Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Social Media and Sense of Place: Phoenix, Arizona Fresh & Easy Market Site on Brightkite.com; 'Kissmecait' Does Some Retail Anthropology & Geography

A photograph of a pink-labeled wine brand called "Bitch," taken recently at the Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market store at 3131 East Greenway Road in Phoenix, Arizona, by Brighkite.com user Kissmecait. Kissmecait has a great eye for unique brands, as well as for photography.

Grocers and social media-networking sites

The Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market store at 3131 East Greenway Road in Phoenix, Arizona has set up a site (or one has been set up for the store by someone else) on the social networking site Brightkite.com.

Brightkite.com is a place-centered social media and networking site similar to the Twitter.com micro-Blogging site, except Brightkite.com includes photographs taken by users with their cell phone cameras, Apple i-phones or digital cameras. The Brightkite.com social networking concept is, similar to Twitter.com, that users leave messages about where they are and what they are doing -- but include a photograph related to what they are doing at any given time. In fact, the photograph is the primary focus (or media element) of Brightkite.

Like Twitter, Brightkite.com can also be used as a social networking and media marketing tool by businesses, the media and other organizations, also something that Twitter.com is being used for, in order to publicize what they offer and to communicate with consumers, in Brightkite's case more from a photographic perspective rather than with words like is the case on the micro-blogging Twitter social networking site.

There are currently three photographs posted on the Fresh & Easy 3131 East Greenway Road store Brightkite.com site. All three of the photos, taken at the Greenway Road Fresh & Easy market, are by a Brightkite.com user named kissmecait. And, we might add, all three of the pictures are interesting and of very high quality.

You can view the Fresh & Easy 3131 East Greenway Road, Phoenix, Arizona Brightkite.com site here, where kissmecait's three photos from the store are posted. That's cait's photograph of the pink-labeled "Bitch Wine" from the Fresh & Easy market at the top of this story, by the way. You can view it and the other two photographs at the link above as well.

Additionally, you can view kissmecait's Brightkite.com home site here, where in addition to the photographs from the Phoenix Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market store she has others posted from her ventures out and about the Phoenix, Arizona Metro region.

Cait also has her own Blog, which is linked at the Brightkite.com site we've linked for you above. This is a link to her kissmecait Blog "about me" section. Here is a link to her kissmecait Blog homepage.

For those readers who've yet to view the Phoenix Fresh & Easy store site and the photographs with captions kissmecait has posted there linked above, besides the the pink-labeled "Bitch Wine" photograph pictured at the top of our piece, she includes a picture of a fresh cup of coffee from the store, with this caption: "kissmecait: Press coffee is so damn good. @ Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market (3131 E Greenway Rd, Phoenix, AZ) - 3 days ago; and a photograph of a purple colored package of fresh & easy store brand fresh seedless red grapes that includes this caption: "kissmecait: Proff that grapes are RED and that purple IS a flavor!! @ Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market (3131 E Greenway Rd, Phoenix, AZ) - 7 days ago.

We like kissmecait's photos and her captions. Very creative.

Brightkite.com as retail anthropology & geography of place

In a sense the place-centered store pictures and captions taken in the Phoenix Fresh & Easy market and posted on Brightkite.com serve as sort of a grocery store anthropology and geography in that they capture aspects of the place (the Fresh & Easy store), time (when the given photograph was taken and comment written) and the contents of the store (the products photographed and described). Perhaps thousands of years from now future civilizations and societies will study them as a way to try and understand food and grocery retailing in the 21rst century?

It also is interesting to Fresh & Easy Buzz in that the photographs and comments capture what in the store interests a specific consumer or shopper, in this instance kissmecait. She obviously loves to buy and drink the Press Coffee, for example. And her sense of fun and humor likely is what motivated her to capture the bottles of "Bitch" brand wine with her camera? And perhaps her sense of irony is what made her decide to photograph the red grapes in a purple container and caption the picture as she did?

We shall observe with keen interest additional photographs and captions on the Fresh & Easy 3131 East Greenway Road Brightkite site. In fact, we can't wait to see what kissmecait decides to explore and photograph on her next trip to the store. Great retail anthropology and geography kissmecait.

Reader Resource:

Linkage - recent posts from Fresh & Easy Buzz about grocers and social media-networking:

>January 26, 2009: When Social Media Goes Bad - Maybe? Tesco and Waitrose Store Workers in the UK Use Facebook Sites to 'Diss' Store Customers

>January 25, 2009: Twitter Me This Batman: Are You Using Twitter? If Not, You Probably Should Be

>January 19, 2009: Sweet Tweets: Popular laist.com Web Site Picks Up Fresh & Easy Buzz's Buzz On Tesco's Fresh & Easy and Twitter.com; Adds A Little Buzz of its Own

>January 18, 2009: The UK Telegraph Reports on Tesco Fresh & Easy's Use of Twitter.Com; Since Fresh & Easy Buzz Was First to Report it, We Offer Some Added Value

Reader Note:

Follow Fresh & Easy Buzz on Twitter.com at: www.twitter.com/freshneasybuzz.

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