Professional networking site LinkedIn had its initial public offering Thursday, with shares of the company debuting on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol LNKD.
LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman’s stake was estimated to to be worth as much as $855 million at the $45 share price. However, he will now be a billionaire on paper if shares stay at their current levels.
Here’s an overview of LinkedIn’s history and current standing — including who owns just how much of it.
Businesses are buying up iPads like crazy, but half of them don’t know what to do with the tablet devices once they hand them over to their employees.More »
David Douglas Stone is co-founder and CEO of the digital gifting and incentives company CashStar. Recently named a Prepaid Top 5 Entrepreneur, Stone has served as a senior executive in several emerging growth technology and financial services firms for the past 25 years, including American Express, where he pioneered the first universal prepaid product, the American Express Gift Cheque.
Over the past several years, gift cards have become the most popular kind of gift. They are the most widely-used addressable person-to-person payment method, totaling $91 billion in sales during the 2010 holiday shopping season. We love them because of their convenience. And we hate them because they don’t truly feel personal.
The mobile digital device will help to wipe away this awkward paradox. The days of plastic-based payment and gift cards are numbered. The ability to make a payment or send a gift from any device, anytime, anywhere, in any amount, dramatically shifts the convenience paradigm. And the gift card’s shift from plastic to digital may pave the way for other forms of digital payment.
Here, we’ll take a look at the three major factors driving this shift.
1. Embracing Digital Gifting
The first is the exponential growth of businesses that are embracing digital gifting. They are doing so to extend their revenue streams and to differentiate themselves from their competitors. RSR Research reported in late 2010 that half of the top 100 Internet retailers now offer digital gift cards. In January, Starbucks estimated that digital gift cards would represent as much as 20% of its gift card business in the near future.
But there are hundreds of others shifting away from plastic as well — from global brand names to smaller regional and local retailers. According to Urban Wallace Associates, more than 6 million U.S. shoppers bought digital gift cards within the past 6 months — a 150% increase since last measured three years ago.
2. Virtual Goods
The second key trend is increased purchasing and gifting of “virtual goods.” This market — already nearly $2 billion in the U.S., according to Inside Network Research — has millions of fans who love to buy and give gifts like virtual cakes, clothing, badges and FarmVille goods.
The next logical extension is for consumers to give digital gift cards that can actually be used to buy real stuff. Facebook already sells its credits as gift cards in retail stores. As the popularity of Zynga, Facebook and digital gift card currencies grow, they may well become major payment modes in both the virtual and physical worlds.
3. Personalization
The third major trend is personalization. The digital age not only enables it but stimulates it. Plastic is a form factor that knows nothing about you, nor can it easily express your personal gifting sentiments. Digital gifting is radically different. The Home Depot eGifting program, for example, enables consumers to upload not only photos but can now also capture live video on its digital gift cards.
Mobile apps are proliferating to support creative and new forms of retail promotion and value. Digital forms of stored value offer new experiences and opportunities never before possible with plastic. Three examples illustrate how versatile and pervasive the post-plastic era is becoming. These include:
Starbucks Foursquare checkin: To celebrate its 40th anniversary, Starbucks gave the first 600 customers to “check in” an instantly redeemable mobile gift card.
IntoNow: This social TV companion app partnered with Pepsi to give users instant digital gift cards for watching certain TV ads.
Chase GiftShelf: Chase’s iPhone app lets you redeem credit card points on the go for digital gift cards at Gap, Chili’s, Papa John’s, The Container Store and a dozen other retailers.
Conclusion
These developments provide only a glimpse of what is possible in the post-plastic card era. Digital gifting and payments are creating new possibilities of “instancy.” If you forgot to bring your nephew a present, you can order him a digital gift card for his birthday as you’re walking toward his house. Or you can send your niece one via Facebook and personalize it with a photo or short video telling her how proud you are of her.
It is no longer a question of “if” but rather of “how fast.” Market interest is clearly there. Starbucks’ new mobile card, for example, has already generated more than 3 million transactions, proving that mobile payments using digitally stored value can work.
Skeptics remain, but they’re of the same mind as those who said people would never prefer credit cards over cash. People, however, love convenience and immediacy. In 1975, one of the major credit card companies made a name for itself with the tagline “Don’t leave home without it.” Today, you will never have to leave home without a means of paying digitally. Those in the market who support that transition will be the winners.
Disclosure: Starbucks, The Home Depot, Gap, CVS, Chase, Chili’s, Papa John’s and The Container Store are clients of CashStar.
Clay McDaniel is the principal and co-founder of social media marketing agency Spring Creek Group. Find him via @springcreekgrp on Twitter.
Do you remember life before Evite, Facebook Events, and Eventbrite? Handwritten paper invitations and RSVP phone calls seem like relics of a forgotten age. The web has dramatically changed the way people plan special occasions. Social media is making it easier than ever before to plan, promote, and execute a wide range of events from industry conferences, client events and partner symposiums, to large social gatherings and charity events. What’s more, social media allows you to solicit feedback and extend the life of your event by inviting attendees to connect via online communities before and afterward.
Whether you just want to generate a bit of buzz or instead have specific goals to increase ticket sales and attract top speakers and attendees, social media can make the planning process smoother by leveraging digital word-of-mouth. Here are eight tips for best results.
1. Establish Your Event-Related Channels
The months and weeks before your event is a critical promotional period. Use every social media channel at your disposal to get the word out about your event, and encourage people to share information on the event in return for small rewards. For example: “Share this event with 20 friends for 10% off your admission.” Start by creating an event page on Facebook and an event hashtag on Twitter, then create an event blog where you’ll post updates about it (new speakers, registration discounts, etc.). Make sure your Twitter hashtag is specific to your event or organization, without being too long.
Once you’ve created these pre-event social links, populate them with lots of content. If it’s a social event, post video or music clips, create a pre-event contest, or connect event-goers through socializing and games. For a social or community event, content should be engaging, fun, and shareable in order to drive word-of-mouth interest. If the event is more corporate in nature, offer fans and followers sneak peeks at topics to be discussed, or special pre-conference articles and presentations.
2. Provide Incentivized Word-Of-Mouth Promotions
Make sure that everyone who follows or likes your event on Twitter and Facebook is rewarded for their interest. Offer fans and followers special discounts or content. To incentivize people to register for the event, offer them early-bird discounts, invites to pre-event parties, or other rewards. If you really want to boost the power of word-of-mouth, you can use tools like Meteor Solutions to identify your key influencers, then actively motivate and reward them for sharing information about your contest.
3. Make Registration Social
Don’t forget to use a social registration service like EventBrite, which not only makes registration easier and more streamlined, but allows attendees to share their event activity with friends. Other popular social event invitation platforms include Plancast and Twtvite. Most of these services are highly integrated with social networking platforms and can be configured with user caps and privacy options.
4. Use Location-Based Services and Checkin Rewards
Geo-location sites let you set up a page with rewards including badges, coupons, specials, or gifts. These location based services are easily integrated with other social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, so checkins will be shared with larger networks. When attendees come to your event, you can reward them for checking in at different stations, panels, or activities. Rewards such as free ice cream, a gift card, or other small incentives can be redeemed after the show.
5. Bring your Event to Life With Twitter
Using social media during an event can mean the difference between a flat, boring affair and one where attendees are engaged and excited. But too much real-time social interaction can also derail the main presentations or talks.
First and foremost, encourage attendees to tweet during the event using the established hashtag. An active Twitter stream during your event not only engages participants in real time but also allows people who could not attend to get a feel for the sessions and topics being discussed. Some event organizers set up a huge screen behind speakers to display hashtagged tweets in real time. But again, this “backchannel” can backfire if the tweets become negative or go off-topic. All that interaction can derail speakers as they try to respond in real-time to all the “interference.”
6. Include Non-Attendees
Don’t forget to set up a livestream during the event using Facebook or UStream so fans can follow along online. Facebook enables you to store this stream so that people can watch it after the event proper. You can also create a YouTube channel for the event to post videos before, during, and after. Encourage non-attendees to ask questions through Twitter or Facebook during the event and answer them live.
7. Post-Mortem: Extend the Shelf Life of Your Event
Your event doesn’t have to end the day it’s over. Social media can keep the momentum going for many weeks and months afterwards. On your blog, post a “wrap up” of all the key highlights. You can add links to presentations, key learnings, and other downloadable documents. Of course, you’ll want to post photos on the blog and on Facebook, and continue tweeting about the event even after it’s over. You can post thoughts, ideas, or links to longer articles that might be of interest to those who attended.
Another great way to keep your event from fading fast from people’s memories is to create ways for attendees and other interested parties to continue socializing, discussing, or debating topics covered there. Do whatever you can to keep the conversation alive.
8. Use Social Media Metrics to Measure Success
Consider using online surveys to ask attendees for feedback on panels, venue, speakers, topics, and other facets of the event. Facebook polls are fun, easy ways to get quick responses and feedback from attendees. Be prepared for honesty. If someone has a negative comment to share, make sure to address their comment or concern and store the information to improve next year’s event. Lastly, pull total social media stats from sites like Search.Twitter.com and Social Mention, or set up Google Alerts ahead of time. If the results are positive, don’t be shy about publicizing some of these metrics to highlight the reach and impact your event had.
Interested in more Social Media resources? Check out Mashable Explore, a new way to discover information on your favorite Mashable topics.
theodp writes "Tech bubbles happen, writes BW's Ashlee Vance, but we usually gain from the innovation left behind. But this one — driven by social networking — could leave us empty-handed. Math whiz Jeff Hammerbacher provides a good case study. One year out of Harvard, 23-year-old Hammerbacher arrived at Facebook, was given the lofty title of research scientist and put to work analyzing how people used the social networking service. Over the next two years, Hammerbacher assembled a team that built a new class of analytical technology, one which translated insights into people's relationships, tendencies, and desires into precision advertising and higher sales. But something gnawed at him. Hammerbacher looked around Silicon Valley at companies like his own, Google, and Twitter, and saw his peers wasting their talents. 'The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads,' he says. 'That sucks.' Silicon Valley historian Christophe Lecuyer agrees: 'It's clear that the new industry that is building around Internet advertising and these other services doesn't create that many jobs. The loss of manufacturing and design know-how is truly worrisome.'"
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