If Web1.0 was the reign of static sites and Web2.0 is the reign of social networks, Web3.0 may just be the reign of the mashup and widget, and Yahoo will be at the forefront of that change.
This was my key takeaway from a series of talks Yahoo Philippines held today at the National Sports Grill in Greenbelt.
Mashups and widgets involve major internet players like Yahoo and Google opening their applications to the general public. An example is Yahoo's BOSS (Build your Own Search Service) which gives developers access to the entire search index of Yahoo. Techcrunch has provided a very good timeline of Yahoo's open strategy, here. That actually uses a BOSS-derived product (customized in less than 30 seconds!) running a search of "Yahoo BOSS" in techcrunch.com
Check out the screenshot below for a sample site developed using BOSS. Putting Yahoo in your site... I am not a developer but I see the power of putting Yahoo apps in your websites. Customized Yahoo! news feed for my site filtered to my users' preferences, in-page Yahoo messenger, Yahoo! answers feed, there could be many things that can be done, and with my limited developer knowledge this barely touches the surface. What's better is we can also combine with other services. (For instance, I would like to see how Y! can work with a Popfly mashup, or combine Yahoo with Google/Skype/Twitter/Plurk/)
I accessed the Developer site of Yahoo at http://developer.yahoo.com and I was immediately pulled to the API documentations of its popular services like Answers, Flickr, delicious, and even the relatively new Fire Eagle. I would like to see some local Filipino sites leverage these... I may actually use some of these for an upcoming project I am working on.
Yahoo mentioned the need to become more active in social networks without necessarily stealing the traffic away from the networks. Instead, Yahoo would become more socially-oriented. Just what that exactly means, I am not sure. Can we check our social networks right from within Yahoo? Update our status in the networks using Yahoo apps? It's pretty much a wild world out there.
Right now, Yahoo mentioned it can only support having mashups with members of the OpenSocial movement, but will increase its scope in the future.
Digital marketing applications We all know that Yahoo is very popular in the Philippines. Yahoo mail and messenger are staples of the Filipino internet lifestyle. Having these services within a branded site (of course, need to add that "special value-added service") will be beneficial for that brand, I think. I haven't seen executions of that style yet though.
To my knowledge, no Philippine company so far has tapped social networks (Friendster, Facebook, Multiply, Myspace) and achieved monumental success. There are the banner ads but that's mainly it, nothing yet that has broken out of the mold the way Wario did on Youtube.
What could be the barriers preventing this? Cost? The fear of foraging into the unknown and backfiring world of social networks? These social networks' resellers in the Philippines?
This campaign by Fab done in Facebook is a welcome difference. Exploiting the assets and the recall caused by the wonderful girl-in-brother's-shirt commercial, they proceeded to make a Facebook app out of it.
I just wonder how they intend to use the information they gathered here... or was it purely for a fun consumer experience?
I've also seen Colgate do something in Facebook but those are primarily ads related to the Fresh Confidence video making contest.
Viral marketing, when done right has amazing potential to increase the awareness of consumers for your product. The example in this link is a stellar viral done with Youtube for the Wario game in the Wii. It's been uploaded just 10 days ago, and it's now gotten more than 2.1 million views.
Why is it so amazing? The whole concept of the viral was closely intertwined with the equity of the product being mentioned (which is a game): "Wario Shake it Up." And it also says something about Youtube, meaning they're becoming more experimental and creative in advertising on site. (check out this insightful Techcrunch article which talks about Youtube planning to monetize its homepage more)
I wouldn't want to give any more spoilers so just watch it. :) Here is a screenshot:
Digital marketing is closely intertwined with social media.
While conventional marketing is more a mass-communication endeavor, done via TV, radio or print, digital marketing is ideally a one-to-one and two-way activity, where the brand or the company offers personalized content for the consumer and the consumer can interact readily. The revolutions that are the internet and mobile technologies make this possible.
So, because of the democratization of voice, consumers can also much more freely talk about the brands they use (or hate or love). Social media or Web 2.0 enable that.
With that short introductory spiel, let me share with you a fascinating presentation I found in Slideshare which talks precisely how powerful social media is in the context of marketing.
In my opinion, at this stage though in the Philippines, social media is very difficult to harness. Let me know what you think, thanks!
Putting Yahoo in your site...
