handset Alliance, and I’m feeling like a bit of a broken record: I’m underwhelmed.

The popular consensus is that the savvy consumer wants wireless providers relegated to simple utility providers  (and hey, toss in my cable company while we are at it). Why? Because I really don’t care who gets me the internet, as long as I have access to it, and all the services I could possibly want delivered in a provider agnostic way. What can Verizon really do for me beyond lowering my rates? I suppose they could lock me into their ‘appo-sphere’, and charge as much as they like in their competition-free zone, and continue to charge ludicrous amounts for text messages.

 Well, Google announced that they don’t like that, and they see a different future. At least we’re on the same page here. My problem is, I don’t know what OHsA does to get us there. Yes, they’ve  ’committed’ a variety of companies to the ‘success’ of their vision: developers developing apps.

The problem is, so what? Giving them the benefit of the doubt, as Dick suggests, let’s assume OHsA creates an above average reference phone, signs some manufacturers and carriers, and enables a variety of gung-ho developers. And when the average consumer gets his hands on this platform-phone, she can choose from thousands of apps to fit her needs specifically.

Would I swap my iPhone for that? Not likely. My iPhone is a solid device, with a holistic vision, and the right amount of cool. I bought an experience, not a platform. An OHsA phone is a platform, and I just can’t get too excited about running afoul of all the platform issues that plague my desktop, while I’m trying to make and receive calls. It’s part of the reason I ditched my MotoQ without blinking. 

 When it comes down to it, I don’t see OHsA redefining the carriers. I do see Apple doing just that with the iPhone. All eyes are on the phone, NOT the carrier. And when the AT&T and Apple’s contract comes to an end, I look forward to the other players scrambling to support the iPhone, and making each other largely interchangeable. Just a few more years…

Facebook deploys their application platform… incredible! Despite the various rumblings about the accessibility of their core-data, I think their app-platform has been a runaway success. Facebook has shown real thought leadership, and it has excited millions of people.

Later, MySpace trails with their “Me too!” app platform. Whether or not this helps MySpace maintain its slipping hold has yet to be seen. What it does do is send a signal that their are trailing behind Facebook, and are looking directly to Facebook for direction.

 And now Google too? I’m underwhelmed by what OpenSocial actually enables, and to see the King of the internet sending the same signals MySpace has sent is disappointing.  

 Well kudos again to Facebook, see how you continue to innovate and shake things up?