RFID prevents the biggest tech bubble of the millennium
Posted by Patrick Sweeney on Fri, Jun 24, 2011
LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter – each valued at billions of dollars. The stock market exuberance has the bearish pundits talking technology bubble, a frothy market about to pop like a shaken bottle of Dom Perignon in a NASCAR winner's circle.
Why the talk of bubbles? Fear of overvaluation.
First, a cliff notes version of the 2008 bubble that sparked the first global recession since the 1930’s. Real estate values ballooned, easy and loose credit requirements allowed jobless people to buy million dollar cribs. Financial engineers (banks) bundled those high risk loans and sold them as a "diversified set of commercial mortgage backed securities". A sophisticated moniker for some really bad - Wimpy-like (I'd gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today)- IUOs. Not surprisingly, investors who bought those loans didn't get paid. Home values were fabricated to drive broker commissions, people without jobs couldn’t pay the mortgages and the house of cards came tumbling down. There's a lot more to it than that, but basically it was lack of real value that caused the bubble. Why isn’t social networking going to be a bubble?
Social networking is selling two discrete (albeit currently suboptimal) value
opportunities:
1. Highly targeted advertising and
2. A virtual network of friends sharing experiences.
Advertising is most valuable when a rifle approach is taken – one to one marketing as it’s called. If you are looking for a watch and I was selling watches, I could use the old shotgun approach and take my chances putting a gold Rolex Daytona ad in Sports Illustrated. But if I know you have a $75 budget, do triathlons, and like pink - I can learn about those likes, activities and desires (your psychographics) and send you a message offering a $74.99 Timex Triathlete waterproof watch in Hot Pink available on a Facebook store for the next 12 hours with a link and free shipping. Where is the greater value? Targeted marketing has huge value, but psychographics more than demo graphics drive the value.
The newest generation of globally connected citizens yearns for highly fulfilled relationships, but they wish for this interaction on their own time and in their own space/location. The purpose and fulfillment from any relationship develops from sharing experiences - from a quick joke to an Epic bike ride, from sadness over a loss to excitement over a new beginning - relationships are strengthened and value brought to each person by an in-depth participation in life experiences. However, people are global, working and living different schedules. No longer (even in Ireland) do people go to the pub to catch up over a pint and build relationships; friends today extend well beyond the physical neighborhood.
Social networking & Facebook is suboptimal now because it’s missing the invisibility – the last link in the chain.
Enabling that last link is what will make Facebook so valuable. Right now it’s mostly up to individuals to take the time, start up an application and upload pictures or videos after the event so your global “neighborhood” can see your activities (it’s cumbersome to share – far from invisible). This is a suboptimal way, and in fact Facebook has lost many older generation people (35+) who don’t want to go to the trouble of downloading mobile apps, signing in, etc.
Advertising and knowing the psychographics (what you like and do, compared to demographics – where you are and your age, etc) is similarly difficult right now because it all depends on self-reporting. How do you capture the real value and save the tech bubble from bursting? Make the technology real time, invisible and easy.
RFID and Facebook
An RFID tag in a phone, bracelet, VIP or Season pass (like Vail’s EpicMix Social Media RFID program) allows you to connect what you do in the physical world to your relationship broker, your online network - Facebook or similar without doing a thing – get on the ski lift like you normally do and your friends know you are having an great time at Breckenridge. Without effort or change in behavior you can have your picture taken and uploaded, your presence at locations announced, your points in a game earned – all because you are participating in an RFID & Facebook system that uses RFID to create a virtual overlay onto the physical world. Your virtual neighborhood can comment and have a conversation in their own time and space about your experience and its all seamless thanks to RFID. RFID makes social networking hugely valuable.
Vail Resorts had over 100,000 skiers join and use the EpicMix last season, those skiers made millions and millions of Facebook impressions that connected people everywhere an deepend relationships. It also helped skiers get ads for new skis instead of Ginsu knives.
RFID and EpicMix social media program allowed me share my first run on opening day at Keystone with my cousin in Donegal Ireland eight time zones and four thousand miles away. I could wake up with his comments and a virtual shared expereince. It’s not a pint in the pub, but it’s keeping us connected in the new millennium, and that’s valuable. If it’s done without effort and invisible (using RFID & Facebook) that’s hugely valuable.
