Stories about the collision of “Bits & Atoms” usually involve cool artifacts or processes like 3D printing, but the following stories about a brand managers read of CES, The 21st century’s Ron Popeil, and an obscure wireless protocol illustrate how the internet and physical products are merging in exciting ways.

A brand advertiser’s take on “Web Meets World”

Dave Knox was a Brand Manager at Procter & Gamble for a number of years before joining a marketing consultancy. P&G is one of the biggest brand advertisers in the world and probably has one of the most analytical approaches to advertising in the market so read this post about his trip to CES. This is the way Fortune 50 companies see tech influencing marketing and how they want to use it. Technologists will figure out whats possible, but product folks will figure out what is profitable.

His take on “Social TV”

For instance, I saw many manufacturers talk about “Social TV” where you could send Twitter and Facebook updates right from the TV screen.  While nice in theory, I think there is a fundamental flaw in these applications.  TV is a group experience, where many people generally sit around a single screen.  Social Media however is a personalized experience, where a single person broadcasts to multiple people.  What this means for the TV experience is that if a group of people are sitting around the TV, they probably don’t want a single person interacting with social media on the screen (ie, my wife doesn’t want to see my fantasy football smack talk on screen while we are watching a game at home).  Instead, I think the bigger opportunity for marketers is to think about the other multi-tasking screens that people have in front of them while watching TV.  You should focus on how the mobile phone, tablet or even laptop that an individual uses simultaneously while watching TV.

And digital products and Services:

Nike+ is a model that all marketers need to pay attention to for two reasons.  First, they are turning what could have been an advertising expense, into a new revenue stream by creating a Digital Service.   Instead of spending millions of dollars on media that advertises a message (ie an expense), they are instead creating a media property with tangible value (ie a potential new revenue stream).  Second, Nike is creating products that have a seamless and natural digital extension.  Digital is not just a marketing tool in these cases, but instead an extension of the product.

Mahalo 4.0

Jason Calacanis has changed the direction of his company Mahalo for the fourth time turning what was a social search/Q&A site into a repository for online videos. Business Insider reports:

The goal this year is to start creating (from scratch) 2,500 original videos per week in 4 studios at Mahalo’s L.A. headquarters. And Calacanis says the goal over the next couple of years is to reach 500,000 original videos.

While the company is being joked about for changing its course so often, the idea seems smart. With the rise of Apple TV and Google TV there is a need for HD content and this video library could fill the void. Secondarily, it could be a fantastic front end for an ecommerce business. Zappos has said that videos help increase sales from 6-30%. Matched with “How-To” content you could conceivably move a lot of expensive knives, musical instruments, and Rosetta Stone packages.

Near Field Communication

The tech world is abuzz with rumors that the iPhone 5 and iPad 2 will have “Near Field Communication” or “NFC” built in. NFC is an induction based method of communication that allows an enabled to device to communicate with other similar devices or to read data from RFID. Some example uses from Wikipedia:

NFC technology is currently aimed mainly at being used with mobile phones. There are currently three specific uses for NFC:

• Card emulation: the NFC device behaves like an existing contactless card
• Reader mode: the NFC device is active and reads a passive RFID tag, for example for interactive advertising
• P2P mode: two NFC devices are communicating together and exchanging information.

Plenty of applications are possible, such as:

• Mobile ticketing in public transport: an extension of the existing contactless infrastructure, such as Mobile Phone Boarding Pass.
• Mobile payment: the device acts as a debit/credit payment card.
• Smart poster: the mobile phone is used to read RFID tags on outdoor billboards.
• Bluetooth pairing: in the future pairing of Bluetooth 2.1 devices with NFC support will be as easy as bringing them close together and accepting the pairing. The process of activating Bluetooth on both sides, searching, waiting, pairing and authorization will be replaced by a simply bringing the mobile phones close to each other.

Other applications in the future could include:

• Electronic ticketing: airline tickets, concert/event tickets, and others
• Electronic money
• Travel cards
• Identity documents
• Mobile commerce
• Electronic keys: replacements for physical car, house, office, or hotel room keys.
• NFC can be used to configure and initiate other wireless network connections e.g. Bluetooth, Wi-Fi or Ultra-wideband.

The big vision is that Apple will eliminate the need for credit cards by turning your phone into a direct conduit to your bank account, a move that is literally worth trillions of dollars per year. While this may be the grand vision, expect to see some really cool integration with Apple’s other products first as a trojan horse to seed the technology in advance of a revolution in our financial system.

Back to the Future 2 deserves a spot on the American Film Institutes top 100 film list if only because it gave us the “Hoverboard“. A skateboard that hovered above the ground (but not water) by means of magnetic levitation captivated a generation and was such a genius idea that urban legends about its existence proliferated.

It is an amazing piece of industrial design whose secret to success is simplicity and recognizable form. It is a product that looks as real and approachable as anything that exists today, but it has a capability that transforms it from mundane to magic. It is not real, but is such an exciting concept, people are willing to believe it does.

Smart phones are enabling a new class of magical devices. Ordinary products are starting to take on magical capabilities. Take glucose meters, used every day by millions of people with diabetes, as an example.  An industry standard meter is on the left, while an iOS compatible meter is on the right. The basic functionality is the same, you apply a small drop of blood on the thin piece of plastic at the bottom of the device and you receive a message about how much glucose is present in the sample. However, the design on the right offers many more capabilities. With this product (called the iBGStar) you can instantly review past results in graphical format, annotate the result to help better understand it in context, and share your information with a health care professional. It turns a dumb diagnostic device into the hub of a digital health management system. A small difference can create substantial amounts of value.

This kind of innovation won’t be limited to medical devices. Everything from toys to locks and even assault rifles will soon be made into current day “Hoverboards” by virtue of mobile and tablet computing.

The iPad has been called a “Yuppie Content Consumption Machine” and will certainly have difficulties with traditional content creation. The lack of a real keyboard is going to make blogging and email conversations difficult. However, I think new modes of content creation, or at least productivity may be possible.

Take a use case like planning vacation travel. Current sites like Vacation.com or Virgin Vacations are well optimized for the keyboard and mouse, but leave something to be desired in terms of UX. Compare that to the excellent travel guides produced by DK. The content is beautiful and engaging, but static.

The iPad seems to be able to bridge both experiences. The beautiful graphics of the DK guides could be simulated with a CMS and content pulled from sites with CC attribution or created specifically for the app.

A couple could plan a trip organically, passing the device back and forth on a couch, sharing pics, keeping notes of places to visit, compiling a list of “must see” destinations on top of a Google map. You could build an itinerary that updates cost and travel data as you plan. As you travel pictures can be associated with places, shared on Facebook, or printed into books when you arrive home. Translations can be provided as needed.

A laptop could do the same things, but even the best and smallest versions would be an inconvenience. Tablets, the iPad in particular, will be able to fit into special moments the way a camera does.

This travel example is yuppie glamorous and I have a tendency towards tech based Utopian visions. Even so, if you examine your daily routine you can easily start to pick out scenarios where access to the web and all it offers would be valuable even without the benefit of a physical QWERTY keyboard.

I read a great tweet via Erik Price that summed up my feelings on tablets: “The biggest promise of tablets is that they can make people realize they can get the benefit of software without the pain of computers.”

Electronic Arts has been heavily criticized for their recent financial performance. Most people are suggesting that they were too heavily tied into the packaged goods model and were left sleeping as Zynga et al. reshaped the market with social  game play.

There are certainly elements of truth to this critique, but there are alternatives to creating yet another set of grind based, microtransaction focused, Facebook games. Treat expertise with manufacturing and retail channels as strategic advantages, not liabilities. Make products that leverage real social networks as much as virtual ones.

Rockband and the Wii have shown that people with pay for novel hardware and interactions. If EA rethought games as experiences that take advantage of conditioned responses and social connections for a desired response rather than sport or vehicle simulations they could open up huge markets.

Two of three Americans are overweight or obese. Obesity accounts for 70% of health care costs in the US. Working out isn’t fun. Build a “game” experience that makes losing/maintaining weight enjoyable and Zynga’s revenue will seem paltry.

Integrate a pedometer, scale, and exercise bike. Tie it in with achievements, badges, and all the virtual trinkets that power social gaming. As service like Foursquare/Gowalla are showing game mechanics can be applied to a host of interactions that don’t begin with a D-Pad. Nike+ has done some work in this vein, but it isn’t their focus.

There is obviously short term value in getting into social games, but people pay for plastic and it will be a lot harder for upstarts to challenge things on the shelf at Walmart.

John Lasseter of Disney/Pixar has recorded a bunch of segments that go into the design thinking behind new Disney toys. One interesting fact is that the CAD files used to manufacture the toy are taken directly from the movie so no fidelity is lost at the hands of a hack toy sculptor.

These videos are essentially commercials, but he geeks out (in the best sense of the word) letting you in on secrets like Buzz lightyear being purple and green because those are he and his wife’s favorite colors. The attention to detail is also very impressive. The box that the toy comes in is a near perfect replica of the box in the movie with no crappy toy company branding mussing up the aesthetics. It will be interesting to see more of this game to toy conversion in the future.

Lego’s Augmented Reality kiosk is one of the nicest implementations of AR. The dedicated setup allows for a seamless experience and it has a very clear use. I can’t wait to see other retailers incorporate this into the shopping experience.

A good configuration tool is a key part of the customization experience. This video shows off the flexibility of the new game, APB. It provides all the potential of the Spore Creature Creator except you are customizing criminals rather than critters.

The South Korean game maker Kurien has done an amazing job balancing complexity and freedom in their fashion game design tool. The figures are approaching the uncanny valley, but the design tool demonstrates great potetnial. I have a feeling that when you combine these tools and 3D printers, game companies are going to become toy companies as well.

Fabricio Dore, an Interaction Designer at IDEO Munich has written a thorough history of sketching with hardware over at Core77. Most articles like this stop at “Arduino is Great!”, but this article sets up the historical development and future possibilities nicely.

After reading “Toy Monster: The Big, Bad World of Mattel” I am struck by the similarities of the toy industry in the 1960′s and 2000′s. Both eras were marked by the maturation of technology and increasing sophistication of customers. In the 1960′s injection molding and television advertising allowed Mattel to go from the minds of Ruth and Elliot Handler to a billion dollar Wall Street darling in the space of a couple years. Today, web-based CAD, custom manufacturing, and the social web could create an opportunity for an upstart (Smith & Tinker ?) to displace one of the market leaders in similar fashion.

A couple recent developments demonstrate the opportunities available to entrepreneurs who are willing to consider hacking bits and atoms.

Spore opens up 3D models

Spore recently opened up the ability to export characters from their proprietary game engine to the Maya modeling/rendering software. This allows you to do a few interesting things:

You can make models look amazing

The Spore game engine is limited by web connectivity. The models look good, but won’t give Pixar a run for their money. By exporting to Maya you can render graphics that are orders of magnitude better.

You can export Maya files, to STL files which can be used with 3D Printers.

Currently, if you want to print your Spore character you have to use the Spore Sculptor service offered by ZCorp. Now anyone with access to a 3D printer could print the characters. You could print a 12″ tall character (which is not permitted now), model articulated joints and create an action figure, or manipulate the models for yet unimagined purposes.

You can animate your Spore characters

Spore has the ability to make cool creatures, but can also be a decent general purpose CAD package. Budding animators today can quickly model amazing characters, create detailed props, and hone their craft animating the results rather than get hung up on character design.

The Spore game has received a lackluster reception in terms of game play, but the creative elements and the openness with which EA has shared them creates the potential for massive innovation.

Mattel Creates Augmented Reality Action Figures

Coinciding with the release of the new film Avatar, Mattel is releasing a series of action figures that come with augmented reality tags that can be scanned by web cams and display an animated character or vehicle from the movie. It is a reuse of existing technologies, but is significant since Mattel is the market leader in toys and it ties in with a blockbuster movie release. This is a major boost for the “Internet of Things” even if the product is a gimmick.

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