Grassroots movements, flash mobs and now group purchasing--they all have an intimate relationship with location; it’s the linchpin that ties the movement together. For some time now, advertisers have tried to say “Go here. Buy this. Do it now.” But as consumers, we’ve been pretty reluctant to give in easily—there’s always another holiday for a car dealership to celebrate, and a liquidation sale at a furniture store just doesn’t motivate us anymore. Flash mobs, grassroots movements—they have been exceedingly difficult to create. They’re purely organic movements, born out of internet chatrooms, with a bitter reaction to rigid organization. The holy grail—a sudden influx of consumers—has always been just out of reach for most businesses. But more and more, brands are finding interesting ways to cultivate flash mobs of their own. Location based services play an important role in aiding these movements. Whether it be group purchasing sites created around local communities or mobile check in apps with flocks of users descending on a bar or restaurant, new tools continue to emerge for businesses and brands to create their own mobs. We'll look at what tools are available for building mobs and how they are being focused towards completing a specific action. We'll envision what tools have yet to emerge. And we'll explore the delicate balance between pushing an action or a message while maintaining the organic feel that characterizes these movements.
Eddie leads our capital deployment program, namely customer acquisition. Prior to co-founding LivingSocial, he designed and built innovative product prototypes and platform infrastructure at Revolution Health. He is a graduate of the University of Maryland with degrees in Mathematics and Computer Science.
Jill Okawa Fletcher has eight years of experience in building online communities and leveraging new media to build consumer brand engagement. She currently leads Virgin America's social media strategy at Virgin America. She has spoken at numerous conferences including Advertising Week, ad:tech, #140conf and Dreamforce.
Sam Altman is co-founder and CEO of Loopt, a company that builds mobile applications to help people enjoy the friends, places, and events around you right now. Sam sees mobile location as helping to make serendipity happen, completely transforming how people can and will communicate on their mobile devices. Since starting the company in 2005 while studying at Stanford University, Sam has consistently been recognized for his entrepreneurship. He was featured in Inc. Magazine’s Top 30 Entrepreneurs Under 30, BusinessWeek’s Tech’s Best Entrepreneurs, and Paul Graham’s 5 most interesting startup founders of the last 30 years.
As an early innovator in mobile location services, Sam joined Apple CEO Steve Jobs on stage at WWDC 2008, presenting Loopt as one of the first applications in the iPhone App Store. Sam has been a valuable source for many media outlets including Charlie Rose, CNN, The Economist, New York Times, Wall Street Journal and numerous others. Additionally, he mentors new companies at the venture company Y-Combinator, and is on the Advisory Boards for a number of Silicon Valley startups.
Vince joined Yelp in April 2009. He has nearly 20 years of experience in communications in the private and public sectors. Vince was vice president of communications at PayPal, from the launch of the service until its sale to eBay three years later. Most recently, he led communications efforts at search start-up Cuil. Vince has also served as a spokesman for California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a U.S. Senator, a Congressman and the U.S. House Homeland Security Committee. He has a B.A. in public policy studies and political science from Duke University.
