Well, this SFNewTech Tech-crunch event was a software mashup of sorts.   Again the agenda had a mix of software apps from iPhone/iApps business development help to backend behind the scenes NoSQL database management.

Even Myles’ #1 man, Matthew Gonzales, got into the act last night.  Let’s go down the summary of the each presenter last night:

appbackr – Do It Your Way

Are you an iPhone/iPad app developer?  Want to get paid up front? Matthew Gonzales, presented a wholesale marketplace for iPhone and iPad apps developers.  With the 2010 Paypal Developer Challenge win under their belt, and with their Win-Win model “Developers get immediate payment; buyers profit as the app sell on iTunes” says Nathan Beckord, Business Development Consultant for appbackr.

iVDopia – Mobile Ad Goes Primetime

COO & Co-Founder Chhavi Upadhyay, showed us an interesting Ad network called Vdopia.  He claims “iVdopia is the largest video and rich media mobile ad network” with more than a 100 million mobile video impressions and more that 4 billion WAP impressions every month.  Not a mom-n-pop organization with that type of reach.   The video content for the iPhone was very impressive and they have some blue chip brands showing their wares on their system.  With Mobile Ad spending increasing, why not?

4delite – Display Ads +Wordpress = AdPress

Mary Ray, Co-Founder & marketer for the product, introduced us to 4delite.  4delite is a cloud-based rich media publishing platform that “mobile and online advertisers can use to build and showcase rich media creative in minutes.” You can use the platform to export multiple rich media formats to work on any web browser-even on browsers within the iPad.  Seemed very easy to use and enables the non-web design geeks a hand at creating on-line banner ads.

Membase – Simple, Fast, Elastic

Anyone making an interactive web app or mashup? James Phillips, Founder, demoed Membase which is perfect for anyone making an interactive web app or mashup. It’s an open-source (Apache 2.0 license) database which is running behind the likes of Farmville and Cafe World today. Not a bad resume.  Membase is a distributed, key-value database management system optimized for storing data behind interactive web applications which service many concurrent users; creating, storing, retrieving, aggregating, manipulating and presenting data in real-time. Supporting these requirements requires “processing data operations with quasi-deterministic low latency and high sustained throughput.” said James Phillips.

Surfmark – Reclaim the web, one search at a time

Vivek Agrawal, CEO, presented an application that brings a smile to us web-info-research junkies.  Typically what one does is bookmark links or even copy sections into a word or note file which Vivek calls “Task-oriented searches.”  Surfmark simplifies this operation and links your inspirational web thoughts in one place.  Knowledge management is something we all can use when surfing.

As a general guide, Japanese web pages act as a one-stop trip for most Japanese-a sea of information that just tantalizes our brains but comforts the inhabitants from the land of the rising sun.  It is quite organized as the each section or module has meaning.  Pastel colors and flash is a given for these pages.

In a previous blog on Japanese landing pages, we discussed how ‘kanji’ characters add another level of busyness for the our eyes with its 23 strokes versus the more simple 4 stroke roman alphabet.

The sea of information creates the aura of an information dashboard for the Japanese.  It gives the Japanese customer the feeling that the company has a lot to offer.  The marketing approach is to put a lot of products with reasonable prices in front of the customer so that they may walk away with more than what they were looking for – a kind of Costco-here it is/buy me- approach.

We will review 7 elements from a Japanese web page to discuss its nature  from a well known women’s catalog B2C company.

#1 Catalog Subscribers Get Preference

Print is not dead in Japan but lives in a very common co-existence with its digital sibling.  E-commerce is big estimated to hit $49.8 billion in 2010.  Ease of catalog purchases by allowing web entry of catalog numbers enables e-commerce.

#2 Flash Advertising Campaign Area

Adobe Flash elements are very common in Japanese websites.  Sales promotions or campaigns are centralized in one small area near the top.  Many promotions run in parallel especially in large e-commerce sites.

#3 PR Banner IDs Site’s Partners

Notice the PR on top of the module.  This is the designation in Japan for 3rd party partners or advertisers and tells the consumer that this is not a direct affiliation with the company’s website.  Like other sites, the elements of the module change every time you enter the web page.

#4 Icons Provide Visual Identification

Japanese sites give the viewer some visual icons to identify the module’s contents.  It reinforces the type of goods in that are on sale in the product category.

#5 Colorful Product Area

Use of pastel colors and variation of colors is very common to Japanese web pages.  Since this site is positioned for a female audience, pink is used for female items.

#6 Customer Satisfaction Area

Entices people with points total and shows ways people can earn more points.  Earning points during different campaigns provide more customer engagement and some extra web page clicks.

#7 ‘keitai’ or Mobile Phone Friendly

The ‘keitai’ or mobile phone is king here.  Having the ability to view the websites on your long commute home is important.  The QR code helps the Japanese consumer with access to the mobile compatible site.   The QR code is scanned by the user and allows access to the mobile friendly site for the mobile hunter.

Understanding the essence of the Japanese web site is important to understanding how to localize a site for the Japanese market.  Translating the web information is sometimes not enough in localizing the Japanese information dashboard.

We will take a look at the top three ranked google search engine results for the search term ‘plastic surgery’ in English and Japanese and then do some contrasts and comparisions between US and Japanese landing pages from a marketing, design and cultural context.

Top 3 US and Japanese Landing Pages for Plastic Surgery

Landing Pages in US	Landing Pages in Japan

With some of the horror stories about failed medical procedures out there, the message is trust.  In the US, trust needs to be earned by the consumer.  If you look at the ‘plastic surgery’ landing pages, the persuasive elements answer the basic questions in the consumers mind -Why Dr XYZ?, Why should I go to this clinic? and How safe is the procedure?

As far as the design is concerned, we see simplicity and organization.  Many experts promote simplicity – wide open design, common and conservative colors, no moving flash elements.

The pages are very professional, with the picture of a medical professional front and center on the page almost somewhat sterile.  Social bookmarking is probably more common to keep bringing people back.  The strategy is to drive people deep in the bowels of the web site so a site search engine is common.

These landing pages are for rich and famous to look young and pretty and the prices more than confirm that.

As with the US, most of the Japanese plastic surgery audience are women.  In contrast to the US, the Japanese audience is targeted towards the average every day woman and affordable prices. The audience appeal is about how happy and beautiful you are going to be after the procedure is done. Many average-looking models are used to convey this message so that the consumer can identify with them.

Discounting campaigns are very common to motivate the Japanese consumer with tiered package deals and discount coupons.

The Japanese landing page design is quite bright and efficient.  The use of pastel colors with every space of the page is common.  Many moving flash elements are used and this is considered fun and happy for the Japanese consumer.  The Japanese expect their websites to be interesting.

The Japanese header has more information because the Japanese are an information society.  They want tons and tons of informantion in one place and with the Kanji you can do that. In a few kanji characters, you can convey a very complicated thought – no need for site search engines.

Speaking of Kanji, another thing that complicates the look of the Japanese landing page is the ‘kanji’ characters.  Kanji characters can have up to 23 strokes as opposed to English characters which have at most 4 strokes.  This also gives the appearance to the western eye of busyness.

Thanks to btrax staff members, Reina and Tai on collaborating on the content on this article.

Picture by musumemiyuki

As marketers, aren’t we always trying to find products that will be accepted in a given market?   Entering the US Back-to-School season, I thought about some common Japanese products that might have potential popularity during the key US buying seasons of 2010.

Cellphone ownership (pdf) amongst age groups from 6-11 are up.  Back to school accessories for kids – a phone accessory may help your child from losing their cellphone like a strap or case.  The Japanese are leaders in accessorizing almost anything and showing these items as a fashion/style item.  The “keitai” or cellphone accessories is what personalizes the phones in Japan.  From cases to combo-wallets, I see some fresh phone accessory designs coming out of Japan, especially for the iPhone.  Kids will be able to identify their “keitai” now.

One thing that the the Japanese really do well are cases and bags. Commuting on trains, bikes, motorcycles or scooter is common in Japan and having a bag that can hold many things is important on their urban commute assault.   This canvas bag is constructed by Japanese craftsman and made of a unique weave pattern to create a very strong and breathable fabric.

Fall brings a change in clothing and one of the most popular holidays in the US–halloween.  With the large disposable income that the Japanese have at their disposal, fashion is big business in Japan.  Trendy fashions coming out of Tokyo is always a buzz.  Long t-shirts are the style in the Tokyo fashion scene.  With this long turtleneck t-shirt, accessory belt, boots and jeans, you will be looking trendy and stylish for the mild fall weather.

As fall comes,  we have our own childhood icons that we dress up as for Holloween.  The Japanese make costumes too.  Dragonball has been popularized in the US with the movie release last year and has been popular for years amongst the US J-Pop culture.  Get your hair spiked and go door-to-door in full-costume with the Dragonball theme.

Thanksgiving marks the time of family get together and the official start of the Christmas buying season with Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Common items for guests to bring to a Thanksgiving dinner are cakes and snacks.  Common to Japanese is the cultural norm of bringing a gift as a guest to your host house.  The packaging of green tea ‘ocha’, cakes and cookies is something the Japanese take pride in.  Bring a nicely wrapped Japanese cake box  or ‘ocha’ and you will be appreciated by your hosts and always welcomed back.

Looking for a quick stocking stuffer for mom or your significant other?  I was always amazed by the amount of women’s accessories in Tokyo department stores.  At some stores,  the accessory section was bigger than the clothes section.  Accessories like bracelets, belts, necklaces and hair bands are always popular with women.  Hair clips accessorize a wardrobe and always attracts the eye.

Gaming together is part of life and part of the Wii culture.  The Japanese never stop thinking about efficiency.  If you going charge something, why not charge two.  Never play alone again if your battery power stops with this dual Wii controller charger.

We, at btrax, are excited to announce that we are collaborating with SF New Tech on a new event called SF Japan Night.  The event will feature a group of Japanese high-tech startups looking to introduce and make themselves known to the US market.  If you are not familiar with the SF New Tech Meetup, it is a series of regular tech events for everyone -VCs, journalists, hackers, techies, recruiters, CEOs and especially you — right in our backyard of San Francisco.

This event will be held on October 13, 2010 @ Mighty.

In addition, We are looking for sponsors and media to cover Japan Night.

Benefits for our sponsors include:

• Connections and exposure to the Japan/US high-tech markets
• Attention from the US and Japanese media
• Your logo on promotional marketing materials

If interested sponsoring or covering the event, please contact Reina Hashimoto for more information.

As everyone is embarking into the social media frontier, certain social patterns emerge.  Social capital is a term used by human social network theorists as a value of your ability to network similar to a value placed on an real object.  This is a subjective quantity and everyone must determine their social capital criteria.  Whether your brand is a personal brand or a corporate brand, I have summarized 5 basic social media patterns that can keep you from growing your social capital and for some, erode your social capital.

#1 One-way broadcasting of content

Have you ever got annoyed at a SNS poster who blasted messages at you like a machine gun?  All the value of social media gets sucked out when you don’t pause to let you followers build you up.  Let each message soak into your community and let your community’s broadcast depth take your message to the wind.  You will see your social capital soar.

#2 Not tapping into the power of follower generated content

Remember you were told that you should listen to your mother.  Many people fail to ask and listen to their community.  Your community can be the best source for unleashing truly creative forces and be the best word-of-mouth advice out there. They serve as your ambassadors and champions and will build up your social capital for your brand–engage them.

#3 Behaving badly to criticism or censoring everything you dislike

Your actions are seen only from a very flat context by your followers and can be interpreted the wrong way quickly.  Be authentic and your value will be repaid with followers loyalty.  Openness is one of the attributes used by some researchers as a way of organically growing your community.  Be open and trusting and it will go a long way to building up some social capital.

#4 Not about the numbers

Even though you may succumb to the social arms race, a collection of followers may look good but are they really following your brand?  Look to followers who can serve as your brand ambassadors and champions. To keep those loyal listeners you must provide timely, relevant and engaging information.

#5 Treating your other social networks as step-children

If you put too much weight on any one social network, your brand name is going to suffer.  72% of users in InSight Consulting’s survey of 2009 are members of 2 social networks on average.  A lot of companies in the US have a presence on  Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.  Your social networks are like your children, you will need to nurture and spend quality time with each one .

The story of Budweiser in China is fascinating.  In 2003, China past the  US in total beer volume –which means China is  the largest in the world in terms of production volume.   China official estimates put the average per capita beer consumption at 5.19 liters(1.4 Gallons) but beer production increased to 43 billion litres in 2009 that translates to a whopping 33 liters( 8.7 gallons) per person.

Enviable position in the Market

In China, the world’s biggest beer market, Anheiser-Busch InBev(A-B InBev) occupies an enviable position.  In terms of brand share, Anheiser-Busch InBev is 4th in China.  Basically the 2nd, 3rd and 4th spots are separated by only 1.4% (6.1% to 4.7%), so there is plenty of room to play for A-B InBev.   In terms of volume, A-B InBev is 3rd in the market where the top 4 in China represent about 54%.

Positioned for Success and Marketed for the Successful

So how does A-B InBev produce and market US beer in the Chinese market?  With the strategic investment in Harbin in 2004, A-B InBev has positioned 14 of 15 breweries outside of the US in China-production capacity  is not a problem.  Getting the beer to the people is not a problem either.  By 2012, A-B InBev will provide distribution to 200 cities in China doubling that from 2007 levels.

After looking at a variety of videos and web pages, one part of the brand marketing strategy for A-B InBev in China is much different than the US – appeal to the young and upwardly mobile Chinese.  This demographic is more digital savvy, travels often and in the upper end of the median in wealth. Budweiser sells at a price about eight times higher than that of local Chinese beers.  There is a  video ad that supports the sophistication of the product showing a professional man in a suit coming home and having his significant other bring a Budweiser to him on the penthouse deck.

The US part of the marketing is almost identical.  A-B InBev markets athletic, pretty women which appeals to the young male beer consumer.  The A-B InBev 2010 FIFA campaign in China was the Bud Babe Campaign where each contestant participated in a talent and beauty competition. A-B InBev also introduced state-of-the-art interactive voice response technology through the phone which allowed fans access to each candidate and to cast votes for each one.  The winner becomes the spokesperson for Budwieser China.

The Budweiser Ants are Popular in China Too!

Every one knows of the Budweiser Ants.  Well, China has fallen in love with them also.  The ants and Budweiser is almost synonymous with Chinese New Year.  Each year Budweiser puts together a unique video campaign for Chinese New Year.  ”The ideas should not only be humorous and impressive, but also reflect the international king of beers brand image of Budweiser. The ants will overcome all kinds of challenges by showing their intelligence, courage, teamwork, spirit and solidarity,” a spokesperson said.

For an average US brand, Budweiser has shown it can play competitively in the Chinese market.  For those hot China summers, wouldn’t you crave for the King of Beers?

Well Myles and crew did it again.  The SF New Tech Event @ Mighty had a interesting mix of  tech presenters last night. Just when I thought the theme was going to be social opinions, SF New Tech added some real-time profiling and real-time collaboration with a little socialized phone app development platform – a typical SF New Tech event recipe.

By Yourself Watching a Show?

Not anymore.  Armando Biondi and Paolo Privitera of Doochoo presented a social video opinion sharing iPhone app called Couchin.  Couchin allows you to interact with your community while watching a show as if they were there in the living room watching right next to you.  Your Twitter followers and Facebook friends will know what you are watching, and commenting on.  You can even vote on a program – a sort of personal Nielsen rater.  A definite tech trend out there.

Search Relevancy Challenged?

Tough to find relavant information on personal interests using standard search?  Lunch provides a  social info/opinion site through communities to provide more social relavancy for the user.  JR Johnson presented a gaming feature that allows community members to collect badges if the group moderator/owner determines if they met the target set – a social reward being a community member.

Just Who is in Your Group?

Difficulties in discovering what the ‘who’ is in your large, complex community?  Peter Maude of Crisp Thinking presented a platform for real-time chat moderator for  monitoring, filtering and profiling.  Crisp Thinking’s solutions allows community managers to analyze their community’s membership and orgainize them into groups of contrasting characteristics.  Could be useful for owners of blogs, teachers in virtual classrooms and owners of SNSs.

Phone Apps Development for the Masses are here!

Kedar Shah of MotherApp presented a do-it-yourself development platform for phone app developers who don’t want to know or don’t know how to get into the nuts and bolts of the Software Development Kits.  This high level apps engine brings phone apps to the masses of developers, enterprises and even bloggers.  Google is pushing this type of openness as well.

I Just Got an Idea…

Paul Brody and Sococo brought an interesting collaboration platform.  It allows companies or individuals to work in distributed teams and collaborate in real-time as if you were in the same building.  Some features includes Conference Room chat with the ability to see the actual notes of the meeting on the virtual white board.  Their payment model is worth note as it is buy-a-space plan just like any other real property.  Watch out SF SOMA properties!

Thanks to Myles, Matthew and all the behind the scenes people @ SF New Tech who fed our tech souls with a great tech mix and our bellys with tacos last night – Your friends at btrax.

Finding your path in life is what it’s all about.  I spent years in the high-tech semiconductor industry doing engineering /marketing and social media was just a hobby.  Recently, I got the opportunity to turn my hobby into a career. Of course, this opportunity came through social networking and social media.

My name is Greg.  I run the Social Media here for btrax and can’t be happier.

The picture above tells the story of my job – You need the ability to multi-task, invest time,  network and drink a lot of caffeine.

My Social Media Career Recipe

Social media is an interesting mix of career ingredients as it spans the range of PR, Marketing, and a little bit of mad scientist .

Social media PR requires in your blogs, tweets or wall postings that you  say something relevant to those in your community to give them a good impression of your company.  I have to speak in a more natural tone in contrast to the corporate communications style.

Social media marketing comes from understanding of your company, your industry as well as your client and their business.   I find setting up promotional campaigns for clients through social media requires not only requires knowledge of the market, it requires a great deal of creativity as well.

A mad scientist needs to be a little fearless, confident and a little off-center to be creative.   I have to come up with a wild concept, try out the idea and test to see if the idea resonated with the audience.  If it did-you’re a hero.  If it didn’t- hold down the power button for a few seconds to reboot.

Cultural and Organizational Melting Pot

I work with a lot of people from Japan, China, Thailand, as well as US.  We seemed to be interlinked as all of us have cultural or work background connected with US, Japan or China in some way.

Before btrax, I came from a Fortune 500 company in a mature, vertical B2B market.  The cultural theme at btrax is helping the community- internally and externally.  I have found more of a “can-do” attitude and your efforts and effects are seen and felt more readily.  Very refreshing.

My social media isn’t about the numbers

I have observed that collecting a lot of friends or followers seems to be the modern social arms race.   Like squirrels we seem to hurry to gather friends and followers.  In our B2B model, I need to search for followers or friends that turn into  long term partners or clients by engaging in virtual conversation.  Sometimes not easy in the social world autobahn.

Facebook and Twitter are just two different beasts and my approach has to be different with each one.   This also applies to our clients approach to social media.   I connect with the world more than in the past working on client campaigns touching consumers.

My job of exploring this daily changing new frontier (and how to apply in practical ways for clients) is both challenging and satisfying…afterall finding something you are passionate about is half the battle in life!

While trying to answer the social holy grail question-Why is Mixi popular in Japan?, I came across a paper from researchers at Stanford University looking at the cultural differences between Facebook and Mixi.   They examined how Facebook and Mixi persuade their members to join and stay on their respective SNS based on their cultural filters.

Persuasion, a key behavior element in SNS stickiness,  is a common term used in marketing for years used to change market behavior.  Facebook and Mixi end goals of increasing subscriber-ship by enforcing certain behaviors are the same but their approach is total different.

For SNS and their communities to succeed, the SNS must motivate users to register, create a profile, allow connection to friends, and share events and information with friends.  An interesting behavioral pattern for new users of an SNS or community uses a pattern some researchers call – Behavior Chain for Online Participation

Participate or not to Participate that is the question?

The general phases of on-line SNS participation are:

• Discovery – Learning and researching the SNS which may prompt a visit to the SNS.
• Superficial Involvement – After an initial visit maybe a decision to try it.
• True Commitment – Creating Value and Content in the SNS, Involve others (Friends & Acquaintances), Stay Active and Loyal.

SNS Persuasion Leads the Mice to the Cheese

The True Commitment phase is where SNSs like Facebook, Mixi and LinkedIn really shine. Their structure and web design enable behaviors and actions that persuade us to engage them are listed below.

Contrasting Cultural SNS Styles

Facebook is open, direct and some say more bold and assertive. Facebook suggests the information we need for our profile and makes the profile page more interesting as you add more information.  For example, listing a silhouette of a person prompts people to question their anonymity especially when placed in the sea of faces.  The usage of pokes and its e-mail alerts motivate people to return to its site to poke back.

Mixi is more closed, subtle and less direct.  Mixi is a closed SNS– invitation by Mixi user only and requires a mobile phone number local to Japan to complete the registration.  Most Mixi users are under the vail of anonymity or aliases -finding friends is nearly impossible.  Mixi wants an introduction of a fixed length then gives the user some time to enter some personal information though not as deep as Facebook.  This two stage approach builds trust in the Japanese user – a contrast in nature between the US and Japan.

Though the style of Facebook openness feels comfortable from the western side of the world, my experience with the Japanese culture  understands and identifies with the subtle, less direct and comfortable Mixi style.

Regardless, both are very popular SNS in their respective countries.  What is your social network cultural comfort zone?