Given how important the day has become to retailers, it pays to look at how technology is changing the way consumers shop and, in particular, how Black Friday will change in coming years:

Location/Check-Ins

While Foursquare, Gowalla and other check-in services have started to reward badge and stamp holders with special offers, the offerings thus far have been meager. With Black Friday, there is huge potential for check-in and location-based offers: Imagine rewarding the mob — 100 check ins nets participants a 10 percent discount, 200 check ins gets them 20 percent off — or having time-windowed offerings to extend the buzz of Black Friday beyond the initial morning rush.

Foursquare already sees the potential for Black Friday, with its Sports Authority partnership that offers $500 gift cards to users who check in at one of the retailer’s locations. Next year, however will be the “year of the check-in” promotion for Black Friday.

Group Buying

Given that the difficulty for Black Friday advertisers is to stand out in a sea of great deals, using a deal-of-the-day offer (or a series of such offers) could be one way for retailers to differentiate. Clearly Groupon sees potential in the idea, offering its Grouponicus campaign, but that’s only the beginning. Group buying combined with national advertising could result in some very high conversion rates (the recent Nordstrom Groupon offer is an example of a group-buying combined with a strong rollout), so its likely that social shopping and group buying campaigns will likely become an integral part of many product and retail advertiser’s holiday campaigns.

TV Commerce

Online shopping has become a big part of Black Friday. And as TVs become smart TVs, why wouldn’t we expect to see  TV commerce in the not-too-distant future? Part of Google TV’s power is in the overlay capability it brings through its input-1 on top of broadcast TV, so imagine “shopping” overlays around broadcast advertising where special offers are targeted at those who can respond to a call to action right then and there.  One can imagine Black Friday becoming more of an interactive TV event where those afraid to brave the cold, early weather shop from their homes, possibly even taking advantage of group-buying (dare we say Groupon TV?).

To see more ways in which technology will change the Black Friday experience, see my Weekly Update at GigaOM Pro.

Image source: flickr user kevinspencer

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iPass has just weighed in on which side of that debate its enterprise clients fall on. The enterprise mobility service just announced that it has added Aircell to its available network of services. This means that iPass Mobile Network users will be able to connect to Gogo in-flight Wi-Fi, while staying within the iPass network. Gogo in-flight Wi-Fi is available on all AirTran and Virgin America flights, and on limited American Airlines, Delta, US Airways, United and Air Canada flights. Customers will be charged $4.95 for flights less than 1.5 hours, $9.95 for flights 1.5 to three hours, and $12.95 for flights more than three hours long for using Gogo through iPass.

In the product announcement, iPass explained that this will benefit employees of iPass Mobile Network customers, as connecting to Gogo will be more convenient with iPass, since they will be able to avoid the multiple steps of paying via credit card and filing expense reports after the fact for reimbursement. For enterprises, it should simplify accounting, allow companies access to detailed reports on in-flight network usage, and allow enforcement of VPN and security policies.

For regular users of other airlines, iPass says it expects to add more in-flight Wi-Fi services to its offering in 2010.

iPass leaves no doubt in its announcement that mobile workers are now expected to be working constantly when traveling — even when they are at 30,000 feet:

“The age of inflight Internet connectivity is here and is a huge productivity win for business travelers who need to stay connected and work securely online while in the air,” said Evan Kaplan, president and CEO of iPass. “Airplanes have been the last bastion of mobile worker downtime and iPass and Gogo Inflight Internet provider Aircell are here to close this gap in a way that meets the simplicity, visibility and control requirements of the enterprise.”

Say goodbye to the days of settling back in your seat and watching a movie or reading a book and getting some recharging before that big meeting while you cruise at 30,000 feet. When enterprises consider in-flight Wi-Fi a needed function of their mobile networks, the writing is obviously on the wall (or in the clouds): your airplane seat is now an extension of your office.

Does in-flight Wi-Fi make you feel obligated to work? Would that change if it were part of your employer’s mobile network?

The CLEAR 4G+ Mobile USB modem looks like an oversized USB drive, measuring 1.28″ x 3.6″ x 0.48″ and weighing 44 grams. It comes with documentation, a carrying pouch, a USB Y-adapter cable, a mounting bracket, and the CLEAR Connection Manager software, which is currently available only for Windows.

The modem can be plugged directly into a USB port, and since the plug on the modem swivels, can be oriented vertically or horizontally. The Y-adapter was useful in getting the modem out of the way while working, but I didn’t use the mounting bracket. The modem put out a surprising amount of heat almost from the instant it was plugged in.

The CLEAR 4G network worked reasonably well at my office in a residential area of Seattle. According to speedtest.net, I averaged 10-15 Mbps down and 0.5-1.5 Mbps up, although both upload and download speeds varied considerably.

In downtown Portland, however, CLEAR’s 4G network was much slower. I averaged around 3Mbps down and 0.4Mbps up. A friend from Portland tells me that CLEAR’s network was faster when it was first installed, but that speeds have not kept up as it’s become more popular. Seattle’s 4G network is much newer; we’ll have to see how it does as more customers start using it.

The modem is supposed to automatically fall back to 3G when needed. It seemed to do this reasonably well, but it sometimes took 15-20 seconds for the switch to take place. And if the modem lost connection to all networks, I had to click the “connect” button on the software to make it rescan for a connection, then, once the network was found, click again to actually connect. Each of these processes took several seconds. As a result, the CLEAR modem did not work while on a moving train.

I found that the connection speeds were fine for most uses, such as checking email and browsing the web. But connecting remotely to my office computer via Hamachi was very slow. It would do in an emergency, but I wouldn’t want to rely on it on a daily basis.

CLEAR offers 4G service in several cities. The CLEAR 4G+ Mobile USB modem is available for purchase at $225, or may be leased for $6 per month. CLEAR offers a 3G/4G plan at $55 per month with a 2-year contract. This plan includes “unlimited” usage (see the fine print) in 4G coverage areas and a 5GB/month cap in 3G mode. If you don’t need the 3G fallback, a 4G-only plan is available for $45 per month.

If you frequently travel to places in 4G markets where other connections are unavailable, you may find CLEAR’s 4G service to be convenient. But I don’t think that I could use the service to replace my current connection. You’ll want to check your local conditions to see if the CLEAR network in your area is speedy and reliable enough to meet your needs.

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CoLab Orlando is located in the historic Angebilt building in downtown Orlando, Fla. Originally occupying part of the sixth floor when it opened, CoLab expanded last year to include half of the eighth floor as well by taking over space previously occupied by a local university business incubator that had lost its funding. CoLab is now in the process of expanding again, by adding space on the building’s ninth floor in the near future.

Two distinctly different types of membership are offered at CoLab Orlando. First there are more traditional coworking membership arrangements, where members pay to have access for a certain amount of time during the month to CoLab’s common work area, conference rooms and business equipment. These members also get the use of CoLab’s address for their business. Prices for these memberships start at $50 per month for four visits, and go up to $199 for a full-time membership.

The second type of membership at CoLab involves full-time dedicated suite rentals. Prices for these memberships depends on the size and type of suite included in them (corner suites with more windows cost extra, for instance). Dedicated suite prices start at $375 per month for a 10ft x 14ft suite and go to $1500 per month for a 500 sq. ft. suite.

All CoLab members get access to the facility’s high-speed Internet service, printer/fax/ copier/scanner, conference rooms and coffee facilities. CoLab also hosts one or two free events per month for its members, along with a “Free Friday” coworking event for non-members.

The coworking common area at CoLab is definitely underutilized. It was virtually deserted on the Monday afternoon that I visited, although I was told a few members use it on a regular basis. This is likely because CoLab’s suites are so affordable that they are packed to the rafters with small businesses. If you have someone to share a suite with you can have dedicated space for around the same cost as using the common area full-time.

Not unexpectedly, most of the companies occupying suite space at CoLab Orlando seem to be tech companies. I visited with developers at Envy Labs and with Internet advertising specialists Enjoy Taste. The suites I toured were all occupied by multiple people. Despite the full-time suite rentals, CoLab’s population shifts on a daily basis. Many suite occupants said they work from home some days and come to the office when they need to collaborate with others or meet with clients.

The prevalent decor aesthetic in the facility’s suites seems to be Ikea furniture and bright color. Unlike in many office rentals, personalizing suite spaces through the use of paint and decor is encouraged. The results are far-from-usual office spaces with lots of evident personality. For instance, when I visited the suite of Envy Labs, I was treated to their collection of handmade robots.

Overall, CoLab’s suites — and the people in them — give an impression of being bright, welcoming and fun. The feeling of positive energy in CoLab was palpable, and co-founder John Todero stressed, “Energy is what sells the place.” Doors of many of the occupied suites were open as I walked around, inviting contact with other residents. Many of the resident companies, I was told, work with each other on projects.

Because so many of the residents aren’t solo coworkers, but are instead small start-up companies, CoLab is almost more of a business incubator than a coworking space. Whatever you want to call it, the energy and enthusiasm within its walls is contagious.

Does the idea of an incubator-style suite appeal to you more than traditional office space might?

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So I’m pleased that I’ve discovered MailboxMap. It’s a simple web site built around a Google Maps mashup. Just enter an address or zip code, and it will display a map showing the locations of mailboxes in the neighborhood. Click on a mailbox icon, and it will display pickup times.

MailboxMap also shows post offices and UPS locations, complete with hours. And there’s a mobile version, which has the advantage of displaying search results in a list, making it easier to skim for late pickups. It would be nice, though, if one could search for, say, pickups after 3:00 pm, or for Saturday pickups.

It’s not a perfect service; for example, it locates Seattle’s downtown post office on the wrong side of the street. Google Maps itself locates the same address correctly, so it’s unclear what the problem is. Nevertheless, MailboxMap is a useful service.

The site has been around for a couple of years, but it seems to be up to date, as it shows a recent pickup time change for my local box. It’s probably too much to hope that USPS will buy this site and add it to usps.com.

How often do you mail letters?

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Location: The Epicenter of Mobile Innovation

Atlanta Hartsfield’s Minute Suites is located on Concourse B in a space that was formerly a business center, and bills itself as a “traveler’s retreat”. Minute Suites offered me the chance to give them a try during a layover on a recent cross-country trip.

Although my flights were not arriving or departing from Concourse B, the location was convenient to reach. Minute Suites is close to the intersection at the center of Concourse B, where passengers can board the train that shuttles people between Hartsfield’s concourses. It was a two- to three-minute trip each way from Concourse A where my flights were arriving and departing.

The Minute Suites host on duty when I arrived, Michael, was cheery and welcoming despite the extremely early hour and my jet-lagged, exhausted demeanor. He lead me to my suite and gave me a tour of its amenities.

Minute Suites are 7ft x 8ft units that are entered through a sliding door. I was told the five suites are sanitized between each use. Each suite is furnished with a sofa that pulls out into a bed, and a desk with a chair. The suites could easily accommodate three adults or two adults and two children.

The only amenity that Minute Suites doesn’t have is plumbing. If you are looking for the restroom, you’ll have to step about 100 feet down the concourse to find one.

In the wall next to the desk is an HDTV that serves as the unit’s entertainment system and Internet terminal; the television service offered is DirecTV with the NFL package. The TV can also be used to check on the status of your flight, since it can display the airport’s Flight Tracking system.

If you have your own computer along, Minute Suites offers ethernet and Wi-Fi internet access included in your suite rental in addition to the provided Internet terminals. I used my MacBook to try out the Wi-Fi access. Getting on was as easy as entering the password I was provided, and the connection felt snappy enough (at least for the web surfing and email that I was trying it out on).

There is very nice attention to detail in the Minute Suites. There is a hook with two hangers for hanging up jackets, and each unit has its own thermostat so each visitor can set their own comfortable temperature. The desk chair rolls and is nicely cushioned. There are controls for the lights and sound system in the wall at one end of the bed.

Since I had just gotten off a red-eye flight, I was particularly interested in trying out the daybed for a nap — something that I would normally never do in an airport. Pillows and blankets are provided. The suite contains an alarm clock on a ledge behind the bed, or the Minute Suites staff will provide you a wake-up call (or actually, knock). Michael was extremely prompt with my wake-up knock, although I had set my iPhone alarm as a back-up.

The bed was very comfortable. I tried out the Nap26 program that is built into the entertainment system, which is supposed to make you feel as though you’ve had three hours of sleep in only 26 minutes. I found the program soundtrack so annoying that it actually kept me awake instead of putting me to sleep even though I’d had only two hours of sleep in the previous 24. I turned it off after only a few minutes and promptly fell asleep.

A key component in my ability to sleep was the suite’s sound masking system. Essentially a giant white noise machine, the masking system’s volume is adjustable by the suite’s occupant. Thanks to this system, I was able to sleep completely unaware that I was in the heart of one of the world’s busiest airports, in a suite 10 feet away from a congested concourse. The only sounds I heard were a few loud bangs that I believe originated in the service area below the concourse.

If all of this sounds like a wonderful way to spend your airport layover, it is. But there’s a catch to this luxury: the luxury price. Minute Suites rent for $30/hr, with a one hour minimum. Eight hours costs $180, since at eight hours a rate decrease of 25 percent takes effect.

But if you aren’t turned off by the price, Minute Suites can be a great place to recharge or get some privacy to do some business on the go.

Would you try a “traveler’s retreat” if there was one available ton your trip?

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bzhive will serve Marin County and its neighbors, and has a conference room and parking available. Membership costs from $215 per month; if you’d just like to try out the service, access for drop-ins is free, as long as space is available.

If you’re involved with a new coworking venture, let us know about it in the comments.

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In the past, profiles have been structured like standard résumés, with elements appearing in fixed order: a header, a text summary, optional applications like blog links, experience, education, recommendations, and an “additional information” section with web links, awards and such.

Now, when you click on “Edit Profile,”you’ll see a four-way arrow to the left of the section names. Drag it to rearrange the sections. Check out the video to see how it works.

This will be a boon to students, who may wish to make their educational backgrounds more prominent, as well as to entrepreneurs and career changers, who may wish to highlight other parts of their backgrounds besides their “day jobs.”

LinkedIn plans to offer more enhancements to LinkedIn profiles soon.

Will you rearrange your LinkedIn profile? What other editing abilities would you like to see on the site?

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But when I upgraded from Firefox 3.5.7 to 3.6 the other day, I discovered that a few of the add-ons that weren’t yet compatible were important to me. In fact, they had become such an integral part of my daily workflow that I was significantly slowed down without them. Luckily, almost all of the add-ons were updated within a couple of days so I’m back up to speed now, but I realized how much I missed them when they weren’t available. In this post I’m going to share the add-ons that I find it hard to be without.

Some of us at WWD have ditched Firefox in favor of the faster Chrome, but until these add-ons are also available in Chrome for Mac, I won’t switch. In the meantime, I’m sticking with Firefox, and hoping that 3.6, the newest version, lives up to its claims of increased speed.

Mozilla Prism. This add-on allows me to create a site-specific browser for locations I visit frequently. I’ve used it to create a “Google Reader” application that appears in my dock, can be placed in a separate Space, and operates separately from Firefox. I’m not sure why Mozilla hasn’t updated this yet; I’m using Chrome to view Google Reader for now.

LastPass. This password manager not only keeps track of my passwords, it syncs them between browsers and computers. I imagine most web workers have as many passwords as I do — they’d be impossible to keep track of without a program like LastPass. I also use 1Password for the Mac, and sync its data using Dropbox, figuring that it doesn’t hurt to keep such important data in multiple places.

Xmarks. This handy extension syncs my bookmarks between browsers and computers.

Adblock Plus. I appreciate all of the content that is available on the web, including WebWorkerDaily, thanks to the support of advertisers. But some sites have such obtrusive advertising that they are unusable. Google (which makes most of its money from advertising) is allowing ad blockers in its Chrome browser in the hope that advertisers will make “useful” ads that no one will want to block. Until then, Adblock Plus is a necessity for me.

Gmail Manager. This is the Firefox add-on that I use the most. It’s the best way I know to manage multiple Gmail and Google Apps mail accounts.

I’ll also add two tools that are incredibly helpful to web developers: Firebug and Web Developer. Both help me and my colleagues to test and debug web sites.

…and finally, Cards. Well, OK, I guess I can live without this one, but I’ll have find something else to do while I’m on the phone.

What browser add-ons do you rely on?

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The organizers approached me to develop a web site to aggregate these posts in real-time before, during and after the event. In the process, I learned how such a site can reinforce the development of community.

I’m sure that you’ve been to events where good ideas are hatched and projects are planned, but often, despite the best of intentions, activity loses steam after the event is over, and nothing much gets done. It’s too early yet to judge the long-term effectiveness of this particular event, but I’m optimistic that it will make more of a difference than many such gatherings.

The electronic component of the event was relatively simple. We created a content-managed web site that would act as the hub for the many places that participants would post their contributions and reflections. We didn’t require participants to use a specific CMS tool (although they were welcome to use ours). Instead, before, during and after the conference, participants were encouraged to use existing technologies with which they were familiar to document their thoughts, and we then created links to their contributions.

Before the Event

The web site went live a couple of weeks before the event began. By that time, event announcements and registration had already been posted to a section on the sponsoring organization’s web site. Participants had been asked to interview another attendee as a “get-to-know-you” exercise. The results were to have been posted, but very few did so — I suspect because the CMS used by the sponsoring organization has a significant learning curve.

In the future, I would recommend creating the event-specific web site much sooner, and using a simpler CMS-, group-blog, social-network or wiki-based system for posting pre-event discussions and comments.

During the Event

The venue at our local university had limited wired connectivity, but it was sufficient for a video stream, an audio stream, and the web updates that I was doing. The video stream worked fine; the audio stream was less successful because the university had blocked the ports we needed. For the same reason, we had to use a MiFi connection to use FTP. Thankfully, this did not affect access to our CMS.

Participants were able to connect using Wi-Fi, which worked well, aside from some issues with entering passwords. I’m guessing that perhaps fifty people were connected at any one time.

The event web site included the following, all of which was updated frequently:

• An attendee list, with links to participants’ web sites and Twitter feeds.
• The event agenda. Since the event was an “un-conference” using the “open space” approach, much of the agenda was developed on the spot by attendees.
• A Twitter statuses JavaScript badge showing posts from the event. These tweets were mostly done by me on behalf of event organizers, but other committee members also tweeted through the conference account.
• A Twitter search widget showing a real-time feed of all posts using the conference hashtag. A full-screen version of this widget was projected in the room where most discussions took place, and it proved very popular.
• A link to a Twapperkeeper archive of the Twitter hashtag feed.
• A Facebook fan box linking to the event’s Facebook page.
• A Flickr badge and links to tagged photos and videos. Flipcharts and graphs were scanned or photographed, then posted to Flickr and to the web site as JPGs and PDFs. We also put up a Picasa link at the request of attendees, but it didn’t get used.
• A Ustream video feed. Video of many sessions was fed live into the site, then archived.
• A link to YouTube search results tagged with the event’s tag.
• An audio feed. Podcasts of many sessions were made available later.
• Links to blogs of those attendees who were writing about the event.
• A wiki for allowing attendees to post notes from event sessions. We chose to use a wiki rather than giving all users access to the CMS, although I think that in future we might go the other way, as some found editing the wiki difficult.
• An RSS feed for tracking changes to all of the above.

After the Event

We had not created a LinkedIn group before the event. However, participants indicated that they wanted to have an electronic venue for continuing the discussion after the conference. We surveyed the room, and discovered that almost everyone was already a LinkedIn user. Since LinkedIn groups and subgroups can be created immediately, we chose to use that service. We could have selected another group conversation service, though, and participants may move to more sophisticated collaborative tools as their discussions continue.

Planning and Setup

If you are ever called upon to provide this sort of support to an event, it can be fun and educational. Here are some tips to make things go smoothly.

• Get involved with the planning committee as soon as possible, and get an event-specific web site posted early.
• Agree on the hashtag for the event, and publicize it.
• Coordinate with the meeting venue to make sure that it has adequate power and bandwidth (both wired and Wi-Fi), and that it does not block ports.
• Plan to bring your own equipment if possible, or make sure that you have everything you’ll need.
• Set up a “tech table” in a convenient location.
• Have a group of volunteers who can cover the full event.
• Give yourself lots of time for setup and breakdown.
• Have a dedicated laptop and projector for displaying the Twitter hashtag feed — participants will love it.
• Consider what you’ll need in the way of cameras, scanners and printers. We had them all, and they were handy to have, but we could probably have done without them.

I found that attendees’ blogging, tweeting, recording and instant posting about the event reinforced what they were thinking and learning. Thus, the effectiveness of the event was increased, along with the potential for new learning and insights to cause change in the wider world.

How do you use social media and the web for events?

Images by Flickr users Choconancy1 and hajush

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