Author Archives: Josh Milenthal

An Unrealized Aspect Of Video Games…Is Online Shopping?

  By Josh Milenthal | January 31, 2012 - 1:12 pm | Internet, Video Games
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As a 23-year-old male I have plenty of experience with video games. They are a great form of entertainment, and many of the games coming out these days could qualify as forms of art (if those who create music are “artists” then the same could be said for video game developers). One thing that I can’t comprehend is how the gaming industry is so far behind the rest of the world when it comes to online integration.

As anyone working in the digital space can attest to, bridging the gap between the online and offline worlds is a growing part of business. However, video games have not embraced this the way other forms of entertainment have. I also want to make clear that I’m not talking about mobile games and apps, I’m talking about console gaming (PS3, Xbox, Wii) and “hardcore” PC gaming.

There is so much potential lying around that developers have yet to pick up. For now a gamer can connect his or her social profiles to their Xbox Live or PSN accounts and have posts go out when they gain achievements, but what does that do for the gaming industry? It doesn’t add any layers of engagement for the player, and doesn’t make the game more enjoyable. This is where I can see companies really taking a leap forward to create something amazing and immersing.

Let’s take a game like Grand Theft Auto. All murder, profanity, vulgarity and criminal behavior aside, this series has become more and more realistic with every new release. You can purchase clothing, accessories, cars, and more within the game’s world. Does anyone else see this as a perfect product placement opportunity for companies? I understand that GTA may not have the best “image” that a brand would want to associate with, but since character customization will oftentimes reflect the player’s personal preferences I think this presents a unique opportunity.

Think about this: as most people have a credit card associated with their Xbox Live or PSN accounts (if the don’t, it’s easy to add one) what if you were customizing your character with future products from clothing companies and saw something you actually thought was really great, then you have the option to buy it directly and get it shipped to your address in real life.

It wouldn’t be a complicated process to put together. A gamer’s credit card information is already connected to the gaming network they are on, and their address can be as well.

Would you like a 6-, 8-, or 12-pack?

The amazing thing about games these days is that character customization can be VERY specific: height, weight, skin color, body type, shoe size, clothing size, etc. You can virtually try on products and see how they would actually look on your body. Take a company like Adidas (they’re one of my favorites): they can have products featured in games that characters can try on. If you like the product and would actually wear it you have the option to purchase the product for real. You go to a confirmation screen that already has your billing/shipping information included and you can buy the product straight from there. After buying it you get thrown right back into the game, playing a character that is wearing clothing you will actually have in your possession in a matter of days/weeks.

Similar things are being done with television, such as this History Channel app that allows viewers to purchase products they see on TV from an app. Video games give viewers/players even more control than television does, however.

This same thing could be applied to video game soundtracks. Like a song you hear from the soundtrack of the game? Buy it. You get the song in a format that allows you to take if off of your console and put it on your iPod or other music player.

I see video games as a final/underused frontier for marketers and companies trying to reach a larger market. Product placement has occurred in games, but it wouldn’t be difficult to expand that and allow actual purchases from within a game.

What do you think? Would direct purchase from video games be a good idea or a not-so-good one?

[UPDATED] Is The Ability To Disconnect Becoming More Myth Than Fact?

  By Josh Milenthal | January 16, 2012 - 5:11 pm | Technology, Thoughts/Observations
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Over the holidays my family went on a trip to Costa Rica on our annual family vacation. It was an amazing trip and it was nice to “get away from it all.” Except for one problem, it sees impossible to actually get away from it all. In the old days (old, meaning about 5-10 years ago when smart phones barely existed) when one went on vacation they would do exactly that and go on vacation. Vacation days were taken, and the point was to relax and get your mind of work. On this trip I expected to do the same thing and found it nearly impossible. I had important emails that I was expecting, and would need to respond to quickly. And, of course, why wouldn’t the hotels in the middle of the rainforest, that are only accessible by boat have wireless service? I was able to respond to emails and make sure things weren’t blowing up back home while I’m on a family vacation. And I hate myself for it.

The point I am trying to emphasize is that technology has become so ingrained in our culture that we are almost continuously connected to the point that when we are sleeping is our only break. Even when you sleep is becoming a connected part of your day with sleep trackers and products like Jawbone’s UP. There really isn’t a part of our daily lives that allows us to remove ourselves from technology. Personally, I think that’s a major issue. I am all for technology and its integration into the daily lives of people, to some degree. It makes things A LOT easier. The amount of time saved because of technological advances is invaluable. However, it promotes an overworked lifestyle that prevents people from having time to themselves.

Personally, I make an effort to spend part of every day completely disconnected from technology. What exactly do I do instead?

  • Go to the gym and unplug. Instead of listening to my iPod I’ll go music-free…except for the unmotivating Top 40 playlists continuously playing over the gym’s speakers. I focus on my breathing and stay tuned to how my body feels and how it can push itself to its limits. I love listening to music when working out, but there is a degree of separation once the tunes start playing that prevents you from being 100% focused.
  • I close my laptop, turn off the TV, put down my phone and have nothing to do with technology for the last hour before bed. I love to read. I will almost always be reading before bed. It allows me to escape into another world and unwind from a stressful day.
  • I’ll go for a walk. Self explanatory.
  • On more than one occasion I have just laid out on my couch and just stared at the ceiling, thinking. It’s amazing what any form of meditation can do for the mind. It’s almost unheard of for someone to just do…nothing. But it’s actually really nice. I dare you to try it. Don’t look at a clock until you believe 15 minutes has passed.

The thing about technology is that it is stressful. Being connected at all times takes a lot out of a person. Here’s something you should try: the next time you get a text message when you’re sitting at home don’t answer it. I bet you’ll feel at least a hint of anxiety caused by your thoughts saying “who is it?” “what does this person want?” That’s not healthy.

The ability to truly disconnect is becoming more impossible every day. We’re even getting to the point where we’re going to have augmented reality overlays in our contact lenses. Does this not bother anyone? The amount of information we receive every day is amazing. Do we really need that much more? We can’t retain but a small fraction of it to begin with, why overload ourselves even more?

Do you think we’re too connected? When was the last time you truly disconnected from every bit of technology you own?

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[UPDATE] I just read this article on Volkswagen. They shut their Blackberry email servers off after business hours to allow employees to disconnect. This is revolutionary and more companies should start embracing this. The stress caused by always being connected can cause real harm and VW is taking a huge step in the right direction to prevent their employees from getting burned out. Way to go Volkswagen!

(Coincidentally I also own a VW Passat so this makes me even prouder of the company)


Are You Prepared To Pay The Price Of Personalization?

  By Josh Milenthal | December 20, 2011 - 12:17 pm | Internet, Thoughts/Observations
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At work last week a group of Digital Innovation Group members got together to discuss 2012 and the trends we predict will happen in the approaching year. It was a great discussion, as most of our brainstorms tend to be, and a lot of intelligent and insightful points were brought up. For example, one trend that anybody who works in the digital space, and pays attention to the types of apps, innovations, and businesses that have been created in the last year or so, has seen is the emphasis on personalization online. From the biggest online companies like Facebook and Google, to the smallest startups, the internet is quickly becoming a place that caters to you and your interests. You can log in to online shopping sites and suggestions are no longer based on top reviews, but on your past purchase history and browsing behavior. Most advertisements are catered to what you have shown interest in while surfing the web. Everything is being tuned to what we already enjoy and like which helps businesses (it means we’re more likely to purchase the products we see) and users (because we actually are interested instead of feeling like we’re getting spammed).

However, there’s a big flaw in the personalization of the internet that occurred to me during the team brainstorm: we are slowly moving away from the exploration and discovery that makes the internet so great.

This is really important, because the internet allows anybody access to information and resources that they would never have had twenty years ago. Our ability to find funny videos, end up reading interesting (yet, irrelevant) articles on Wikipedia, or “stumble” onto cool content via StumbleUpon is something that our (read: my generation) parents could barely have dreamed about. But we’re slowly losing the ability to find new content because everything is being spoon fed for us.

Take StumbleUpon: you hit a button and a random webpage is given to you. When you create your account you can choose your interests so that the random webpages will somewhat cater to what you’d want to be shown. I clicked as many interests as possible, even if they are only slightly interesting to me, because I want as much random content as possible. If I had only chosen sports, fitness, food, and advertising I would never see the beautiful pictures, hilarious articles, or original videos that I do end up seeing because I chose so many interests.

My mom brought me up always saying two things “Make good choices” (trying my best), and “Don’t take the easy way out.” Being fed our content is the easy way out. Sure, it makes being online easier if you have a specific goal in mind (i.e. shopping for something specific), but what about when you want to just browse around and explore? There are so many doors that are automatically closed to us. I love to explore and read about anything interesting to me. This doesn’t necessarily parallel with my browsing history or past preferences.

I think the technology to personalize the online experience is great, I really do…for certain things. When I’m going to a specific company to order something, show me what I may like from that company (I’m probably going there for something similar anyways). But, if I am just browsing the web I wouldn’t mind stumbling on to some hidden gems that don’t necessarily go along with what I’m normally interested in. That’s exactly what makes them interesting.

Are you prepared to pay the price of personalization, even if it means sacrificing your ability to explore and discover?

The Real Problem With Groupon

  By Josh Milenthal | December 6, 2011 - 5:28 pm | Facebook, Group Buying/Deals
1 Comment

It’s taken me awhile to get back to this post, but hopefully it doesn’t seem too outdated.

I somewhat recently read an article about a London bakery who offered a Groupon deal for 75% a dozen cupcakes. They had 8,500 people sign up for the deal, a staggering number for such a little bakery. One would thing an influx of customers like this would be a good thing for a company. It sure is, when the company is large enough to handle a larger-than-expected swell in customers. Need A Cake, the aforementioned bakery, was not at all prepared.

Dubbed her “worst ever business decision,” Rachel Brown and her staff needed to make 102,000 in a short amount of time to handle the orders. They couldn’t handle it on their own and were forced to hire 25 extra workers, resulting in a loss of $3 per batch of cupcakes equaling a $20,000 loss for the company. Needless to say, this type of incident is not the first of its kind, but should be the last. Why? Because small businesses need to understand Groupon, and Groupon needs to understand small businesses.

While working in social media for the last 14+ months I have learned a lot about marketing on social networks and how different companies approach the process. The smart ones focus on building relationship and creating engaging content to keep their fans and followers around for an extended period of time. The not-so-smart ones want to win the “I have more fans than you” battle. Here’s the thing: if you want fans, it is very easy to get you those fans. Put up some money and we can advertise the hell our of your business and reach your fan goal. But guess what? Those fans, aren’t fans. They will not promote your product to their friends and family. And they most certainly won’t be loyal to your business.

Groupon is an offline version of the Facebook brand media buy. And that’s a big issue. For big businesses it is fine because they already have large customer bases that are loyal to them. For small business it can be devastating. A small business is attracted by a group deal because they believe it will bring them many long term customers they may not have reached otherwise. Believing in this is a mistake. Sure, you will get a few, but the percentage of lasting customers versus one time deal seekers will be very small. And this is Groupon’s biggest folly…they don’t actually help businesses. Big businesses can handle the losses they incur from running a group-buying deal, but small business can potentially be shut down because of the money lost from a deal.

Rarely does a business do a Groupon deal twice. I have yet to see one (if you have, please tell me in the comments) occur. There is a reason for that. A great business that opened up entirely new market to the world didn’t understand the scale of what they were trying to do. It’s unfortunate, because it’s possible that they could help small businesses. Even putting a cap on the number of people that can purchase a deal would help, as it would provide an “exclusive” label to each deal for small businesses that make them more intriguing, and could get people to visit the business even if they missed out on the deal.

For Groupon’s sake, I hope they figure out a way to change their business model. Otherwise small businesses everywhere could be in trouble.

Don’t Ride In The Passenger Seat Of Your Own Car

  By Josh Milenthal | November 9, 2011 - 3:46 pm | Thoughts/Observations
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Have you ever sat in the passenger seat of your own car while somebody else drives it? It feels weird, and almost uncomfortable, right? I recently was thinking about this, as I examined how I’ve approached my professional career, and realized there are a lot of similarities to driving a car and living in the post-graduation world.

When you’re fresh out of college ready to take on the world you think nothing can stop you. You’ll be nervous, of course, but you’ll still have a bit of that “I’m invincible” confidence you get when you’re in college and are able to succeed under most circumstances. The truth is, classes in college don’t prepare you for the real world. They teach you some necessary, and many unnecessary, bits of information that you may or may not need to remember at some point in the future. What teaches you most is experience. That experience can come from internships or jobs you may have held before graduating. When you hit the ground running after graduation and (hopefully) land that first job, you need to understand what you’re getting into. In college you can pass with flying colors just by going to class and doing assignments when they are given to you. You’ll get a “good job” from your professor if you really bust your ass. After college, this passivity will get you nowhere. You need to learn to focus and take the wheel (here’s the driving metaphor now).

When you’re in the driver’s seat of your CAReer (see?) it’s all about staying focused about what’s ahead. Sure, you’ll take a peak in your side and rear view mirrors occasionally so that you’re in control of the present situation, but you always have to be looking for what’s down the road. You need to stay proactive and alert. Do you see brake lights up ahead? Think of those as potential hiccups or obstacles you might encounter. Get a grip, change lanes, and bypass the problem by being prepared. Be sure to flash your left/right signals to let everyone know you’re changing lanes. Keeping people around you aware of what’s going on will keep thing running smoothly, rather than creating a bigger problem.

One thing I’ve learned is that it is very easy to fall asleep at the metaphorical wheel of your career. It’s easy to start drifting out of your lane, and it’s easy to not realize you can be more than just another person stuck in traffic. Don’t set your car on cruise control. It won’t help you, and it won’t get you anywhere faster. It allows you to become distracted from reaching your goals. It’s a lesson I’ve had to learn, but an invaluable one.