"Our goal has always been to overlay the real world and the digital world," says Keith Lee, founder of Booyah, in a Wall Street Journal article by Tomio Geron (3/3/10). Booyah offers a mobile phone app called MyTown that lets users build a virtual city based on the buildings they visit in real life. MyTown claims to be the largest of a growing number of so-called "check-in" apps that use "GPS technology to pinpoint a user's location" and share the information with friends.

So far, MyTown has attracted "one million users, with as many as four million check-ins a day." Some see it as part of an emerging phase in social media, letting friends tell friends not only what they're up to, but also where they're up to it. An app called Foursquare enables this "by clicking on a location listed in the Foursquare mobile-phone application, usually a restaurant or bar or such." It is "built to be addictive" by including a game in which "users get points for going to different places, and compete to be at the top of the leader board among their friends."

Gowalla, yet another check-in app, specializes in "places that are not businesses, such as a cliff above a remote beach." And Causeworld, via Shopkick, Inc., "allows people to 'win' virtual money that they can donate to real-life charities." Kraft and Citigroup are among the companies making donations, and Shopkick takes a cut. Albert Wenger, a Foursquare investor, sees checking-in as a companion to other forms of social media, like blogging and Flickr. "Sharing is not a short-term trend that's going to reverse itself," he says. "That's here to stay."

If Google ran a radio station, Michael Dougherty thinks it would be just like the kind he is launching, reports Jefferson Graham in USA Today (3/3/10). Michael, a former Microsoft exec, co-founded Jelli, "a website and syndicated radio format. It's a new twist on all-request radio -- except these requests are logged online, on the Jelli dot-net website. The songs that get the most votes get played on the air."

Gartner analyst Mike McGuire thinks this is a great idea: "It's a way to display your affection for a band. It's for someone who wants to tell everybody and anybody, 'By the way, AC/DC is the most awesome classic rock band ever.'" However, Kurt Hanson, editor of a radio industry newsletter, dismisses Jelli as "a high-tech gimmick" that's really no different than traditional radio request lines. He also thinks only a "tiny subset" of listeners would participate in it.

The model involves syndicating the all-request format to stations around the country at no charge, "in exchange for two minutes of commercial airtime each day that Jelli gets to sell." So far, Jelli is working with stations in San Francisco, Philadelphia and Las Vegas. Donovan Short plans to add Jelli to three stations in Montana and Wyoming, and sees the format as "the power of the group." However, Aaron Axelson, who's been testing Jelli on Live 105 in San Francisco, says the crowds pretty much pick the hits, although the result is perhaps a bit more eclectic than traditional top 40.

The likelihood that you will forward a news story to a friend hinges largely on an "emotion of self-transcendence," reports John Tierney in the New York Times (2/9/10). That insight is based on a six-month study by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, in which the content of the most frequently emailed New York Times news stories was checked at 15-minute intervals. A total of 7,500 stories was tracked, "controlling for factors like the time of day it was published online, the section in which it appeared and how much promotion it received on the web home page."

Among other things, longer articles are more popular than shorter ones, although that could be because they "were about more engaging topics." Above all, the research found that people are drawn to stories that provided practical value, were positive, or surprising. But a surprise factor alone wasn't necessarily enough -- the most popular stories were also awe-inspiring, and created "a feeling of admiration and elevation in the face of something greater than the self." For a story to be awe-inspiring, it had to be large-scale and require "mental accommodation," or force "the reader to view the world in a different way."

This could involve "the revelation of something profound and important in something you may have once seen as ordinary or routine, or seeing a casual connection between important things and seemingly remote causes." As to why we forward these stories, let's just say we're showing off that we're well informed by sending along the shocking news. But even more important, we're "seeking emotional communion." As Jonah Berger, one of the study's authors noted, "Emotion in general leads to transmission, and awe is quite a strong emotion." In other words, if you and I share the same emotion while reading this article, it brings us closer together.

A free website called Flit helps online shoppers "shop using the same method they use at the mall," reports Katherine Boehret in the Wall Street Journal (2/3/10). This is of course quite different from the way online shopping usually works, which Katherine compares to sorting "through a giant bucket of gloves with few identifying marks other than price." One deficiency, she says, is that you're shopping by product, not retailer, and this omits the "style and spirit" of individual merchants. Another is that you lose the convenience of stored addresses and credit card information.

Flit addresses these issues with a search engine where you can enter the item for which you're shopping, with the results consisting of direct links to relevant retailers -- you can specify either "value" or "premium" shops. You can then "flit" from favorite store to favorite store, just like at a real mall. To keep you anchored, "an orange button remains in a Flit.com toolbar at the top of the page; click there to return back to home base before flitting off to yet another shopping site." Flit keeps track of which stores you've visited, and if you want to save this information, you can.

One problem is that Flit is only as good as each retailer's own search engine. Another is that it returns results from retailers that "have limited or no selections" for the searched item. Flit's chief says "this is valuable because it shows shoppers that a certain store doesn't carry an item -- just like a physical store." Hm. And while Flit remembers which stores you shopped, it doesn't retain specific items you found while shopping. Flit plans to fix that problem while it haggles with retailers to get a cut on any sales it drives. In the meantime, it is surviving on venture-capitalist money.

There may be 140,000 or more apps, but the average person uses only five or ten, reports Katie Hafner in the New York Times (1/31/10). That stat is according to a research firm called Flurry, and applies to iPhone and iPod Touch users. But it is supported anecdotally by iPhone user Caroline Cua, 27, who says she has downloaded exactly five apps, of which she regularly uses just four. She's joined by Julie Graham, 50, who comments, "I think I'm supposed to want more of them than I have."

Even among those who do want more apps than they have, few ever actually see more than a small percentage of those offered on the iTunes store, for example, where most "people gravitate to the most popular" offerings. "The top apps featured at the store do change out," says Stewart Putney of Moblyng, an app developer. "But most users will never see more than one percent of the total offered." And, according to Pinch Media, "most people stop using their applications pretty quickly, particularly if those apps are free."

However, count Phil Minasian, 18, among the "app-happy." Phil says his iPhone is loaded with apps, most of them free games. But he does pay about $15 a month for other apps and thinks people are indeed missing out on apps "that help with everyday life." He says he uses an app to find apps, to find his apps. Simon Sinek, 36, makes his choices based on the most popular apps that are also highly rated by at least 60 percent of at least 5,000 users. In any case, analysts say that "Apple and its developers receive $1 billion a year in revenue from selling applications (Apple itself won't say).

New research shows how social media is changing shopping behavior.  By Mark Renshaw. (more)

Everything that's old is new again for Sears, as it searches "for fresh ways to sell Kenmore appliances and Craftsman tools in an age of iPhone apps and Twitter," report Miguel Bustillo and Geoffrey Fowler in the Wall Street Journal (1/18/10). Back in the day, shoppers would place orders using the grand old Sears catalog, and then pick up their orders at a Sears store. Now, the hope is, they'll order via site called MyGofer and, once again, retrieve their goods in-store -- this time by swiping their credit cards at a kiosk, and then waiting "while workers resembling hamburger-stand carhops bring out the goods."

So far, MyGofer is only a test, with a single pickup center in Joliet, Illinios, at a converted Kmart store. But it seems to be working: "We have taken the good ideas out there and evolved them," says Imran Jooma, svp of e-commerce for Sears. This even includes bringing back an old-fashioned "layaway" program, which helped Sears "boost revenues" over the holidays. And while Sears continues to struggle overall, the retailer's "executives say that the online business has increased by double digits in the past two years. It notched an estimated $2.7 billion in 2008 ... more than Walmart's $1.7 billion."

It's all part of a plan by Sears chairman Edward S. Lampert, who bought and combined Sears and Kmart five years ago, only to find "its same-store sales have dropped off every year since the merger." Rather than "pour money into Sears' crumbling stores ... he is far more bullish on web ventures, with their small capital requirements and vast potential audiences." Other initiatives include an "iPhone app, called Sears Personal Shopper," that lets you take pictures of stuff you want "and dispatch images to workers who can track them down for sale." In addition, a pair of social-networking sites, MySears.com and MyKmart.com, "now have 400,000 registered users."

More than 125 years after David McConnell pioneered Avon, 22-year-old Kristiauna Mangum is "ringing doorbells" for cosmetics on Facebook and Twitter, reports Camille Sweeney in the New York Times (1/14/10). Kristiauna is not an Avon Lady but a Mark Girl, but it's all in the family because Avon launched Mark about seven years ago. Being a Mark Girl means Kristiauna is "one of more than 40,000" young women in North America, "who are changing the nature of direct sales by using the brand's personalized e-boutiques, iPhone app and new Facebook e-shop."

So successful is Kristiauna that she "manages 155 other Mark Girls" at Ohio State University, "selling Mark beauty products and fashion accessories for a commission in the range of 20 to 50 percent." She makes about $800 a month at this, using the proceeds to help pay off her student loans. "It's really a grass-roots kind of thing, hitting the dorms, sororities, Facebook," says Kristiauna. Claudia Poccia, president of Mark, says the concept is a natural.

"We've taken the same DNA of direct selling that has always been a part of Avon's history and applied it to the digital world for our Mark reps to reach our customers," Claudia explains. Mark also features its own product line, offered at relatively lower-price points than Avon products. The products themselves are designed with a younger shopper in mind, as well. Hook Ups, which sell for about $10, are "two-ended cosmetic dispensers that can be customized to connect, for example, lip gloss and lip pencil, eyeliner and mascara." Last year, Mark's revenues were about $70 million.

"The Doors were a blues-based band with literary aspirations," says Ray Manzarek in a Wall Street Journal article by Jim Fusilli (12/2/10). This may or may not come as a surprise to those who remember the Doors for AM hit singles like "Light My Fire," "Hello, I Love You" and "Touch Me," or even FM hits like "Riders on the Storm" and "L.A. Woman." But, in the early days, as Ray, the band's keyboardist, recalls, the Doors had to fill their shows with something and so they filled it with the blues.

"We had to do four sets a night, maybe five on the weekend," says Ray. "That's a lot of time to kill. So we started to play the blues." Both he and the rest of the band "admired Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf and John Lee Hooker as well as groups like ... Paul Butterfield Blues Band with guitarist Mike Bloomfield." But their blues roots were soon upended, recording just one blues standard, Back Door Man on their first album, but no others on the next three.

"We had our own material," explains Ray. And when the Doors played live, they just played the hits. But on their fifth album, Morrison Hotel, the Doors began to return to their roots, with some original blues compositions. A subsequent album, "Live in New York" recorded over four shows at Madison Square Garden's Felt Forum, featured plenty of blues. They even punched up their hits with a more bluesy edge. Alas, just as the band was getting back to its roots, Jim Morrison died. Fortunately, a new, six-disc box set (link), captures the band's final live performances, suggesting what might have been.

"Technology criticism shouldn't be left to the Luddites," writes Jaron Lanier in You Are Not a Gadget, as reviewed by Glenn Reynolds in the Wall Street Journal (1/13/10). That's quite a statement, especially from Jaron, who "was one of the pioneers of immersive virtual worlds and helped popularize the term, 'virtual reality.'" But now Jaron is concerned that the likes of Google and Facebook -- "the lords of the clouds" as he calls them -- are "creating online environments in which true individuality is curtailed in favor of the extrication of marketing data and other intelligence."

He's also worried that this de-emphasis of individuality online feeds a certain rancor in internet culture, because "when you ask people not to be people, they revert to bad moblike behavior." Further, says Jaron, the whole notion of "information wants to be free," devalues creativity. He writes: "Pop culture has entered into nostalgic malaise. Online culture is dominated by trivial mashups of the culture that existed before the onset of mashups." Net is, the return on remixing the old culture might exceed the return on creating anything new.

Predictably, Jaron's manifesto has resulted in backlash online -- apparently mostly from people who haven't actually read his book, instead simply reading an online summary of it. This, of course, underscores Jaron's concerns "about the demise of considered thought and the rising tyranny of first-impression reactions to complex ideas." But Glenn Reynolds takes issue with Jaron on one point, at least -- Glenn argues that the "social web" does in fact enable people to "collaborate, organize and socialize as never before," and that sites like Facebook and Twitter enable "tens of millions of people ... to express themselves in ways that were unimaginable even a decade ago."