2012: The year of social products

At the end of last year, I blogged about some of the ways companies are leveraging social tools to help consumers connect and share with one another. Since then, additional examples of brands adapting to the My Crowd trend have caught my attention.

• Kobo Vox is an e-reading device. Once again, its USP is social: it connects users with others reading the same book to discuss it, and they can share reading lists with others through social networking sites. Reviewers haven’t been kind to the Kobo Vox, so we might never see it trumping Amazon’s Kindle, but the social element is intriguing.
• Stelios Haji-Ioannou, founder of easyJet has teamed up with Brent Hoberman, founder of lastminute.com to launch a car sharing business, planned for spring 2012. The venture will allow private car owners to rent out their vehicles when they aren’t in use. The scheme could offer a cheaper alternative to traditional car rental organisations – who have to purchase cars to be rented and pay maintenance costs – so it could prove popular in the current economic climate.
• Hao Di Loa, a restaurant chain, has installed telepresence screens in their Shanghai and Beijing restaurants in a trend called ‘social eating’. Essentially, video-conferencing with food, the screens allow customers to connect with and share their meal with friends and family who are located elsewhere in the world.

What’s intriguing about all of these launches is that social media is integral, not just to the marketing of the product, but to the product itself.