Digital Viewpoint

Today I Die – A game of poetry

2009-05-21T10:44:00.002+01:00

'Today I Die' is an intriguing and beautiful little puzzle game from indie games designer Daniel Benmergui.

A nice change from traditional games, Today I Die is a game where you have to gradually change the words of a poem to transform it from being miserable, to being happy.

Exactly how you do that, of course, is where the puzzle lies, and it's been frustrating more than a few people. The ending (of which there are actually several) is worth the puzzlement though.

RFID magazine links online and offline

2009-04-16T10:37:00.004+01:00

The first internet-connected magazine is using technology within its printed pages to create an innovative way of linking readers to its online content.

Using an RFID tag buried within its pages, the French entertainment magazine Amusement has collaborated with RFID specialists Violet to lead readers to exclusive online content that is otherwise inaccessible to web users.

Readers can touch the magazine on an RFID scanner, such as the Violet Mir:ror, obtained separately from the magazine, and this sends a signal to the server triggering access to certain online applications.

Although magazines have long offered a mixture of online and offline content, the traditional exclusive web-based content has typically been reserved for subscribers with password accounts. By offering something for the reader who prefers to pick up a magazine at the newsstand, Amusement’s new model is connecting with the often marginalised casual reader.

SixthSense blurs the digital world and the real world

2009-04-14T16:14:00.009+01:00

Researchers from the Fluid Interfaces Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab have unveiled the latest prototype of SixthSense – a wearable, gesture-driven computing platform that continually augments the physical world with digital information.

Imagine being able to turn any surface around you into an interactive surface – checking your email on a blank wall simply by drawing an @ sign in the air with your finger, or being able to check the time by using the same finger to draw a circle on your wrist to produce the image of an analog watch. You can put your thumbs and forefingers together to make a picture frame allowing you to take a digital photograph, or just use your hand as a keypad or dial pad.

If you were in a bookstore and holding a book, SixthSense will recognize that and go to Amazon and display the online reviews and prices of that book right on its cover. The system is also customisable so that if you don't want Amazon reviews you could instead choose to find out what the Guardian thinks of it, or if the actual bookstore had decided to provide their own content you wouldn’t even need to go online to find more information.

MIT are trying to make it possible to have access to relevant information in a more seamless way, and while today's mobile computing devices can be useful, they are still ‘deaf and blind’, meaning that we have to stop what we're doing and tell those devices what information we need or want. MIT have a vision of a computing system that understands, at least to some extent, where the user is, what they are doing, and who they are interacting with. It can then proactively make information available to that user based on the situation.

The idea is that SixthSense tries to determine not only what someone is interacting with, but also how they are interacting with it. The software searches the internet for information that is potentially relevant to that situation, and then the projector takes over.

The prototype has been improved since it was first introduced to the public last year when it consisted of a web camera strapped to a bicycle helmet. The current prototype promises to be more ‘consumer friendly’ by consisting of a small camera and projector combination (about the size of a cigarette pack) worn around the neck. An accompanying smartphone runs the SixthSense software and handles the connection to the internet.

The camera acts as a digital eye, seeing what the user sees, and also tracks the movements of the thumbs and index fingers of both of the user's hands. The hardware included in the SixthSense system is not that expensive, with the current prototype costing about £300 to build, however this attempt to merge the digital world with the physical world requires some serious programming and engineering! The real work is in the software that is constantly trying to figure out what's around you and what you're trying to do. It has to recognise the images you see, track your gestures, and then relate it all to relevant information at the same time.

This initial research phase has only meant a few applications have been developed, but in the longer term it is envisioned that the SixthSense platform will be opened up to let anyone develop applications for it.

There are already some commercial applications planned, with the team looking at developing a sign language application that would "speak out" a translation while someone was signing. There is also potential for SixthSense in the field of gaming. Unlike the Nintendo Wii, which keeps you in front of the television, the SixthSense system might allow a player to go outside and be able to get a real tennis lesson on a real tennis court.

No one involved in the SixthSense project feels that their platform will replace laptops and smartphones, but in certain instances, it can do things that a desktop or laptop can't do, which is quickly put contextual information right where a user wants it wherever they are.

Watch Pattie Maes talk about SixthSense at TED.

Tag Galaxy

2009-04-14T14:50:00.001+01:00

Tag Galaxy is a diploma thesis project by Steven Wood, built using Papervision3D and the Flickr API, it allows you to explore Flickr photos via planetary systems.

Sky brings Skellig to life with bespoke online content

2009-03-31T13:49:00.003+01:00

Sky has launched an online campaign for the novel-turned-film, Skellig, and is bringing it to life by featuring bespoke web content.

The film, an adaptation of the fantasy novel by David Almond, features Tim Roth, Kelly MacDonald and John Simm, and will be shown on Sky 1 over Easter ahead of its international theatrical release.

Sky has created a campaign site featuring an interactive game, videos, images, story details and downloadable content, in addition to news and information. The film, which has such rich content itself, has enabled Sky to pull out the detail and create a rich experience which brings the curious and magical elements to life.

The site, which initially launched as a basic presence in February as part of a teaser campaign, will grow to become a central hub for all things Skellig, and continue to feature new content in the run up to the film's premiere to engage its target audience of children. It will also host information about the film as well as details about tickets to school productions, to serve as a resource for Skellig fans.

The bespoke content includes behind-the-scenes videos and images from the making of the film along with interviews with the film's cast and exclusive online promotional videos. It will also feature a competition for schools, which use the novel as a set text, to get pupils to upload creative content about Skellig for the chance to win a premiere screening in their area.

The campaign, promoted via an ad campaign, is part of the ongoing moves by many broadcasters to create multi-platform brands and bespoke online content to attract larger audiences to their web properties.

Cadbury Creme Egg launches more spoof movies

2009-03-23T16:00:00.004Z

Cadbury Creme Egg is launching another series of online spoof mini-movies including; ''The Wizard of Goo', 'Goo-Busters' and 'Armagooden' with a new "Goo-vie" being launched every two weeks at www.goovies.co.uk to celebrate Easter.

The films are also being released on cult animation and gaming website Weebl's Stuff - which predominantly has a 16-24-year-old audience and 1.5m unique users per month.

Each spoof features the characters Weebl, Bob and The Monkey appearing alongside Creme Eggs "desperate to release their goo". The cult following of these characters has enabled Cadbury to reach a savvy, underground audience and showcase the fun and entertaining brand personality of Creme Egg.

Cadbury first tied up with Weebl's Stuff last year, when it launched spoofs of Hollywood films, including 'Raiders of the Lost Goo' and 'Goo Fiction'.

The goo-vies are an idea that perfectly targets the desired audience with high quality content that encourages viral popularity, and is also an effective traffic driver to the Creme Egg site.

Talk to Frank launches anti-cannabis activity on Habbo

2009-03-17T17:07:00.006Z

Talk to Frank, the Government drug advice service, has launched a campaign on teen social media site Habbo as part of its anti-cannabis activity.

The Habbo campaign features a branded room designed to be a virtual manifestation of a cannabis user's brain, and aims to reflect the effects of cannabis on Simon, the main character from the TV campaign.

The COI chose Habbo to target the younger teens that are thinking of getting into what is perceived as a harmless drug.

The Habbo room also hosts Frank Advisors who can offer real time advice to users throughout the campaign - which runs until the end of March.

Other activity includes competitions and a branded social networking group where users can leave comments and interact with the forum.

Woolworths uses Twitter and blogs for online return

2009-03-12T09:40:00.000Z

Woolworths' new owners, Shop Direct Group, are using Twitter and a company blog to communicate with consumers as part of the plan to relaunch Woolies as an online-only retailer.

The move comes in reaction to the accusations that the brand was out-of-touch when it went into administration last November, and is also in response to the younger demographic that shops online.

The well documented demise of Woolworths' stirred up huge amounts of affection for the brand, and by the end of last year the ‘Save Woolworths' group on Facebook had more than 23,000 members.

Woolworths have adopted a light-hearted tone to their communications and have decided that social networking and social media engagement are the most effective way to promote the brand, communicate with customers, and receive feedback.

Last week Woolworths used Twitter to test demand for its famously diverse product offering by asking Twitterers to list their top five Woolworths' products, no doubt with a little nostalgia stirring in mind.

The blog covers topics from what pick'n'mix sweets you'd take to a desert island, to making browsing online safer for kids, and has already received hundreds of comments from consumers.

Study shows that social network users are happy to interact with brands

2009-03-04T17:16:00.001Z

Social media is constantly evolving so it’s useful to know how users feel about brands and how they interact with them, and according to new research from MySpace, one third of social network users are likely to click through to third-party websites and services.

The research involving 1,000 16-35-year-olds looked at how users interact with brands on the MySpace site and found that 40% said they remembered an advertiser on the high street after engaging with its social network profile. Almost a quarter of users surveyed spent up to 30 minutes a day on social networks, with one in seven staying for up to five hours!

Users were found to be receptive to freebies and entertainment from brands, although they were very aware of the motives behind such offers, and didn’t respond well to brands interrupting their online experience with pushy sales pitches

Blog driven publishing is born

2009-03-04T15:57:00.002Z

Perhaps ‘new media’ isn't killing off 'old media' after all. The Printed Blog is the world’s first daily newspaper comprised entirely of blogs and other user generated content.

The Printed Blog seeks to change the way people share and interact with news from the world around them, and hopes to play a role in reversing the fortunes of the sinking newspaper industry by using digital media.

Since the emphasis is on user-generated content rather than top-down reporting, the website is designed to function as a “hub” to connect with blogs, articles, photography, music, events and other content that YOU deem worthy of sharing with your own community.

The result is a revolutionary newspaper that reads and functions like a web feed, yet can still be enjoyed on the train or spread across the breakfast table. The Printed Blog is currently being beta tested in select locations, but once fully launched expect to find a copy of this unique and pleasurably tactile newspaper at a news stand near you.

New web app aggregates your entire web presence

2009-02-27T14:59:00.003Z

A new online service called Gist enables you to explore the far reaches of the internet and aggregate everything a person has published under their name, be it a social network profile, a Twitter feed, a blog, or a rant on a message board, into one place.

Gist has placed the increased importance on the need for ‘impression management’ in an era where any amount of personal information is available to anyone with Google at their fingertips, and essentially the web application follows a subject’s entire net personality trail and maps it out for you.

Although the programme may sound a little too Big Brother, and could attract the unsavoury types, the lesson to individuals and brands is clear: what goes online – a place once considered far removed from reality – is increasingly being used to make or break brands and their reputations. Ultimately, in today’s world, a professional online presence is just as important as a real-life one.

Social networks alter minds of young people

2009-02-24T16:34:00.001Z

Neuroscientist Baroness Greenfield has stated that social networks are altering the minds of a generation of young people.

The comments were made during a House of Lords debate around social networking.

Greenfield said that while the government was looking into issues around online child safety and privacy, the issue of how sites such as MySpace and Bebo were changing young people's minds had not yet been addressed.

One of the concerns about a generation growing up on social networks is that their minds would be “infantilized”, meaning they would suffer with short attention spans, sensationalism and an inability to empathise.

Those growing up online would also end up questioning their sense of identity as sites encourage them to build personal profiles, and that the government would not be able to accurately regulate social media without first understanding if, and how, they were 'threatening' young minds.

Computer Tan website fools thousands into seeing the dangers of skin cancer

2009-02-16T18:13:00.002Z

A fake company called ComputerTan is offering people the chance to get regular top-up tans from the comfort of their office desk using "a revolutionary new technology".

The ComputerTan.com website contains an infomercial film fronted by fictional ComputerTan spokeswoman Hannah Yasmin, who tells her audience how they can look "Tan-tastic" and offers a free trial of the service.

The site allows people to switch on what they expect to be a free tanning session but once the screen has converted to an array of UV bulbs users are confronted with shocking images and facts about skin cancer as well as a link to Skcin's website for more information.

The campaign is designed to raise awareness and engage those most at risk of developing skin cancer in a humorous way and is using a mix of online, print, outdoor ads, street leafleting, PR and digital seeding to reach those most difficult to talk to via conventional advertising.

The 20 second ad is also running on CBS Outdoor's digital network on the London Underground which reaches 1.7m commuters a day in London.

Skcin also managed to persuade influential bloggers to join in the hoax, and together with online seeding of the film on hundreds of sites, managed to generate in excess of 8,000 references to the campaign on Google in the first day of activity alone.

The charity hoped that the media would play along with the hoax, but last week The Sun carried a story explaining it was a hoax, and who was behind it.

Kia increase digital spend by 50%

2009-02-11T17:35:00.004Z

Kia Motors is apparently planning to increase its digital spend by 50% in a bid to boost its brand awareness and position in the UK.

The Korean car manufacturer, and top-five international car brand, is looking to increase its digital marketing budget to account for around 25% of its overall spend in the hope of replicating its dominance within the UK.

Kia will also launch a new site in March to grow customer interaction post-purchase.

Kia's increased digital investment isn't however being replicated by rival car manufacturers.

Ford, which has recently launched portals for its Fiesta and Ka brands state its budgets were being cut and that there are no plans to increase digital's share, which is assigned on a campaign-by-campaign basis.

BMW, which hasn't yet cut marketing budgets, is however keen to maintain consistent cross-channel spend, confirming that goals define which is the right channel for the job.

Agent Provocateur embraces social media

2009-02-09T14:27:00.001Z

Lingerie brand Agent Provocateur has launched an online social media campaign to promote its Hello Agent Provocateur blog using Twitter, Facebook, and Flickr.

HelloAgentProvocateur.com includes blog posts, updates and news revolving around relationships, romance, men and women, as well as Agent Provocateur promotional work.

Reviews of the latest romantic films, results of romance-themed surveys, and the history of the bra are all included in regular updates which also allow readers to comment.

Originating in the US, the website's launch coincides with the steamy new ad campaign with the slogan ‘Love me tender… or else!' designed to remind men to remember Valentine's Day. Agent Provocateur, in association with private equity house 3i, is also hosting a men-only party inviting London's bankers to a preview of the lingerie brand's latest lines over drinks and canapés.

Alfa Romeo focuses online for MiTo launch

2009-02-09T10:09:00.001Z

Alfa Romeo has just launched an interesting multi-million-pound integrated campaign for its new MiTo model which uses digital as the lead channel to capture the audience in a prolonged and engaging way.

Positioned as a high-end yet affordable car, and targeting the 20-34-year-old audience, the campaign for the brand's first super-mini model puts an online game at the centre of its marketing drive.

Apparently Alfa Romeo allocated 40% of its budget to online in order to promote the car, creating a rally game which has separate racing levels split across ten sites, including MSN, Top Gear and GQ.

The game, which you can join at a central hub at mymitorally.co.uk, will last until June, and encourages players to visit all the sites on which the game is seeded to beat the scores of other players. Players can win prizes including Nintendo Wiis and iPods, with the overall champion winning an Alfa Romeo MiTo.

The MiTo campaign also includes a mobile site, with gamers able to receive mobile alerts about their progress.

The game is supported by its first ever affiliate marketing activity, a high-profile branding campaign including TV, print and radio spots, which all push consumers online.

Mobile phone scheme aims to eradicate tuberculosis

2009-02-06T15:21:00.001Z

An incentive scheme for TB patients, which rewards people for taking their medicine, has been developed by students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Tuberculosis kills millions of people every year despite the fact that effective treatment exists, and the scheme was borne out of the challenge simply to get patients to take their medicine.

Called X Out TB, the scheme makes use of an indicator stick that can test for the presence of TB medicine in urine. If it tests positive, it reveals a code that the user can redeem for free mobile phone credit. Field tests have been carried out in Nicaragua, Pakistan and Indonesia.

X Out TB could be a breakthrough in monitoring patients in developing countries, who may not have easy access to medical centres. Importantly, the plan is a clear-cut incentive-based scheme that harnesses the power of popular technology – the mobile phone. With such simple encouragement, X Out TB puts forth a strong attempt to make sure sufferers take care into their own hands.

Art goes digital

2009-02-06T15:08:00.004Z

The finest details, usually unnoticeable to the human eye, are being picked out of paintings in a new online museum in Google Earth, using the best of the web to enhance a typically offline experience.

The paintings being shown online are from the Prado museum in Madrid, and with the use of Google Earth technology, viewers can zoom in on the small, easily missed parts of some the most famous paintings from the gallery.

First interactive TV show for mobile phones

2009-02-06T14:44:00.001Z

TV has just got more interactive with the launch of a new drama called Thmbnls created exclusively for mobile phones.

The shows, which will be broadcast on mobile networks, will allow viewers to use text messaging to send in their opinions and ultimately shape the course of the plot throughout the series, meaning viewers can personally interact with the characters and the issues they’re facing in a way that’s not been achieved before.

In our highly connected world, with an always-on work ethic, the New Millennial generation is starting to see these tools as providing a resource for their everyday entertainment.

Google Earth 5.0 – Oceans, Time-lapse, and Mars!

2009-02-05T16:45:00.000Z

Google has launched a new version of Google Earth which allows users to explore the oceans, track historical changes over time, create their own earth-tours, and explore the planet Mars.

Google teamed up with scientists from National Geographic, the US Navy and several other oceanographic associations to create the new ocean function which allows users to explore an interactive 3D map of the ocean floor, complete with thousands of data points containing videos and images of ocean life.

Google Earth 5.0 also displays satellite images of locations over a specific expanse of time, from years to decades. For example, you can look back over the last decade and see the melting of the glaciers image by image.

Google Earth's new Touring application allows users to create a shareable, narrated, fly-through tour by using a record button.

Also announced was the 3D Mars application, which was created in conjunction with Nasa. Users can explore the red planet, read geo-located excerpts about different locations, or observe where various Mars Rovers and Landers have touched down.

MSN Mobile launches music download service

2009-02-05T11:10:00.005Z

Microsoft has launched a music download service on MSN Mobile which allows users with internet-enabled phones to purchase and download music via their mobile.

The new service is available across all UK network operators and boasts a catalogue of up to one million tracks, 25,000 Realtones and 10,000 Music Videos from record labels such as Sony Music and Warner Music.

Users can purchase full tracks for £1.50 via the PayForIt billing framework; appearing on the user's monthly bill for post-pay contracts, or debited directly from pre-pay mobile plans.

Consumers enter www.msn.co.uk into their phone internet browser and select the music service from the menu, or alternatively text MSN to 63463 to recieve a link to the service.

Twitter used for global fundraising events

2009-02-05T11:00:00.001Z

Continuing on the topic of Twitter, users around the world are using the micro-blogging website to organise special fundraising events, dubbed “Twestivals”, to raise money for charity.

The events, or "tweet-ups”, will be held on 12th February 2009 and will raise money to support charity: water, a not-for-profit agency aimed at bringing clean drinking water to people in developing nations.

The individual Twestivals are being organised by volunteers and 100% of the proceeds goes directly towards the charity.

The first Twestival was held in London in 2008, and social tweet-ups like this are a great way for people to meet the faces behind the avatars while raising money for a good cause. There are over 100 cities officially signed for the event across Europe, the Americas, Asia Pacific and the Middle East.

This years London Twestival has over 400 followers, and separate spill-over events are being planned for those unable to get a ticket.

Twitter users can go to the Twestival website to find an event in their city, and can also follow @twestival for regular updates.

Twitter traffic increases 974%

2009-02-05T09:50:00.002Z

Traffic to Twitter has increased by 974% year on year, according to Hitwise UK.

The micro-blogging social network was ranked as the 291st most-visited website in the week ending 17 January 2009, while a year ago it ranked 2,953rd.

The amount of traffic Twitter sends to other websites has increased 30-fold over the last 12 months. Some 17.6% of traffic goes to entertainment websites, 14.6% to social networks, and nearly 10% to news and media websites. Just 6.6% of traffic goes to blogs and 4.5% to online retailers.

Twitter is one of the fastest growing sites in the UK and if anything, the service is even more popular than the numbers imply as Hitwise only measures traffic to the main Twitter site. If people access their Twitter accounts via mobile phones and third-party applications (such as Twitterrific, Twitterfeed and Tweetdeck), the numbers could be even higher!

Facebook blocks Burger King's Whooper Sacrifice campaign

2009-02-05T09:46:00.000Z

Burger King has dropped its Whopper Sacrifice campaign on Facebook after the social networking site demanded it be altered, citing a violation of its privacy policy.

The promotion, which Burger King launched a few weeks back, rewarded Facebook users with a free Whopper coupon if they dumped 10 Facebook friends.

A total of 233,906 Facebook users found themselves "de-friended" in the name of a Whooper before Facebook requested the application by changed. Usually when a friend is removed on Facebook, no announcement is made, however the Whopper Sacrifice application created an update to inform the deleted friend that they had been "sacrificed for a free Whopper".

Facebook objected to the de-friending notification on the grounds that it would disrupt users' privacy expectations.

Facebook stated that although they encourage creativity from brands and developers they had to ensure that applications follow users' expectations of privacy, and that this application facilitated activity that ran counter to user privacy by notifying people when a user removes a friend.

Facebook did approach Burger King with some suggested solutions, but Burger King decided to pull the campaign rather than continue the application with restrictions.

The Whopper Sacrifice website now reads: "Whopper Sacrifice has been sacrificed."

Virgin Atlantic’s plans to roll out global travel community - Vtravelled

2009-01-28T12:47:00.001Z

It appears that Virgin Atlantic is preparing a major push into social media with the launch of a community site called Vtravelled.

Vtravelled will be a dedicated travel portal which aims to tap into the 'inspirational' travel market, allowing visitors to organise and share their travel plans with friends and family.

Virgin Atlantic will soft launch the site on 28th February to Virgin Atlantic Flying Club members staff, cabin crew and Richard Branson's VIP contacts, and it is then hoping to recruit 2m founding members ahead of a public rollout in June, extending the community to a worldwide audience.

This follows Virgin Atlantic sacking 13 staff in November for using Facebook to criticise its safety standards and calling its passengers "chavs".

The travel market has come under increased pressure from the economic downturn, and according to ComScore, unique visitors for airline sites have fallen by an average of 19%, while in December 2008 Virgin Atlantic's traffic dropped 15% year on year, down to 372,000 unique users.

Phase one of Vtravelled will see Virgin Atlantic help ignite ideas for new trips by featuring 800 destinations with a strong focus on images and maps. It's then understood the airline is considering bringing a booking service onto the site in a bid to monetise traffic.

The site will also include “Trip Pods”, enabling travellers to put together their travel plans, to which friends can be invited to join the area, share photos, notes and chat. Brands will also be able to sponsor a Trip Pod, allowing users to view possible itineraries created by companies.

Virgin Atlantic believes there is a gap in the market that could be filled with inspirational ideas, and is aiming to associate itself with this sort of stimulation, hoping people will think of the site when making a travel decision. They also believe the global site will be a way for people to find personal travel content.

The site will be targeted at people who take holidays more than three times a year, with a focus on UK and US audiences. It plans to position it as a must-visit destination and aims to be the only truly global travel community site.

Their move follows a number of social media projects by rival airlines. Last year British Airways capitalised on the travel community market with the launch of Metrotwin, a social site twinning the best of London and New York.

This month Air France and KLM jointly launched social network Bluenity, enabling passengers to share tips from fellow customers.

EasyJet is also creating a dedicated portal allowing users to explore destinations and book flights. A redesign of its site to improve functionality is due to be rolled out this quarter, followed by the incorporation of its Inflight magazine site, which features destination information and downloadable phrasebooks.

Google to replace hard drives with Gdrive

2009-01-28T10:22:00.000Z

Google is believed to be on the verge of launching Gdrive, a new free service which will allow users to store the entire contents of their hard drives on the internet.

According to reports, Google is looking to launch Gdrive next year, and would potentially mean that any device with an internet connection could perform the tasks of a PC.

The free service would be powerful enough to boot up programmes and, potentially, a Google operating system, and would be an extension of Google's current online data storage product tied into its Gmail email offering, which allows users to store documents and images.

However there are concerns among privacy campaigners over whether it is a good idea to allow such a quantity of commercial and private data to be available online, and with Google’s past reputation on privacy, would you trust them?

Gdrive would rival Microsoft’s Sky Drive which offers 25GB of free storage, but has a limit of 500MB per file. The current beta version of Sky Drive automatically synchronises files across the PC, mobile and web.

3D desktop scanner

2009-01-23T16:05:00.000Z

Borrowing technology used in medical imaging, the Real-View 360 3D desktop scanner scans any object that fits on its rotating base, and produces a full three-dimensional electronic depiction on a computer screen.

Artists, designers and manufacturers will likely welcome the capability to produce realistic digital interpretations of physical objects and send images of prototypes or renderings to clients or press agents.

But with cheaper versions of the device also coming to market, the technology will not be reserved for the professional. eBay sellers, for instance, will soon have the perfect device to produce realistic images for their online auctions.

Elsewhere, consumers at large could use the device to send brands desired alterations to existing products, with a view to having them updated and modified according their own tastes and desires.

Global internet audience surpassed 1bn in December 2008

2009-01-23T15:39:00.001Z

The global internet audience surpassed 1 billion in December 2008, according to ComScore World Metrix.

The Asia-Pacific region accounted for the largest share of internet users at 41.3%, followed by Europe (28%), North America (18.4%), Latin America (7.4%) and the Middle East and Africa (4.8%).

The most popular internet property in December worldwide was Google Sites with 777.9m visitors, followed by Microsoft Sites (647.9m visitors) and Yahoo Sites (562.6m visitors). Facebook.com has grown 127% in the last year to 222m visitors, meaning it now ranks as the seventh most popular internet property in the world.

Airport movie kiosks

2009-01-23T15:09:00.006Z

Logan Airport, Boston USA, has just unveiled the Moviecle airport kiosk which serves downloadable in-flight entertainment to travelers.

The movie kiosk allows passengers to download digital content – including movies, TV shows, travel guides and games – onto their laptop.

A full-length film can be transferred in just two minutes, which means the kiosk can be a mere pit stop between security check and departure gate.

More Moviecles are expected to appear in airports across North America over the coming year – just one of several new innovations designed to distribute movies in this post-illegal download climate.

Fresh & Easy takes up Twitter

2009-01-21T12:16:00.004Z

Fresh & Easy, the US retail chain and owner of Tesco, has signed on to social networking website Twitter to communicate with its customers.

The convenience store chain's Twitter profile already has over 900 customers signed on to receive regular updates, and the company's management is using the website to announce new store openings or seasonal offers, while answering customer queries and solving issues with a human response.

One customer asked why stock was "a little sparse" over the last couple of visits - Fresh & Easy replied that stock tended to be lower at the end of the day due to shipping schedules. They even joked with a customer about the large number of people attending a store opening in California, with a link to a Flickr page showing a photo of the queue outside the store.

The chain also offers recipe suggestions and updates about its charity work in the US, and also keeps customers updated with a company blog.

Other US corporations using Twitter to engage customers include McDonalds, which uses the website for its annual Monopoly competition, and Starbucks who have over 30,000 followers, and recently used Twitter to debunk myths that the company was funding the Israeli army after a number of customers began to boycott its stores.

However, companies in the UK have been slow to take up the microblogging service, and Tesco itself does not have a Twitter page. Virgin Media has a Twitter page but only has 94 users signed up to receive updates!

Pope to launch YouTube channel

2009-01-21T12:07:00.003Z

Catholic devotees will soon be able to watch online video footage and sermons by Pope Benedict XVI when the Vatican launches its own YouTube channel this week.

The channel, which is due to be officially unveiled on the 23rd January 2009 will use content supplied by Vatican Radio and the Vatican Television Center. Church events will also be covered in addition to the Pope's pronouncements and teachings. The channel aims to cater for everyone from the curious to the religion's more devoted followers.

The move onto YouTube will be one of the Catholic Church's biggest online developments since it launched its website in 1995. There is also a website dedicated to the Vatican City State featuring a webcam permanently trained on the tomb of the last Pope, John Paul II.

American Idol moves into Habbo

2009-01-21T11:53:00.001Z

US TV show 'American Idol' is to join forces with Habbo, the online community for teenagers, as part of a brand extension that will include merchandising and sponsorship within an 'American Idol' virtual world.

Partnering with Habbo will bring a unique virtual experience to American Idol’s teen user base and will be a great opportunity to deepen the user's association with the show and increase the reach and interaction of the brand with their core viewers.

There are currently Habbo communities in 33 countries on six continents, and to date over 121m Habbo characters have been created with more than 11.5m unique users worldwide visiting Habbo each month.

YouGov launches social media tracker

2009-01-21T11:05:00.000Z

Research firm YouGov has launched a quarterly social media tracker to monitor consumers' use of social networks and their levels of engagement.

There have been recent calls for social networks to put monetisation above growth in order to survive, and the report, the first part of research which is completed next month, aims to help advertising and media agencies understand user behaviour in a bid to increase monetisation.

The challenge for social network websites is to find a way to take advantage of their audience and make money from their product. Appealing to advertisers is an obvious route, but finding the best way to engage with those using this channel needs further consideration.

Obtaining a comprehensive, reliable profile of how people are interacting with social media - whether it's for staying in touch, sharing pictures or recommending new music or products - will certainly prove invaluable to agencies.

The research will be based on interviews with 2,000 consumers and will discover which social networks users are members of, how often they visit, and their reaction to the types of ads on the sites.

YouTube launches new homepage ads to boost revenues

2009-01-20T10:11:00.000Z

YouTube has rolled out a series of new and revamped homepage ads as Google continues its bid to boost the video-sharing site's revenues.

The new formats include the first click-to-play and autoroll expandable ads, as well as a masthead position, following testing with selected advertisers over the past few months.

The move comes a month after Google released data claiming YouTube users are 1.5 times more attentive to, and engaged in, advertising than TV viewers.

Google has been experimenting with ad formats on YouTube since buying the site for $1.76bn (£1.17bn) in 2006. In November it launched Sponsored Videos, a video ad auction model similar to the AdWords search product.

Apple App Store reaches 500m downloads

2009-01-20T09:58:00.000Z

Apple has announced that 500m applications have been downloaded via its online App Store.

The company's website claims that iPhone owners have downloaded 500m apps in categories from games to business. It adds that the service now offers visitors a choice of more than 15,000 premium and free apps.

The figure shows that demand for iPhone apps has continued to surge following an impressive start, which saw 100m iPhone Apps downloaded in the first 45 days following the launch of the App Store.

Micro mobile: Wrist phone is launched

2009-01-20T09:21:00.003Z

The world’s smallest 3G-enabled phone – a mobile phone worn on the wrist – has just been launched at CES in Las Vegas.

The device is meant to demonstrate that people may no longer need both a wristwatch and a mobile phone in their pocket, but could instead opt for a hybrid solution that combines the functionality of a mobile phone with the aesthetic and functional possibilities of the wristwatch.

It’s a design solution many manufacturers are now working on, as consumers in their 20s forsake wristwatches for the digital display on their mobiles.

The GD910 wrist phone by LG goes a good way towards this solution, with a product that features a tiny touchscreen that also allows for video telephony.

Aside for budding spies and James Bond types, the highly functional watch is yet another design likely to appeal to a growing mass of cross-culture workers dubbed the Bleisure (the blurring of the lines between business and leisure) generation.

Burger King bribes people to remove Facebook friends

2009-01-12T12:14:00.001Z

Burger King US has released a new Facebook application that gives users a free Whopper when they delete 10 friends from their profile page.

Facebook users can visit the Whopper Sacrifice website to install the application, and select 10 friends they wish to remove from their friend list for a free Whopper voucher.

Usually when a friend is removed on Facebook, no announcement is made, however the Burger King application creates an update to inform the deleted friend that they have been "sacrificed for a free Whopper" on their wall and also includes links to install the Whopper Sacrifice application or join the group.

Puma’s virtual retro wardrobe

2009-01-12T12:12:00.002Z

Puma has created an online application that lets users upload a personal photo to mix and match with past Puma clothing styles as part of their "I am 60" campaign.

The Puma Past Masher lets users create their own personalised fashion model where they can try out different styles from the 1940s through to the 1990s. Personal notes and comments can also be added to custom-designed images, which can then be exported to Facebook and Flickr.

Puma also features the most recent creations on its website.

Brands and PlayStation Home

2008-12-22T16:26:00.002Z

PlayStation Home is a ground-breaking 3D social gaming community available on PlayStation 3 that allows users to interact, communicate and share gaming experiences together.

Within Home, users can create and customise their own unique avatars and explore a real-time virtual community where they can communicate freely through text or voice chat.

Users are not only able to enjoy a variety of entertainment content such as mini-games, videos and special events along with their friends, but are also able to create their own community, creating clubs with other users who share the same interests.

PlayStation Home is unique to anything else in the gaming world, and by partnering with both global and regional gaming and non-gaming brands they are able to offer exciting and entertaining content that enhances the PlayStation experience.

Red Bull became the first brand to build a presence in PlayStation Home by creating a tropical island, featuring an airplane racing game based on their real world Red Bull Air Race series.

Diesel has just taken a key position as one of the first interactive advertisers on the new platform, accompanying contemporary furniture designers Ligne Roset, film studio Paramount Pictures, and video content providers Hexus TV and Eurogamer, by offering residents of Home virtual clothing and virtual accessories. Diesel is offering the latest men's and women's designer avatar clothing through the platform, with items ranging from free-of-charge to £1.30.

PlayStation Home not only offers Diesel an online retail outlet and the chance to engage with its target audience in a new way, but more importantly demonstrates how media can close the loop, moving from a communication to a distribution channel – in many ways the new aspiration for retail brands.

Home represents an opportunity for brands to create memorable and rich content, and gives brands the first opportunity to recreate in the gaming world what they to do in the real world - facilitating interaction, giving people stories, memories, experiences, and a really good opportunity to interact with the brand. Home also provides the opportunity for gamers and brands to generate revenue.

Home is starting to show advertisers and marketers how in-game advertising can be used effectively, and is opening up the medium to more brands as it’s an easy environment for brands to take that first step into gaming.

YouTube launches dedicated section for HD content

2008-12-22T11:17:00.001Z

YouTube has begun a push of its new high definition (HD) content with the launch of a dedicated section of the site.

Visitors to the site are now also able to watch HD content from publishers including EA and Sega in a new large video player.

As part of the changes YouTube has also rolled out new sections such as News, Music and Movies, which are dedicated to presenting the latest uploads in each area.

The decision to launch a dedicated HD section follows the introduction of the format across the site earlier this month.

Barclays launches first "brand concept" bank branch

2008-12-22T11:12:00.002Z

Barclays has launched what it is calling the first "brand concept" bank branch in the UK – a branch of the future piloting digital technology.

The branch at Piccadilly Circus, which opened its doors last week and officially launches at the end of January, embraces innovative technology and design.

Barclays has become the first bank in Europe to pilot Microsoft Surface technology, which allows users to grab digital content with their hands and navigate information with simple gestures and touches – a technique reminiscent of the film 'Minority Report'.

A major feature of the branch, and the first aspect visitors see is 'Being:London', an interactive and evolving installation representing London and it's people. The display graphically represents the city on a large video wall using content from blogs, showcasing Londoners' interests, ideas and concerns.

Personal consoles also allow people to contribute to the installation and explore relevant information from Time Out.

Outside of opening hours, the front of the branch is transformed into the 'Night Life' installation screen, which picks up the image of passers by using face recognition technology and cameras, and creates moving silhouettes on the screen with thought bubbles containing random messages.

Customers in the branch are also be met by floor-walking staff equipped with handheld PCs to answer queries without the need to wait in line.

The branch, or “store” as Barclays call it, has full banking functionality and has taken inspiration from retailers such as Apple and Nike in developing a space that attracts and engages individuals while conveying what the brand represents.

Bebo’s Social Inbox

2008-12-11T15:16:00.000Z

Bebo has just released a new social media tool, Social Inbox, which collects and organises feeds from Twitter, Flickr, Del.icio.us, together with other online services such as Gmail, Yahoo!, AOL Mail, and YouTube.

Bebo wants this new platform to solve the problem facing consumers online, namely, a cluttered and fragmented social networking experience that makes keeping up-to-date with others increasingly difficult.

Social Inbox pools updates and information from other sites into one place, based on technology from newly acquired company Social Thing. Social feeds can be organised in chronological order and grouped by person, and also include a localised RSS feed reader for global news. The site also provides one-click access to email servers, Gmail, Yahoo! and AOL, where users can preview their email without having to go from site to site.

A media favourites section also lists what friends are watching and listening to, pulling content from Bebo's extensive online media collection, with programming from over 500 media companies including MTV, ESPN, CBS and BBC.

New world advertising - The Bubble project

2008-12-10T16:38:00.001Z

What started out as an anti-advertising campaign by artist and art director Ji Lee in New York back in 2002 has now developed into an idea with the potential to take ads closer to consumers.

The original aim of the Bubble project was to “counterattack the one-sided corporate onslaught of marketing and advertisement messages that propagate public space”. But far from being subversive, it now it seems to be the way forward.

The Bubble project started when Ji printed 15,000 stickers, die cut into the shape of speech bubbles, and started pasting them onto posters. The passing public then started to add comments to these blank bubbles, of which he then photographed and posted on the web. Yes this could be seen as heavy socio-political stuff, but in our industry surely we need people to challenge us?

In 2006 Ji published a book on the Bubble project called 'Talkback', and rather than attack advertising, he embraced the new era of advertising. By filling in the bubbles, consumers were engaging in the idea and transforming “the corporate monologue into an open dialogue”. In the world of social networking and community engagement this is a brilliant idea. An idea which has now spread globally. In the UK you can join it through Facebook (or type in The Bubble Project (UK) into groups).

But as a brand, or a traditional agency, you could see it two ways. Old school – You are defacing my ad. New school – You are ‘enfacing’ my ad. (Enfacing is a new term for taking something dull, and making it more interesting). Those bubbles on the poster are designed to create social comment. And why not? Shouldn’t customers have a voice?

The idea that we just talk AT the public is fast becoming outdated and irrelevant, and will no doubt freak out many brands and agencies. But the few that want to be progressive will more than likely embrace this as a concept. Surely we should be looking to developed concepts that allow the public to make their message more important than the brands. In fact I think it’s only a matter of time before we see a campaign for a top brand that looks like it’s a victim of the Bubble project, but is in fact manipulating it.

These ideas are making the more innovative minds in adland think. We are living in a world of co-creation and collective thinking, so the idea that consumers can interact with ads has to be the way forward. The old style creative team can be replaced by consumer creativity and a creative director who filters, develops and manages the ideas.

The Bubble project may seem like a bit of fun, or even anarchist, but it’s more significant than that. What it really signifies is that the consumer is now in control, not the brands. And as a consequence the role of agencies as the ideas creator could now be questionable.

Twilert - Follow tweets about your brand

2008-12-08T18:23:00.002Z

Monitoring the twitterverse has just become even easier with Twitter’s new free service called Twilert.

Twilert works in much the same way as Google Alerts and lets you receive regular email alerts containing tweets that contain specific keywords or phrases.

It's useful for those that want to track conversation and opinion on a brand, company or product on Twitter, but don't have the time to manually sit in front of a Twitter Search page 24 hours a day.

Flickr revamps mobile site with video function

2008-12-08T09:33:00.002Z

Photo sharing site Flickr has finally revamped its mobile site to allow visitors to play videos via their phones.

The new functionality, based on the Yahoo Video platform, is initially only available to consumers accessing the site via an iPhone and iPod Touch, with wider handset roll-out planned in the near future.

Other updates to the site include the ability to add contacts, favourite images, and change privacy and permission settings.

This new Flickr mobile experience reflects the possibilities that today's advanced and rich mobile web has to offer.

Rival video sharing site YouTube launched on mobile in June 2007.

Social Media Monitoring Tools

2008-11-26T16:31:00.054Z

Discovering what consumers are saying about a brand, their products, their services, or even their competitors, is becoming ever more important in what we do.

Social Media conversations are the fastest growing segment of the web – with more than 1 million new articles posted on a variety of sites and communities every day.

People are talking about brands, products, services, and people. Moreover with today’s digital communication tools they are publishing their thoughts to a worldwide audience. They write on blogs and in online communities, and they share pictures and videos on popular sites. Paying attention to these online conversations is a new imperative for anyone who cares about a brand’s reputation.

As more consumers turn to "peer-to-peer" web communications as their trusted source of news, information, and opinions, this growing phenomenon is creating a new generation of "brand influencers" who are collectively altering perceptions and purchase decisions.

Brands need to connect with consumers online and participate in ongoing social media dialogue about their products and services, so to be successful we need to understand the landscape of social media, including the most important sites, communities, and the most influential consumers.

Although there are several fee-based buzz monitoring services available, I have compiled a list of free, simple to use, but extremely valuable social media monitoring tools and techniques that will allow you to keep track of a brand’s reputation, or even spy on the competition.

All of these tools are very powerful methods for gaining information and intelligence, and uncovering what people are saying online about our clients and their competitors, all of which can help us produce more insightful work for our clients.

The Full Service
You don’t have to be a developer in order to create your own custom buzz monitoring tool. Thanks to Yahoo Pipes, you can quickly set up your own RSS tracking, complete with filters, for anything you want.

Search Queries

Using Google is the easiest way to find out the overall impression of a brand online. You can start off by simply making sure a site even appears in search results. Then you can get a little more clever by trying queries such as “[brand X] sucks”, “I love [brand X]”, “[brand X] is horrible”, etc.

Keyword Alerts

You can keep track of the latest buzz via email using Google Alerts, which lets you track web, blogs, news and groups for any phrase you want. Select “daily”, “weekly” or “as it happens” updates and you’ll get an email whenever a particular keyword(s) that you select is mentioned. You can create several alerts for things such as brand name, product name, etc., and even for terms to monitor negative comments.

Search Query Trends
What search queries are popular on Google right now? Thanks to Google Trends you can get an idea of which keywords are most searched for. You can narrow your research to specific countries or cities – letting you know if a product has global or local appeal.

Industry News

If you simply don’t have time to track everything that specifically relates to a brand, or it’s competition, you can still track news that relates to its industry. Moreover and Yahoo are just a couple of resources that offer RSS feeds for aggregated industry news.

Mainstream News

One of the best ways to track mainstream media mentions of a brand is to use Google News. Enter the brand name, sort the results by date published, and then subscribe to the RSS feed. You’ll get instant RSS updates of any news items that mention the brand.

News Buzz

It’s one thing to track any news that relates to a business, but if you just want to know about the news that becomes popular then sites such as Digg and Reddit will let you search for submitted stories that match a company name. Subscribe to the resulting RSS feed and you’ll know about any story that mentions the company – or their rivals.

Real Time Buzz
Serph is a very valuable tool that tracks keywords or phrases in real time. Serph doesn’t just look at search results it looks at all the available online information out there and it does so in real time. If you want to get a good snapshot for a particular term or phrase then Serph is the way to do it.

Social Media News

By the time a hot news story gets picked-up by the mainstream media, it could have made the rounds for days in the blogosphere. Technorati is one of the best options for tracking social media sites. Custom RSS feeds let you get quick updates on any blog that utters a brand’s name.

Blog Posts

If a blog happens to ‘ping’ the blogosphere, the chances are that it will get on Google Blog Search. Even if the blog isn’t in Google news, or doesn’t make the main Google index, Google Blog Search might still find that story that mentions a recent product launch. You can get alerts to matching stories via email or RSS.

Blog Comments

Sometimes tracking a blog post doesn’t reveal the full conversation about a brand. The blog post might be positive, but those leaving comments could still attack its reputation. Services such as co.mments.com track the comments left on blogs. You can search for a brand and subscribe to the RSS feed for instant updates.

Blog Conversations

A negative blog post appears on a low-trafficked blog and there are no comments to track. End of story? Not quite, what if a very popular blogger picks up on the story? It could spread very quickly. Blogpulse’s conversation tracker helps you track who’s linking to that blog post about a brand.

Blog Trends

How well is a competitor’s new product launch going? Blogpulse trends lets you track whether a keyword is getting growing blog mentions or not.

Tags

Wouldn’t it be great if you could enter a keyword and see who used that word as a “tag”? How much better would it be if you could see matching tags across more than a dozen sites? Keotag.com does just that, making it easy for you to track if someone tags a page using a brand or product name.

Brand Tags

The basic idea of brand tags is that a brand exists entirely in people's heads, therefore, whatever they say a brand is, the brand is. Brand tags is a collective experiment in brand perception in which all the tags are generated by people so you can see what people actually think a brand is.

Forum Posts

Sometimes the most important conversations don’t happen on blogs. Forums and message boards can host conversations about a brand and you’d never know about it. Sites such as Boardtracker.com keep an eye on popular forums and alert you by RSS if a company is mentioned in a thread.

Consumer Complaints

Ripoff Report is a worldwide consumer reporting website and publication, by consumers, for consumers, to file and document complaints about companies or individuals.

Keyword Referrals

Sure you could probably take an educated guess as to which sites might get the most traffic for a particular keyword, but it’s more useful to actually spy on the competitors. Compete’s Search Analytics allows you to enter a keyword and see which websites are getting traffic for that keyword.

Site Referrals

Maybe you’re not sure which keywords you should target for an SEM campaign. Compete’s Search Analytics will also let you enter any domain name and see which keywords are driving traffic to that site, so you can see which keywords competitors are targeting.

Bookmarks

Remember the days when customers would bookmark a site and you would never knew about it? Thanks to online bookmarking services such as del.icio.us more people are sharing their bookmarks online. RSS feeds make it easy to track whenever someone bookmarks a web page that includes mention of a company.

Twitter Search

Twitter search is a great way to find out what people on twitter are talking about. Twitter search is a search engine for twitter and it’s an extremely valuable twitter monitoring tool. You can see what people are saying about a brand or a particular topic.

Photos

Did an employee release a photo of a new product? Did someone snap a photo of the MD leaving a strip-club? The chances are that they might upload it to image hosting sites such as Flickr. You can subscribe to an RSS feed that will update you on any new image that matches a company or product name.

Videos

Google Video recently switched focus to index videos from many online hosting sites (such as YouTube and MetaCafe). Now you can keep track of videos that include brand names.

Changing Information

Wikipedia is one of the most trusted resources for information on the web. You might be interested in any updates to a company profile, or maybe if your competitor is trying to remove links to a website. Fortunately you can track change history for any Wikipedia page by clicking on the “history” tab and have the changes sent to your RSS reader.

Job Listings

If a competitor wants to start a new service or launch a new product, the chances are they’ll need to hire new staff to achieve this. Classifieds search engine Oodle scours many online job listings and aggregates the information in a central location. Set up RSS feeds for searches on competitors and you’ll know whenever they list a vacant position.

Financial Filings
You can get a good feel for the financial health of publicly-traded companies by keeping a close eye on their SEC filings. Use Edgar Online to see if they are subject to an SEC investigation or if they are dumping stock!

Conference Calls

Sometimes you can learn competitive information by listening to a company’s conference calls. SeekingAlpha lets you subscribe to an RSS feed of conference call transcripts. Open up the transcript and you can quickly get a snapshot of their financial health, or new product launch.

Patents

Keeping track of patent filings was notoriously difficult before Google Patent Search came along. Now you can keep any eye on patents filed that relate to your industry, or even ones that might violate company held patents.

Events

Yahoo’s Upcoming lets you get RSS alerts on any new event that matches selected keyword. You can keep track of conferences that you might want to attend, or sponsor. In addition, you can keep track of seminars or meetings being held by competitors.

New Products

Say you want to get some ideas of products that might be hot right now. The community tagging section in Amazon.com lets you view product “tags”, and then review similar tags. You can use this to get an idea of companion products.

Mobile internet use up 25%

2008-11-24T16:31:00.002Z

Mobile internet usage is growing eight times faster than PC-based internet according to the first set of mobile data from Nielsen Online.

The Mobile Media findings show that mobile internet traffic increased 25% from 5.8m in Q2 to 7.3m users in Q3 2008. In comparison PC-based internet only had a 3% growth from 34.3m to 35.3m.

The survey found that mobile internet is increasingly popular among young people, with 25% of mobile internet users aged 16-24, with just 12% being older than 55.

BBC News is the most popular mobile internet site, attracting 1.7m unique users in Q3. This was followed by Google, Facebook and Hotmail, highlighting the advantage of mobile when it comes to immediacy.

Mobile internet traffic also accounted for the majority of page visits to sites like BBC Weather, Sky Sports and Gmail.

People often need fast and instant access to content wherever they are, and mobile can obviously satisfy this. But the fact that weather, sports, news and email sites make up the majority of the leading mobile sites show that at the moment mobile internet is mainly about functionality and need, as opposed to the more entertainment and ecommerce-focused makeup of the leading PC-based sites.

However, the fact that so many people now access the web through their phone shows that mobile internet is fast becoming a viable opportunity for advertisers and publishers to reach important demographic groups.

Find Live Guy by Vodafone

2008-11-21T16:38:00.002Z

Vodafone have created a nice little campaign called Live Guy in which a Vodafone representative, dressed in a red jumper and boldly proclaiming “I'm Live Guy”, is heading round the UK as the focus of a treasure hunt.

The idea is that Live Guy moves around the country visiting 11 cities over a 12 day period, and uses a Dell Inspiron Mini 9 netbook’s wireless capabilities to get online and leave a live trail of clues to his whereabouts.

Hunters simply have to track him down using his route plan and the clues left on his blog and across social media sites, and confront him with the words “You're Live Guy and I'm a Vodafone winner” to be in with the chance to win a netbook.

Treasure hunters who are unable to meet Live Guy in person can also have the chance to win a netbook by sticking pins in a Google Map app to guess his location.

You can find out more, and join in the hunt, on the Live Guy website.

Google’s new customisable search feature

2008-11-21T14:27:00.003Z

Google has launched a new feature called SearchWiki, which allows users to rearrange and customise their search results.

The idea is for users to be able to tailor searches they may frequently use. For example, if someone searches for cinema listings, they can make a preferred site always come first in the search results even if it would usually come further down the list in the natural search.

SearchWiki also lets users add URLs for sites they would like to show up in the search in future, remove results they are not interested in, and even allows users to make notes on sites for future searches.

The feature is only available when a user is signed in with their Google account and does not affect the way other users receive search results.

Any changes only affect users own searches, but SearchWiki also is also a great way to share insights with other searchers as you can see how the community has collectively edited a search result by clicking on the 'See all notes for this SearchWiki' link.

Intel's Digital Drag Race

2008-11-19T18:00:00.001Z

Intel has launched a design challenge which pits designers in a head-to-head race to create the best animation in one hour.

Called the Digital Drag Race, designers must create a 17-second film based on the theme of speed, power, or innovation using three mandatory assets - a video, a music file, and a vector image.

Racers have one hour to create the film using Adobe's Creative Suite 4 on a computer powered by Intel’s latest chip the Core i7 Extreme Edition.

The Digital Drag Race site includes the professional films along with a user-generated section in which amateur designers can submit their films, together with a You Tube channel where all the videos are hosted.

User reviews more influential than brand websites

2008-11-19T15:52:00.003Z

Five years ago the internet was pretty much just an entertainment media. Today it has evolved into an effective everyday management tool that is enabling consumers to control and develop their lifestyle experiences, whether that is communication, entertainment, information gathering, or resource management.

As a result there is a wealth of opportunity for brands and advertisers to engage with these active consumers, but the challenge is to create campaigns that enable them to continue to feel in control.

According to a new report by the European Interactive Advertising Association (EIAA), two thirds of European internet users regard user reviews as being more important than a brands own website when deciding which products to purchase online.

The report states that 64 per cent of Europeans consider personal recommendations important when researching products and services, whilst only 49 per cent deem the websites of well-known brands to be important.

In addition, 41 per cent admitted to changing their mind about the brand they were about to buy based on online research.

Online research is also leading to more sales, with conversion rates increasing from 50 per cent in 2004 to 87 per cent in 2008.

In 2008, consumers made an average of 9.2 online purchases per person over a six month period, compared to 7.7 in 2007.

E-commerce has more than doubled since 2004, with 40 per cent of users making an online purchase in 2004, compared with 84 per cent in 2008.

Could this be the perfect mobile phone?

2008-11-18T13:06:00.031Z

We’re all still waiting for the perfect mobile phone right? And although there are plenty of great handsets out there, no-one has yet designed one that covers every single feature impeccably.

Well gadget magazine T3 in collaboration with design company The Alloy reckon they might have cracked it with the '01' - a phone that seamlessly integrates a camera, games machine, GPS unit, and full web browser in a sleek slice of black metal.

The 01 Phone comes with a large touchscreen display which can be operated using either your fingers or a multi-touch stylus, whilst tucked away inside is a full, multi-function QWERTY keyboard.

Although the original design had a suitably futuristic virtual laser keyboard which projected a keyboard-shape onto your lap or desk, in practical terms it wasn't smart enough to be included as was a bit uncomfortable to use.

Instead the slide-out QWERTY keyboard makes it easier to write messages, and even changes interface depending on the function being used on the phone at that time.

For example when using the camera, the keypad brings up camera-related buttons leaving the whole of the screen free to display the image. Likewise, when browsing the internet the keypad displays only internet-related buttons, and switching into the gaming mode means the keypad displays a full game controller set-up.

The back of the 01 Phone looks just as smart as the front with a 5-megapixel camera, and even contains a slide out 'mini-phone'. This mini-phone gives you basic functions, allowing you to make quick calls without the need to get the phone out of your bag or pocket. It's made of flexible material, so you can even wrap the mini-phone around your wrist!

Underneath the slide-out keypad are two pop out wireless earphones which can be molded into a comfortable shape to fit in your ear.

The project is still at the "wouldn't it be cool if…?" concept stage, but those behind it are serious about taking it further, as all the technology featured in the 01 Phone is possible, so there is no reason why manufacturers can't build something similar. In fact, The Alloy is currently creating a working prototype, so we may soon be able to get hold of our own 01 soon!

You can find out more and join the campaign to get the 01 made at: www.the01phone.com

Are agencies ready for the recession?

2008-11-13T12:38:00.004Z

As the credit crunch starts to bite there are stories emerging of job losses, agencies closing or looking for merger opportunities.

But it still appears that some agencies have not woken up to this reality and seem content with top heavy management, slow and inflexible processes, unrealistic creative, and a lack of analysis.

Agencies that seem to have abandoned the fundamental disciplines of proposition-driven creativity, targeting, testing, and ROI strategies that are so attractive to brands as we enter recession.

Even some of the pure-play digital agencies do not seem to have mastered the disciplines required to turn their technical skills into effective customer communications.

So how should an agency prepare for recession? As important as keeping costs under control, isn’t it commonsense that in a recession clients look for ROI and quick gains?

Now is the time to move more customers online and to be smarter with data and analytics in order to hone targeting and messaging. A time to test and use the results to establish why some ideas work better than others, and then to apply those learnings. A time to focus on propositions and benefits, and to show brands how we can improve their results for less than they currently spend.

Using social networking for recruitment

2008-11-10T16:00:00.002Z

According to recent research, the UK lags behind other European countries in recruitment-based social networking. The 'Aquent Orange Book 2008-2009' found that as a tool for talent acquisition, social media has yet to be fully tested or quantified in the UK with only 2% to 7% of UK candidates and employers using social networking websites for recruitment purposes.

However, 39% of German candidates, 34% of French candidates, 30% of Polish candidates and 23% of candidates from the Netherlands rated social networking sites as a preferred method of job seeking, as did 13% to 18% of employers in these regions.

The perceived risk is that candidates can expose themselves to potential discrimination and can also damage their employment prospects because their online footprint may not come across very favourably. For employers, it remains hugely labour-intensive, can be frustrating, and poses very real risks of brand damage and internal misuse.

But despite its flaws, social media is worth exploration and investment, especially as avenues like job boards and print media are becoming less effective and more expensive.

The survey also found that the demand for skilled digital specialists across London continues to increase, reportedly leading to high rates of staff turnover and short lengths of employment. The average length of service was found to be two years for staff in corporate sectors and digital agencies.

Meanwhile, staff turnover rates of 20% and greater were recorded for a quarter of digital and marketing staff in digital agencies. These high rates of employee churn have an obvious raw cost to the business, but at a deeper level they harm the competitiveness of many agencies at a time when securing market share is increasingly critical.

Caterham to produce user-generated sports car

2008-11-10T09:23:00.001Z

British manufacturer Caterham is giving enthusiasts around the world a chance to design its all-new sports car via the Web, in a partnership with "virtual car manufacturer" Project Splitwheel.

By joining the Project Splitwheel website, members from around the world are able to submit ideas and concepts for every single aspect of the new Caterham sports car, in what is believed to be the world's first project of this type.

Users can join for free and discuss and debate ideas with other users before ultimately voting on what makes it to the final vehicle.

The Splitwheel website will use a combination of articles, blogs, forum discussion, and a Wikipedia-style user-edited database to create the final design. Project Splitwheel will also provide guidance and input from automotive industry experts as required.

It’s every petrolhead’s dreams to run their own sports car company, so Project Splitwheel is effectively the world's first virtual car manufacturer. Once the final specification is agreed, Caterham will seek to produce a prototype vehicle, which could become an addition to its range as early as 2011.

Caterham has manufactured lightweight, two-seated roadster-style sports cars since the 1950s, including the classic Seven, and currently offers five models which range from £12,000 to £36,000 each.

Top brand websites still inaccessible on mobile

2008-11-04T16:00:00.000Z

According to a new report by Bango, ten of the twenty most visited websites still fail to work properly on leading mobile handsets.

Between three and five per cent of traffic to websites comes from mobile users, yet websites are not adapting fast enough to match mobile browsing trends, and are failing to present mobile-friendly versions of their sites.

Consumers who access sites from mobile phones often have a bad user experience which can potentially damage the reputation of the brand. Brands should now be asking which handsets, countries and languages matter most to their business, and developing a mobile strategy to match this.

The report, which analysed websites on a number of criteria, found that sites which translate well to mobile include eBay, YouTube, Yahoo!, Google, Amazon and Facebook.

Pepsi launches on-pack QR codes

2008-11-04T10:07:00.000Z

Pepsi is to launch on-pack and on-shelf mobile QR codes in a bid to increase consumer interaction with the brand.

Pepsi will encourage consumers to photograph the codes - which are unique barcodes that are recognised and translated to a web address by a mobile application - using their mobile phone in order to drive traffic to a dedicated mobile website.

The site includes content such as video clips from around the web, including Pepsi's own 'life-coach', Rusty, as well as mobile games.

The inclusion of QR codes on-pack is an innovative means for Pepsi to communicate and give something back to their consumers, and as consumers become familiar with the codes and their use, Pepsi will be looking to create further opportunities for utilising them in talking to their consumers.

QR codes are an exciting way of getting consumers involved, and although they are still relatively new in the UK, with a brand like Pepsi Max pushing them into the limelight, it should only aid the take up.

QR codes have previously been used by the BBC, The Sun and Harrods.

Tesco looks to become the heart of digital family life

2008-11-04T10:00:00.000Z

Tesco is to launch a combined interactive ‘pinboard’ and shopping portal in a bid to put the brand at the centre of household life.

The UK's largest retailer is aiming to revolutionise the way people shop online with an interactive desktop that links directly to Tesco.com, and aims to replicate a typical family fridge door.

The application is designed to be a message board and communication point within the homethat will enable user to sync calendars, notes and recipes with Tesco.com, have a shopping list that can be constantly updated, and place orders and arrange delivery without the need to open a browser.

Users can also 'pin' digital photos and messages to the screen, and Tesco aims to enable direct access to social networking sites like Facebook and Bebo.

The retailer had identified the increasing number of homes with PCs and laptops in the kitchen as an opportunity for them to go far beyond their current etail experience, with the idea of the solution being a hub, like people already do with a kitchen pinboard or their fridge.

Grocery shopping isn't very exciting on the web, so Tesco have embarked on a strategy to improve that and change the way people shop online, with the concept of ‘little and often’ rather than ‘one great big shop’, becoming more convenient.

The retail giant is also opening its programming interface (API) to encourage developers and brands to create applications for the new desktop in order to generate an immersive web experience.

They want to build a developer community around the Tesco API to push the concept of creating something that's more than simply grocery shopping. For example a recipe site could have an application on it with the ingredients linked to the users' Tesco.com account.

This is about creating functional utility attached to the Tesco brand, along with its products and services that ultimately drives an emotional as well as a rational connection to the brand as it becomes a more useful part of daily life.

The trial will run until the end of March 2009, and the project is part of a major strategic focus by Tesco to evolve the online shopping experience. The retailer has also announced an overhauled of Tesco.com in April next year.

Online sci-fi show: Kirill

2008-10-31T16:18:00.003Z

MSN and Endemol have launched Kirill, an interactive online sci-fi show.

The Kirill series will run for ten episodes of three minutes each, following the stories of two characters living in a mysterious world.

Produced by Endemol and Pure Grass Films the show will screen in High Definition through Microsoft Silverlight technology.

Kirill watchers will be invited to get involved with the show through character blogs, videos and audio films, which will be hidden across the web.

Secret websites will also be created to help watchers decipher clues about the plot and characters.

Kirill looks like a spectacular show that will let fans become fully immersed in the world of the characters, and the online broadcasts on MSN.co.uk means sci-fi fans can catch up on the latest episodes at home or on the move.

Online sci-fi show: Kirill

2008-10-31T16:18:00.002Z

MySpace launches Android application

2008-10-31T11:30:00.003Z

MySpace has created an Android application offering mobile access to its website to coincide with the UK release of the G1 Google phone.

The application will be available for free download on the Android Market - similar to the iPhone users' Apple Store - in anticipation of the official launch of the T-Mobile G1 in the UK.

MySpace is a natural fit for an optimized mobile experience, as users will now be able to access MySpace on the go. The MySpace Android application allows general MySpace access, instant photo uploads, and tour schedules and band profiles.

The new application also uses Shazam technology, which allows users to identify music by holding the phone towards an unknown song, which will then connect the user to the artist's MySpace page.

The MySpace Android integration has been one of the most download applications in the US marketplace since launch last week.

Esquire E-Ink Issue

2008-10-23T12:29:00.001+01:00

For the October issue of Esquire, they have released 100,000 issues with the world's first E-Ink magazine cover to celebrate their 75th anniversary.

The Special Collectors Edition – “The 21st Century Begins Now” contains an experiential E-Ink display – the same technology used in the Amazon Kindle and Sony Reader.

This is the first time it's been used in a magazine cover, however, and it looks pretty cool.

You can read more about it at Esquire.com.

The magazine contains two displays, and Esquire says the batteries should last 90 days or more, and that life can be extended by storing the magazine somewhere cold – like the refrigerator!

You can see a video of the cover here.

Ten things we will need to know in 2013

2008-10-23T10:26:00.003+01:00

I’ve just read a transcript of Andrew Marsden’s keynote speech at The Marketing Forum, and found his insights into what we will need to know in our business by 2013 very interesting.

Although the fundamental role of marketing will remain the same, the context in which we conduct it is going to be very different.

The question of what we will need to know in the future has often made me think, so I thought I would share his thoughts on this subject to.

Here is the summary:

Marketing will now need to think global and act within a global context in all that we do. We will have to deal with the changing economic relationships between east and west.
The significant movement into larger and larger cities by huge numbers of the global population will create market opportunities on an urban scale. Metro marketing techniques and services will flourish.
The rich elderly will need new products and services which reflect their differing life-stage ambitions.
Planet Health, both ours and the environment will be a permanent agenda item on the marketing list.
The war for resources will fundamentally change how we design, transport and cost our products. The era of cheap food and energy is over.
Marketers are the natural management discipline to assume a broader role in the emerging requirement for transparent company models.
As Marketers we will have to engaging, consult and interact with both staff and customers who are of a different generation type in new ways.
It is also time for marketers to get real about the so called ‘new media’. To evaluate it based on actual performance and not some naive generational ambition.
A major element of branded communications in 2013 will be about the 3Cs - Creation, content and co-operation. We will have to develop new IP models to deal with this emerging reality. We must strive to coordinate the image of the transparent company in the world, and we must embrace the leadership and coordination of the networks of stakeholders involved.
We will need new agency models to operate successfully in this world. Many of the future assets of companies will be intangible, and marketers will increasingly become managers of intellectual property.

In short marketing in 2013 will be just as demanding and rewarding a profession as ever.

You can read the full transcript, which includes fascinating statistics and detail here.

Teen Gaming Survey finds gaming is often a social experience

2008-10-21T12:09:00.000+01:00

The first survey of its kind in the USA finds that virtually all American teens play computer, console, or cell phone games, and that the gaming experience is rich and varied, with a significant amount of social interaction and potential for civic engagement.

The survey was conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, an initiative of the Pew Research Center and was supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

The primary findings in the survey are:

Game playing is universal, with almost all teens playing games, and at least half playing games on a given day.

Game playing experiences are diverse, with the most popular games falling into the racing, puzzle, sports, action and adventure categories.

Game playing is also social, with most teens playing games with others at least some of the time and can incorporate many aspects of civic and political life.

Another major finding is that game playing sometimes involves exposure to mature content, with almost a third of teens playing games that are listed as appropriate only for people older than they are.

You can read the full survey here.

Top 10 wish list for agencies of the future

2008-10-21T11:38:00.001+01:00

Sapient recently sponsored a national online digital marketing and interactive advertising survey to gain insight into what brands want from their advertising and marketing agencies in the next 12 months.

Survey respondents were asked about the top qualities they sought in their advertising and marketing agencies in the coming year, and based on the results a Top 10 Wish List for Agencies of the Future has been created:

1. Greater knowledge of the digital space. More than a third of marketers surveyed revealed that they are not confident that their current agency is well-positioned to take their brand through the unchartered waters of online digital marketing and interactive advertising. In fact 45% had switched agencies (or plan to switch in the next 12 months) for one with greater digital knowledge, or have hired an additional digital specialist to handle their interactive campaigns. It’s clear that agencies need to have a greater knowledge of the digital space in order to thrive, especially when it comes to an agency’s area of expertise, with 79% of respondents rating “interactive/digital” functions as ‘important/very important.’

2. More use of “pull interactions”. When trying to engage consumers with their brand, 90% agree that it is becoming increasingly important that their agency uses ‘pull interactions’ such as social media and online communities rather than traditional ‘push’ campaigns.

3. Leverage virtual communities. An overwhelming 94% of respondents expressed interest in leveraging virtual communities (public and private) to understand more about their target audience.

4. Agency executives using the technology they are recommending. 92% of respondents said it was ‘somewhat’ or ‘very’ important that agency employees use the technologies that they are recommending. For example, it is important that agency executives regularly use Facebook, Flickr, wikis, blogs, etc. in their personal social media mix.

5. Chief Digital Officers make agencies more appealing. 43% of the marketers surveyed said that agencies with Chief Digital Officers are more appealing than those without.

6. Web 2.0 and social media savvy. 63% said that an agency’s Web 2.0 and social media capabilities are ‘important/very important’ when it comes to agency selection.

7. Agencies that understand consumer behavior. 76% of respondents deemed this as an ‘important/very important’ aspect of their agency’s online digital marketing and interactive advertising area of expertise.

8. Demonstrate strategic thinking. 77% ranked strategy/brain trust capabilities at the top of their agency wish list.

9. Branding and creative capabilities. 67% ranked branding at the top of their agency wish list while 76% ranked creative capabilities as ‘important/very important.’

10. Ability to measure success. Marketers want an agency that can report on where campaigns succeeded, fell short, and where they should be fine-tuned, with 65% ranking analytics at the top of their agency wish list.

Brands want agencies that can deliver on these demands today, and as interactive channels becomes increasingly important, only those agencies that can create, manage, and measure multi-channel campaigns will stay relevant and thrive in an uncertain economy.

Bebo plans for six online TV productions in 2009

2008-10-20T11:32:00.004+01:00

Bebo has announced that it will be making a minimum of six original online productions in 2009 under a newly created programme banner “Bebo Originals”.

The productions will build on the success of its previous online dramas, such as 'KateModern' and 'Sofia's Diary' – which has since been broadcast on Channel Five.

It's been just over a year since the social media network launched KateModern and demonstrated the full potential of popular short form content broadcast over a social network, and Bebo has said it was developing and commissioning content for 2009 that would broaden out from successful dramas to encompass entertainment, reality and comedy.

The shows will be scheduled so that they are given an opportunity to perform on Bebo without competition, as well as offering promotional support across the network by building them into a constant schedule throughout next year.

The programming will fall in the three main categories:

Firstly Bebo Originals, which are the equivalent of a television broadcaster's original commission that benefits from the support and promotion of the network. These will be of the same quality of previous original commissions, 'KateModern', 'Sofia's Diary', and 'The Secret World of Sam King'.

Secondly there will be third-party productions created exclusively for air on Bebo, as well as programmes broadcast on traditional platforms. Examples include 'Meet The Freshers', which will airing next month on Bebo.

Lastly there are Open Media production deals struck with conventional broadcasters such as the BBC and Channel 4 and resulting in shows such as 'Fonejacker' and 'Top Gear' being aired on Bebo.

Nokia 7610 crossover campaign

2008-10-20T11:00:00.000+01:00

Nokia has launched a TV ad designed to pull people around the world into a web 2.0 drama following the lives of three young people over several weeks.

Supporting Nokia's 7610 handset, the TV spot introduces three characters Anna, Jade and Luca, starting with intrigue about one of them having listened to another's voicemail and sets the scene for how their lives might unfold.

Nokia is aiming to re-engage a younger audience with the campaign, which includes TV, print, outdoor and radio along with the digital elements in an integrated campaign which will run in 10 different languages through a constant feed of content for over six weeks.

Fans will be able to learn everything about the characters through their text messages, photos, videos and calls on somebodyelsesphone.com, as well as signing up to their Facebook pages to have a more personal conversation.

The microsite is supported by mobile content, interactive partnerships, widgets, Facebook pages, banner ads and a number of events in association with partners.

At the end of the six weeks, the characters' stories will confront crucial decisions that will affect their future. These questions will be shared with the audience, giving them the opportunity to influence the storylines themselves.

A goodbye from each character will then be revealed a few weeks after the campaign finale event on December 11 in Paris, when competition winners will have the chance to meet the cast.

Are robots are capable of intelligent thought?

2008-10-17T12:17:00.001+01:00

Last weekend an experiment took place in Berkshire to see if robots are in fact capable of intelligent thought.

Scientists at the University of Reading tested five machines to see if they could pass themselves off as humans in text-based conversations with people.

No robot has ever passed the Turing Test, which requires the robot to fool 30% of its human interrogators. The test was devised in 1950 by British Mathematician Alan Turing, who said that if a machine was indistinguishable from a human, then it was "thinking".

During the experiment, five artificial conversational entities (ACEs) competed in a series of five-minute long, unrestricted conversational tests where the ACEs tried to pass themselves off as humans to the judges.

The tests took place as part of the 18th Loebner Prize for artificial intelligence – an annual competition which awards prizes for the most human-like machine of those entered.

During the tests, all of the ACEs managed to fool at least one of their human interrogators, and one robot, Elbot, came close to passing by reaching 5% below the pass mark.

The results actually show a more complex story than a straight pass or fail. Where the machines were identified correctly by the human interrogators as machines, the conversational abilities of each were scored at 80% and 90%.

This demonstrates how close machines are getting to reaching the milestone of communicating with us in a way in which we are comfortable.

That eventual day will herald a new phase in our relationship with machines, bringing closer the time in which robots start to play an active role in our daily lives.

Google launches in-game ads

2008-10-16T11:56:00.001+01:00

Google is finally making progress into the in-game advertising sector with the beta launch of AdSense for Games.

The technology platform will allow brands to place relevant ads in web-based games, in an extension of Google AdSense, which matches ads to the content of websites.

The in-game ads will take the form of videos that players watch before or after a game, or after completing an individual level.

Google is working with select game developers and publishers including; Konami, Playfish, Zynga, Demand Media, games network Mochi Media, as well as advertisers such as Esurance, Sprint, and Sony Pictures.

The program will allow advertisers to reach the growing number of gamers who are engaged in online play, for instance, in anticipation of a sporting event, an advertiser could use the technology to feature its logo within that sports event's accompanying online game and reach its relevant demographic as a result.

According to comScore, over 25 per cent of Web users play online games every week, representing over 200 million global users

BBC to create open standard IPTV platform

2008-10-16T09:27:00.004+01:00

The BBC is looking to create an open industry standard IPTV platform to enable content providers to easily launch Internet TV services.

The service, codenamed Canvas, would potentially be available through a set-top box, and enable any service to build applications onto the platform.

Although yet to be approved by the BBC Trust, it would be an opportunity for the iPlayer to extend its functionality, and give a clean path into viewer’s living rooms with the richness and community that the Web offers.

Canvas is said to be at least 12 to 18 months away, and it is still unclear how it would be funded.

The BBC already makes its iPlayer content available in the living room through deals with Virgin Media, Nintendo Wii and Sony's PlayStation 3, and recently made a deal with Nokia to allow users of the Nokia N96 to download iPlayer programs.

The BBC is also looking into developing cross-platform widgets where users could be on the BBC Weather site and take content across with them as they browse the Web. For example, users may take a traffic widget and move it across onto their phone, so ultimately, taking the content with them wherever they want to go.

There are also reports of a children's iPlayer, which could ‘potentially’ launch by the end of the year.

BBC iPlayer had been a great success so far with usage figures cited at 92% of users streaming content, while the rest is downloaded. And since its launch, 220 million videos have been delivered, with users spending an average time of 20-22 minutes with the content.

Geo-location from Firefox

2008-10-13T17:14:00.003+01:00

Mozilla, the developer of the Firefox web browser, has released geo-location technology that allows Firefox to detect the physical location of the computer it is running on.

Called Geode, the program allows a website to request access to the users location by mapping out the wireless Internet signals in that specific area and showing the browser where that computer is located – accurate to within 10 to 20 metres.

Users can give out as much information as they want; from a specific area, to city, or country, and uses technology from GPS firm Skyhook, which does not store or use any personal identifying information, ensuring user privacy.

For example, this could become useful for people arriving in a new country and don’t know where they are, or where they could eat, so helps them get their bearings and finds what restaurants are within their vicinity. Geode automatically deduces their location, and displays some suggestions close by and plots the directions there.

However, Mozilla sees more potential for Geode than just restaurant lookups, and has invited Firefox users to post their ideas for the program on its Concept Series blog.

The project is an experimental add-on from Mozilla's full-blown geo-location program, which will be available on Firefox version 3.1.

A placid revolution

2008-10-09T15:02:00.003+01:00

In his book ‘Here Comes Everybody’ Clay Shirky recognised that revolutions don't happen when technology is introduced, but when it becomes ubiquitous.

Mobile has indeed achieved total saturation, but the use of content and services haven't followed suit, and has meant we are yet to see the fabled 'year of mobile advertising' revolution.

But with O2's prediction that mobile marketing spend is to grow 150% over the next five years it seems entirely feasible that it could happen so long as the channel helps itself to grow.

The opportunity lies in generating new spend from the thousands of clients yet to experiment with mobile, and although mobile is still ranked alongside social networking as a nice-to-have, rather than an essential, it will never be relevant for all.

But clever spend, in the right channels, will allows brands to punch above their weight, and potentially deliver an effective alternative.

So, in order to take full advantage, mobile must ensure it overcomes the ongoing hurdles of education, fragmentation and usability. If it fails, then the platform will never become ubiquitous, and any potential revolutions will be muted before they can even begin.

A Message From Earth

2008-10-09T14:30:00.002+01:00

The extra-terrestrial communication project, 'A Message From Earth', set up by social networking site Bebo, production company RDF, and one of the world's experts in interstellar radio communication, Dr Alexander Zaitsev, today beamed 500 messages into space in a digital time capsule.

Using a Ukrainian radio telescope, normally used to identify and track asteroids that pose a threat to Earth, the message is being beamed to a planet orbiting the star Gliese 581c – 20 light years, or 120 trillion-miles, from Earth – because it is believed to be capable of supporting life.

The Message From Earth project, which launched on 4th August 2008, invited Bebo users, celebrities and politicians to submit messages and pictures that "consider the planet from a fresh perspective", and raise awareness of environmental pressures on our planet.

Users posted entries and voted for the best ones on a dedicated Bebo page, of which the winning 500 were sent into space today – 9th October 2008.

Today's youth audience is always looking for ways to express itself and this project gives us a window into what people care about, from lighthearted fun, to the issues that really make people stop and think.

It is exciting to see how young people chose to represent humanity and the planet, and although some of the messages may be a little naïve, they do portray a creative and fresh look at the subject.

In the first month after launch the site attracted 350,000 visitors and 10m video views. Oli Madgett, who conceived the project, is now working on developing the next stage of the project, both in terms of integrating brands, rolling out into other territories, and launching a complementary TV proposition!

Calling time on drunken emails

2008-10-08T09:26:00.003+01:00

We’ve all sent those emotional emails we regret after stumbling home from the pub after an alcohol-fueled session.

If only there was some kind of drunkenness detector that could stop you from baring your virtual soul after a night on the funny juice.

But that sinking feeling you get the next day when you realise you’ve sent a pathetic plea for reconciliation with an old flame, or told your boss to take a running jump, could become a thing of the past.

Google have just unveiled a feature for Gmail called Mail Goggles which forces users to take a sobriety test when trying to send that late-night email. And what better way to verify if you’re in the right state of mind to send an email than by giving you some simple maths puzzles to solve.

The feature allows you to specify ‘danger zone’ times and days when you fear you might be a bit tipsy (say, after 11pm on Fridays and Saturdays) – and if you try to send an email after that, it'll force you to take a sobriety test.

If you're not of sufficiently sound mind to complete some basic arithmetic puzzles then you're also not in any fit state to be emailing anybody.

The idea is being tested in the mail labs and may become a standard feature for Google users if the pilot scheme is a success, and is an amusing step forward in making the Internet ‘booze-compliant’.

Now, if somebody could just make similar drunk-filters for Twitter and Facebook, then we could finally enjoy the glorious world of alcohol without the lurking terror that we're going to end up forwarding furry porn to our mums!

Understanding Viral Marketing

2008-10-07T12:47:00.003+01:00

Viral campaigns can be used to achieve a variety of different marketing objectives. Both agencies and brands must understand what a viral can and can’t do, and they must ensure that it fits in with the wider marketing strategy.

If a brand is scared of using viral then they probably don’t fully comprehend the medium, or have heard the negative stories of badly designed viral campaigns. But that isn’t an excuse for not using viral. Viral marketing can be used for a variety of interesting factors such as:

Buzz: To launch a product, act as part of an ignition campaign, or to create brand awareness
PR: To form the central ‘event’ around which a brand can sell PR stories into offline/online press
Data-capture: To increase an email database, or find out something about the audience by integrating a polling function
Direct sales: To drive traffic through to an e-commerce site and generate direct sales
Pure advertainment: Using the viral simply to entertain the audience, while constantly reminding them of the brand
Brand participation: Using the interactive nature of the viral to get people interacting with the brand

Viral marketing can be more sophisticated than just pure shock, tits, ass and the “ick” factor. Yes, it’s easy to exceed expectation by shocking the audience, however there are now more sophisticated and intelligent ways of making a viral campaign work. Nevertheless viral marketing doesn’t have to be overly complicated. Simple marketing mechanics like competitions can also work well, so brands shouldn’t ignore simplicity.

But a brand shouldn’t just do a viral because it is fashionable, or because their competitors are doing it, and choosing to use viral at the last minute is a common mistake. Brands will only get the most out of a viral if it’s planned early on as part of a wider campaign. The execution and creative of a viral should be determined by the campaign objectives and, realistically, by the budget. Commission a campaign by saying “we want a game” or “we want a film” is a big no-no.

What's more, trying to do too much within a single campaign is also a common problem, so making sure the objectives at the beginning of the process are realistic is very important. There will always be compromises to be made between objectives like the levels of brand control and data-capture, against levels of awareness generated through strong unconstrained creative.

For an agency, referring to the word “viral” in the creative can in fact be detrimental, as most clients don’t actually know what a viral is, so using the term can lead to people rejecting the idea. A viral will succeed or fail according to its creative. Agencies must think about why someone would pass it on to their friends. Simply creating a ‘splat’, or game involving a brand mascot, will not go viral. Viral campaigns need to be a talking point and to lead to that magical “water cooler moment”.

Just using the TV ad is not a viral. Unless the TV ad is outstanding, a re-purposed ad it isn’t going to go viral. Importantly, the content of a viral needs to be special in some way. The only way a brand can create mileage out of a TV ad is to create something like a special pre-release, include outtakes or special bonus features. Or, if they want controversy, get the as banned on TV and release it for ‘Internet only’ amidst a flourish of PR.

In addition, brands must consider the long-term, and the fact that a viral is ‘not just for Christmas’. Whereas traditional advertising media are largely limited by media space cost, once a viral is launched it can work on an ongoing way. Based around this premise, brands can develop a whole 'advertainment' campaign containing different viral executions.

Viral is also not just about the ‘Internet’. The best viral concepts are capable of creating a cross-media buzz, so when planning a campaign, agencies should think about the other media which viral can reach out into, for example; mobile (through Bluetooth), offline press, and TV. Viral can also work on both a global and a local basis, and although localised virality is more difficult to achieve, it is possible with the right strategy and creative.

Viral is not the same as a direct email campaign. A viral campaign is designed to work through word-of-mouth / peer-to-peer self referral mechanics. Buying a mailing list can be effective as part of the seeding mix, but should always be clearly justified (i.e. in terms of specific targeting).

Seeding is about placing viral content in front of key influencers within the target networks, but is often an area that is overlooked, and seen as just relying on the good-will of the agency to send out the campaign. Just as a brand wouldn’t commission a TV ad without buying media space, they shouldn’t commission a viral without considering the cost of seeding. If the creative is positioned correctly, a viral will be passed between people within these networks, and although the more influential networks now charge for posting a campaign on their site, there are still 1000’s of other sites that don’t charge.

Successful viral campaigns are not just about attracting millions of users, as often 90% of the viewers will not be the target market. Brands must be clear about what they are looking to achieve at the start of the campaign, and judge a campaign’s success against these metrics. They also need to ensure that they budget for all stages of a viral campaign, from initial strategy development to the seeding and tracking of a campaign.

In summary viral marketing is an art, requiring a set of specialist knowledge, but viral campaigns can be boiled down to 4 core activities:

Strategy: Identifying the objectives, how viral fits in with the wider brand activity and how to achieve goals within budget
Creative: The development of creative ideas across different media formats (e.g. game / film / application)
Production: Turning ideas into reality. Different media take differing amounts of time to produce, and incur differing costs
Seeding and tracking: Launching a campaign, seeding it into the relevant influencer networks and tracking its success

Is it the end of advertising as we know it?

2008-10-07T09:18:00.003+01:00

The trends toward creative populism, personalised measurements, interactivity, open inventory platforms, together with greater consumer control, is going to generate more change in the advertising industry over the next 5 years than it has experienced in the last 50.

Increasingly empowered consumers, more self-reliant advertisers and ever-evolving technologies are redefining how advertising is sold, created, consumed and tracked, so the traditional advertising players; agencies, broadcasters, and distributors will be affected unless they can successfully implement consumer, business model, and business design innovation.

There is no primary role for linear TV any more, and we are seeing the ‘neutral’ evaluation of all media formats meaning that many of the skills and capabilities that were the foundation of success in the past will need refinement, transformation, or even outright replacement.

The latest research from IBM Global Business Services points to four change drivers which are shifting control within the industry:

Attention
Consumers are increasingly exercising control of how they view, interact with, and filter advertising in a multichannel world. TV time is now rivaled by PC time as consumers continue to shift their attention away from linear TV and adopt ad-skipping, ad-sharing, and ad-rating tools.

Creativity
Thanks to technology, the rising popularity of user-generated and peer-delivered content, and new ad revenue-sharing models, amateurs and semi-professionals are now creating lower-cost advertising content that is arguably as appealing to consumers as the versions created by agencies. The survey suggests this trend will continue with user-generated content sites becoming the top destination for viewing online video content, and established players, like magazine publishers and broadcasters partnering with advertisers to develop strategic marketing campaigns – taking on traditional agency functions and broadening creative roles.

Measurement
It is expected that 20% of advertising revenue will shift from impression-based to impact-based formats within three years as advertisers demand more individual-specific and involvement based measurements, putting pressure on the traditional mass-market model.

Advertising inventories
New entrants are making ad space that once was proprietary, available through open, efficient exchanges. As a result open platforms will start to take more of the revenue currently flowing to proprietary incumbents such as broadcasters.

Microsoft’s latest customer incentives program: SearchPerks!

2008-10-03T17:37:00.001+01:00

This week sees Microsoft launch yet another customer rewards-focused incentives campaign to try and get people to use Live Search, in an attempt to gain ground in the search market.

Requiring users to install a small desktop counter that calculates how many times they use Live Search, “SearchPerks!” then rewards users with virtual 'tickets' for joining the program, and every time they search – up to a maximum of 25 a day. These are accumulated for a chance to win prizes such as; music downloads, airmiles, video games, or even an Xbox.

Previous reward programs that Microsoft has run to boost their search numbers included the Live Search Club, a somewhat criticized program that rewarded users for playing games using Live Search, and the Live Search “Cashback" feature that rewarded users for using Live Search by offering rebates for products bought online.

Although it’s not likely to be market changer, it does seem to be having short term benefits for Microsoft's search business. Searchperks! appears to be far more straightforward, logical, and despite the large number of tickets you need to redeem a prize (7 months of searches for an Xbox) it is very consumer friendly.

But there is a catch. You have to be an IE user and have a Windows Live ID to take part.

However it does look like Microsoft has finally realised that it’s never going to achieve the marketshare enjoyed by Google, but that they do understand that incentivising its already large user-base across its network puts it in a much stronger position.

While the program seems to have had initial success, the real test for Live Search will no doubt come when the program ends, and we learn if the new searchers like Microsoft's search engine enough to remain without the incentives.

Open data will be a competitive advantage

2008-10-03T10:10:00.002+01:00

In technology terms, a ‘mashup’ is a web application that combines data from more than one source into a single integrated tool. An example is the use of cartographic data from Google Maps to add location information to real-estate data, thereby creating a new and distinct web service that was not originally provided by either source.

Mashup originally referred to the practice in pop music (notably hip-hop), of producing a new song by mixing two or more existing pieces together.

The architecture of mashup web applications is always composed of three parts:

The content provider: The source of the original data which is then made available using an API and different web-protocols such as RSS
The Mashup site: The web application which provides the new service using different data sources that are not owned by it
The client web browser: The user interface, or web-application, of the mashup where the content is brought together by the web browser

Mashups should be differentiated from the simple embedding of data from another site to form compound documents. A site that allows a user to embed a YouTube video for instance, is not a mashup site. A mashup site should itself access 3rd party data using an API, and process that data in some way to increase its value to the sites users.

Today's Web has billions and billions of information available to humans, but hidden from computers. It is a paradox that all this information is stuck inside HTML pages, formatted in ways that are difficult for computers to process. The evolution of the so called ‘semantic web’, from Web 2.0 to Web 3.0, is changing this. What we mean by 'Web 3.0' is that major websites are going to be transformed into web services – and will effectively expose their information to the world.

This transformation will happen in one of two ways. Some websites will follow the example of Amazon, del.icio.us and Flickr, and will offer their information via APIs. Others will try to keep their information proprietary, but it will be opened via mashups created using services like Dapper and Yahoo! Pipes. The net effect will be that unstructured information will give way to structured information, and pave the road to more intelligent computing.

There are several reasons why websites (online retailers in particular), should think about offering an API, or become a Web Service. The most important reason is control. Having an API will make scrapers unnecessary, but it will also allow the tracking of who is using the data, as well as how and why. Like Amazon, with their Web Services, sites can do this in a way that fosters affiliates and drives the traffic back to their own sites. Amazon Web Services provides developers with direct access to Amazon's technology platform, and to build on Amazon's suite of web services enabling the enhancement of anyone’s applications.

The old perception is that closed data is a competitive advantage. The new reality is that open data is a competitive advantage. By stopping worrying about protecting information, and instead starting to charge for it, by offering an API with a small fee per API call, is likely to be acceptable in the future, since the cost for any given subscriber of the service is not going to be high, but there is a big opportunity to make money on volume. This is what Amazon is betting on with their Web Services strategy.

Information Extration: Web Scraping

2008-10-03T10:04:00.003+01:00

Web scraping generically describes the various means of extracting content (data) from a website for the purpose of transforming that content into another format suitable for use in another context.

Web pages are coded in HTML, which uses a tree-like structure to represent the information. The actual content data is mingled with layout and rendering information. Scrapers are the programs that ‘know’ how to get particular content data back from a HTML page by learning the details of how that page is made-up by figuring out where the actual content data is. They then extract that data and structure it so it can be reused and integrated into a new or existing system or website.

A web scrap can occur over one, or many websites, in order to compile all the relevant data into one source. Think of it as ‘scraping’ all your favourite bits off a cake, or a selection of cakes, in order to create your ultimate cake.

Companies generally utilise this information extraction technique as means of obtaining the most recent data possible, particularly when working with information which is subject to frequent changes. Access to certain information can also provide a strategic business advantages. For example a business that knows the locations of competitors can make better decisions about where to focus further growth.

However, the most common, but controversial, use of information taken from websites is to repost scraped data to other sites.

A typical example application for web scraping is a called a ‘web crawler’. A web crawler will ‘crawl’ through sites and copy content from one or more of these existing websites in order to generate a scraper site. The result can range from fair use excerpts or reproduction of text and content, to plagiarized content.

Web scraping differs from ‘screen scraping’ in the sense that a website is really not a visual screen, but is a live HTML/JavaScript-based content structure, with a graphics interface in front of it. Web scraping does not involve working at the visual interface as screen scraping does, but rather working on the underlying object structure of the HTML and JavaScript.

Recursive web scraping – by following links to other pages over many websites, is called ‘web harvesting’, and is performed by software called a bot or a ‘webbot’, ‘harvester’ or ‘spider’.

There are legal web scraping sites that provide free content and are commonly used by companies looking to populate their own sites with web content, often to profit by some means from the traffic the content will hopefully bring. However this content does not help the ranking of the site in search engine results because the content is not original to that site and the original content is the priority of search engines.

Virtual Geo Sticky Notes with Socialight

2008-10-02T16:42:00.001+01:00

Socialight lets you explore the world and connect with people in a totally new way – by creating, sharing, and discovering virtual Sticky Notes stuck to actual places all around you – using your mobile phone or the Web. Sounds simple? It is! And it’s also very powerful...The basic building block of Socialight is the Sticky Note. A sticky is similar to a yellow Post-it note that you find in the office, except that it can contain text, images, audio and even video. It’s virtual and can be attached to any location in the world for as long as you like.

Socialight have basically created a virtual layer on top of the world which is made up of sticky notes created by people – known as "geo-tagging". You can also choose whether to keep a note to yourself, share it with your friends, publish it to a Channel, or share it with the whole world.

Contacts are what make Socialight social. By having your friends in your contact list, you can create and share the things you find, making the whole system work for you. For example finding a list of restaurants near you is cool, but finding the one that your friend said was great, is better. You can even just leave a note where you are, so any friends that walk by can find you!

But sometimes your friends don’t have all the answers, so Socialight also has Channels which lets you find specific types of content: All the places with great cocktails… places with free wi-fi… hotels in the area… or anything else you can think of!

If you subscribe to a channel, they’ll notify you about the things in it. If the channel owner lets you, you can also add your own stickies, or post messages for others in that channel. And even better, anyone can create a channel, and if you do, you set the rules!

With Socialight you can always feel like a local. You can get a place's vibe through stories and information from everyone who's been there before, especially the people you trust. If you're in your home city, or travelling the world, you can find sticky notes tied to the places you go. Socialight can also notify you on your mobile any time you're near a note – it displays the note content, and also allows you to check out some background on the person who posted it. From there, you can instantly respond, leave your own note, or just move on.

So could Socialight on your phone be the future of mobile? The best part about Socialight is using it on your mobile as it lets you discover things while you walk around! You can also create new sticky notes, make comments and rate the things you find. Just tell them where you are and they will notify you about the things nearby that interest you – like content from your friends or the Channels you’ve subscribed to. Unlike ordinary messages, you only get Sticky Notes when it's relevant based on where you are and who your friends are. It's like having a guidebook written by your friends and the people you trust.

It's also fun to explore the world using Socialight online – browse sticky notes all over the world. You can drag the map around, zoom in and out and see what you find. You can also search for something specific and they’ll show you all the places that match your search. If you don't find what you are looking for, you can always create a new Sticky yourself!

Skinkers: A permission based CRM communication experience?

2008-10-02T15:47:00.001+01:00

As it becomes increasingly difficult to reach customers effectively through the clutter of digital channels, will Skinkers delivers high impact, interactive, and personalised notifications directly to the audience, and guarantee brands are always in control of the experience?

Emails can be costly and time consuming to create, and when received are often ignored. Websites are only effective if customers visit them, and require constant promotion if their benefits are to be realised. Skinkers however offer content owners and distributors the facility to provide a permission based CRM communication experiences that delivers information directly without them having to search for it themselves.

The service allows timed ‘digital data and information parcels’ to be delivered at set times, and interestingly, users can be profiled in such a way that they do not have to part with personal information. In addition, designers can give considerable thought to how information is received, and more importantly, welcomed by the user.

Desktop agents usually take the form of an animated figure and a pop-up mini-screen, making the product fun, interesting as well as informative. This offers two main things; sales benefits derived from appropriate content distribution, and learning benefits based on a relevant association with the ‘character’. The small size also allows for digestibility of the information ‘parcels’ received.

The technology behind Skinkers combines the interruption capability of TV advertising, with the entertainment value of animated characters, and the timeliness of mobile phone text messaging. The software is original enough in its construction to warrant application for patents, yet simple enough to be used by most people.

Examples can be seen at the Skinker website

MXP4 - Music for your mood

2008-10-01T15:23:00.003+01:00

In 1887 Edison invented the phonograph, and for the first time ever, music could be recorded and saved on a physical medium. By the 1980’s the production and massive distribution of vinyl records, cassettes and CDs, made it a period where music was offered on multiple media.

The invention of the mp3 format in the 90’s threw the recording industry into turmoil, as with this new creation, all audio sources could be digitized, transferred and copied. Today a new audio format has emerged which adds an interactive, vibrant and unpredictable dimension to music. Its name: MXP4.

MXP4 is an interactive format - a technology that is now able to offer music that, despite being recorded, remains unpredictable! MXP4 relies on interactivity and the unexpected to imbue musical recordings with ‘life’.

The technology makes it possible to create unique content from an original song by integrating what are known as "skins", interpretations performed by the artist that comprise multiple variations and offer listeners combinations that ensure that the music they listen to is always new, unlimited and surprising.

Music has never been interactive, but this could all change thanks this new and innovative technology that literally ‘reads your mind’ and mixes the songs regarding your mood and the settings you have chosen for your state of mind.

Have you ever listened to music to calm yourself down after a bad day at the office? Who hasn’t? Well according to Musinaut’s new science fiction headwear, it can read your brainwaves to understand your emotional state of mind, and control the music you listen to.

The brainwaves headgear, a device developed using a highly simple and ergonomic technology, includes three sensors for determining a subject's state of mind. The technology analyzes brainwaves, converting them to ‘understandable’ values such as; attention, meditation, drowsiness, etc., enabling tailored and interactive listening.

By connecting the brainwaves headgear to an MXP4 player, Musinaut allows users to control their musical selections on the basis of their thoughts and frame of mind, and makes listening to music very interesting as it becomes something very organic.

During different emotional states your brain sends different signals, and thanks to the headset and MXP4 technology it can now adapt the music and screen display to your mood, meaning that when you are relaxed you can have chill out music, and when you want to do something more dynamic, you’ll get more upbeat music.

It is also an interesting technology as it covers a lot of the current demands asked for by artists, the industry, and today’s consumers, as it will enable artists to express themselves more than in just a musical format, but with the text and the images, and communicate more to the listener about how the music came about.

So just as your mood can change your day, now it can also change the music you want to listen to. But just as the music industry is trying to change and adapt to new consumer needs, when it comes to new applications like Musinaut, the questions will remain: what comes first; the listener’s emotional choice, or what the music industry, and their technology, wants you to listen to?

ROI + ROE = Insightful Results

2008-09-30T17:12:00.002+01:00

Do we rely too much on the hard metrics of an ROI model and miss the value of soft measurement factors like; what the ‘experience’ was to the consumers?

Yes many brands understand the value of giving consumers a brand experience and that evaluating the actual impact of a piece of activity is important, but although traditional ROI measurements provide us with certain information, they lack the evidence to prove just how effective they were in the long term.

A ‘Return on Experience’ model seems more fitting to accommodate to today’s consumer – a results model that provides tangible results and that proves the value of each practice. I’m not saying that we often obscure the consumer experience by the need to justify an impressive ROI figure, but that by thinking strategically, and combining the elements that drove the response rates with what aspect of the activity encouraged consumer interaction, means that we can gain a deeper understanding and a clearer holistic picture.

With an ROE model we can see the full picture. It is an essential part of measurement and one that gives insight into customers and their behaviour, and by analysing the correlation between experience and consumer behaviour means we can help give a brand an edge.

So in addition to a ROI model, incorporating a ROE element means that the hard measures of the ROI metrics; leads, redemptions, direct sales, etc., can be complimented, and overlayed with the softer measures metrics such as; brand trackers, focus groups, pre/post surveys etc.

It is all well and good if a campaign increased sales, but there are still the key learning’s to be gained as to what element of the campaign caused this, and why did it evoke such a response? Combining both models can give an all encompassing holistic view. From what the catalysts were that drove sales, to what actually influenced positive consumer perceptions of the brand, and allows us to see how well the experiences’ activities were received by the target audiences.

These outcomes are so important, especially in the current economic climate, where we need to go that little bit further to ensure that all campaign activity is strategic and caters to consumers growing demands and needs. Missing the value of soft measures, such as consumer feedback, could be seriously detrimental to a brand.

Consumer respect is earned rather than guaranteed, and so it’s the brands that demonstrate a true understanding of their consumers, ones that forge two-way relationships, and go beyond their expectations, that will prosper in these turbulent times.

Advermarketing 2012

2008-09-30T14:55:00.003+01:00

So what will the world of advertising and marketing look like in three years time? More importantly, what will an agency look like? If the current trends continue my guess is that many of us are in for a big shock.

Our industry is in a state of upheaval, and it is likely that the future will be marked by a dramatic shift in the roles of agencies, and the personnel we will need.

Most people are blaming this rapid rate of change on technology. But it’s not technology that’s changing it. Technological change has simply made it easier to identify the real challenge – consumers are complex.

Even more so, persuading consumers to do things is a really complicated business. In 2012 we will have to do more than just create campaigns. We will have to study areas such as; human nature, psychology, and human behaviour, and we will have to make our output really fun.

Yes, the outlook does depend on the future of global commerce, and while technology evolves, so must the tools, talents, and skills necessary to differentiate and communicate with consumers, and today these tools are increasingly digital. Agencies must ask themselves if they have the youth, the digital skills, the real experience, and the intellectual resources necessary to compete in this evolving economy.

By 2012 the actual size of an agency will only matter to clients who are more comfortable with the old analog model instead of the newer digital reality of open-source creativity and scientific accountability.

Agencies have traditionally hired young employees because they cost less, but now savvy agencies prize youth for their digital skills, fresh perspective and creative abilities. However in today’s climate can we really accommodate inexperienced junior staff, and make money out of them?

It is likely that the days of the traditional generalist agency will come to an end. Agencies of the future will either be defined as the ‘creators of ideas’ (known as C agencies), or ‘producers’ or ‘placers’ of those ideas (the P agencies). The really smart C agencies will become combined communication agencies that clients hire to handle strategy, creative, and multichannel advermarketing programs, and these agencies will solve problems and create ideas that grow brands, and their bank accounts.

The C agency of the future will need individuals who are each a mix of account strategists, possess creative vision, intellectual bandwidth, communication, and organisational capabilities, all of which are needed to direct highly fragmented, complex campaigns.

These ‘Producer’ types (think Hollywood style here) will work with a diverse mix of specialists – media, interactive, creative, PR, research, in order to craft highly complex, yet elegant solutions to real business problems, and then work with P agencies to bring those ideas to life in multiple channels, and to multiple audiences, while ensuring everyone stays ‘on brand’.

The thinkers and creators, those C agencies that solve business and communication problems, will enjoy better margins and healthier client relationships as their insight and intelligence will be recognised and rewarded, most likely on a fee, or percentage of profit basis.

The P agencies will face far more pricing pressure, as they will have engage procurement departments who will drive down the cost of production and placement of campaigns. Much of this work may even go offshore, so a successful P agency will need to combine efficiency, quality and customer service if it wants to succeed.

Bigger agencies can be slow, inefficient and expensive. Smaller agencies do not have the range of expertise, but in each we can already see the two main aspects to an evolved agency: creative (C), production/placer (P) often reflected in departmental names. In the future however, smart agencies will outsource more, both intra-agency and inter-agency, but increasingly harvesting more ideas and content through the general public.

By 2012 the full-service generalist agency tradition will give way to a Keiretsu model – a business group, or set of companies, with interlocking business relationships. Maybe the agency networks will play a larger role utilising all their agencies together. Maybe smaller agencies will form their own Keiretsu. In any event, agencies will need to define themselves in an effort to respond to a new order dominated by fragmenting consumer segments and cost-conscious clients.

Onitsuka Tiger creates online 'light-writing' fashion show

2008-09-26T17:08:00.003+01:00

Onitsuka Tiger is planning to put an interactive 360-degree light-writing fashion show at the centre of its website.

The fashion brand is asking consumers to become 'video jockeys', composing their own light show by synchronising layers of light to the beat of their own soundtrack.

The brand's agency, Amsterdam Worldwide, used Lumasol to create the campaign which will go live this month to promote Onitsuka Tiger's Autumn/Winter 2008 collection.

Lumasol specialise in ‘timeslice’ photography and the 3D ‘lightgraffi’ (invented by Pips;lab in 2001) which enables artists to ‘paint' with any light emitting object, such as a torch, inside a ring of 50 cameras. The resulting image is viewed as a 360-degree stop-frame animation.

Images will appear as print ads, advertorials, online ads and in-store video clips.

The site will also feature a selection of video animations of models showcasing the new collection, a video demonstration instructing users how to create their own light-writing, and an invitation to budding light-writers to upload their creations to an online gallery.

Check out some of the Lumasol animations on their website.

The era of ‘Scorn’

2008-09-24T10:48:00.003+01:00

In the old days brands only heard customers when they chose to. They had to decide to listen, and even when they did, to really hear consumers, they had to listen hard.

They heard them when they held expensive, small scale and very tame focus groups. They heard them when they allowed the call centre personnel to eventually escalate something that they and the customers had known about for weeks, or months, or years.

They filtered, selected, and avoided.

Brands suffered from selective deafness, like an old grandmother sitting in the corner, deaf to everything but the bits she wanted to hear – smart with it, deaf to the bad, but noisy.

Inbound, it was all optional.

Brands input mechanisms were mainly a dumb terminal where feedback was filtered at every stage on the way to the top, and with “everything is fine”, the most default finding.

Yet their output was non-optional. They broadcast and blared out ‘interruption’, but consumers were still loyal because it was hard to find any alternatives.

That was the era of 'Control'.

Well it felt like control anyway, and it probably was, of sorts. Consumers were isolated, and media channels were intermediated and finite. But absolute control never really existed.

This was a period that started in the 1950’s and continued to around the year 2000. Brands were isolated and ‘deaf’, whilst consumers had pent up anger, which continued to build and build as brands did not listen or act.

Jump forward not one, but two steps from here, and we will find that in a new world where brands will have neat, simple, usable tools that flow feedback between themselves and their customers, like stock price data in a live marketplace.

It is a happy and contented world where listening will be a minute-by-minute task, not a daily check, not a monthly clippings report, or quarterly customer service review. But like it is already at some of the major news organisations, where live analytics on what's hot and what's not drive the news agenda and business behaviour.

Like it is already at some of the smart online retailers where merchandising decisions are truly dynamic and flow in realtime.

Like it is already at the few agencies where the finger really is on the digital pulse.

Solutions, ideas, and innovations will be the norm, and things like Dell Ideastorm will look like the simple early prototype it probably is.

APIs, affiliate programs, widgets, and other variations will be givens, seeding thousands of customers around the core services, and distributing them beyond the original source.

Importantly, loyalty will return because time poor consumers will be happier with the mature service-led brands that truly walk a customer-centred talk.

This will be the era of ‘Dialogue’.

But this is the future, a time where we will have the tools and process to mange feedback between brands and their consumers. A place where negativity is channeled, and consumer anger will fall as brands are listening and acting.

But right now we are somewhere between the two.

Not yet in the utopia of Dialogue, nor still in the comfortable era of Control. Instead we are in a turbulent transient time of a different era. But thankfully a temporary era.

This is a painful, confusing period of fear and loathing, away from the utopian aim but and era where we are caught with the basic and dated age of Control ways of working, processes, tools, people and expectations, where the feedback we receive is entirely different, entirely uncontrollable, unmanaged and unmanageable by our current systems.

An era where today's brands are badly equipped for the world today. Welcome to era of ‘Scorn’.

This is a time where angry consumers vent wherever they find an outlet. Customers like you and me who are disloyal and resent having to be so for the time and hassle it costs them.

A time where consumers pour into public and private online spaces to ask one another and quickly establish consensus before a brand even realises, and before brands have seen or collected the lies and half-truths. An era where well respected brands are all exposed to the ruthlessness of the public’s immediate feedback.

Worse still, cowardly consumers prevail in such circumstances. It's easier to scorn at the back of the room, and leave a nasty review than to feedback directly face-to face.

Right now we're at a unique point in this transition, at the very pivot of change, where consumer conversations have flooded online but the brands don't have the infrastructure and time to tap into and address them – online monitoring; umm, hmmm, ahem, yeahhh.

Very few major brands have yet invested in proper buzz monitoring solutions so they simply don't even have an ear to the networked chatter, or a regular, known presence in areas of online congregation such as consumer forums.

And until they do, they won't think about how to respond, who should respond, and what to do with that new incoming knowledge.

This is the era of ‘Scorn’. An era where consumers publish an aggregated voice, but where brands are slow to listen. And although consumer anger will build, it will peak, and eventually start to fall as brands realize that they have to start listening and acting.

As the listening devices, the community engagements, the processes and skills will change our expectations the hope is that we will enter a more harmonious time where the flow of dialogue between brands and consumers will be frictionless, immediate, transparent, open, and available.

And consumers will act more respectfully, and more maturely, because brands will be really listening to them, and responding to them, publicly, transparently, and rapidly.

How long will this take? I have no idea. When you look at mature disciplines or principles in digital such as usability, accessibility or even SEO, it’s normal to find very patchy awareness, let alone regular and consistent use of these core services amongst leading brands.

We must temper our optimism with our practical experience and guess that this will be years. Maybe years and years for the stragglers.

In the interim, we shouldn’t expect too much level-headedness, maturity and decency from the online consumers, but do expect big-talking anonymous cowards, raging frustrated unheard ex-customers, playground social dynamics with polarised opinions and cosy little cliques and gangs.

The era of Scorn is fatiguing, depressing, polluting, childish, unreasonable, bitter, cowardly, and in the main, absolutely deserved.

A few quotes to brighten your day

2008-09-24T10:10:00.000+01:00

“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.”

“If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.”

“Change is inevitable except from a vending machine.”

“How does a man who drives the snow plough get to work?”

“I love deadlines. I especially like the whooshing sound they make as they go flying by.”

“If it wasn’t for the last minute nothing would get done.”

“A “jiffy” is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.”

“If work is so great, how come they have to pay you to do it?”

“If you want the rainbow, you’ve got to put up with the rain.”

“88.2 percent of all statistics are made up on the spot.”

“Latest research shows that 3 out 4 people make up 75% of the world’s population.”

“Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level, and then beat you with experience.”

“Never judge a book by its movie.”

“On the keyboard of life, always keep one finger on the escape key.”

“On the other hand, you have different fingers.”

“If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.”

“The quickest way to double your money is to fold it in half”

“To err is human, to really foul things up you need a computer”

“And in the end it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.”

What can bloogers teach us about online marketing?

2008-09-24T09:56:00.002+01:00

Despite being armed with advanced technology and tools, marketers are often frustrated that their results don’t match the time and effort they expend online. In contrast, bloggers appear to achieve a great deal with very little. So what there is to learn from the success of our blogging comrades?

According to urban legend, when the boffins at NASA discovered that astronauts’ pens did not work in the zero gravity during the Apollo space flights in the 1960s, they regarded it as a ‘mission critical’ hindrance and instituted a massive research program to solve the problem.

The team of enthusiastic NASA scientists and engineers then spent over ten years and US$12 million developing a pen that could write, not only in zero gravity conditions, but upside down, on just about any surface, underwater, and at either extremely hot or cold temperatures.

The legend has it that, when confronted with the same problem, the Russian Federal Space Agency simply used a pencil.

This famous ‘Space Pen’ story circulated widely on the Web several years ago, and has proved to be an enduringly entertaining fable since then. Although the myth isn’t true, its continued popularity suggests that many people can relate to its message about not overcomplicating technology or tools.

Unsurprisingly, perhaps, the insight captured so brilliantly in the ‘Space Pen’ story is also extremely pertinent for any marketers who are tackling the challenges associated with creating sales-orientated websites.

Even though they usually have access to some very sophisticated, ‘high-tech’ technology and tools, they are often frustrated that the results of their efforts do not match the time and effort they have put in.

There are numerous reasons for this, and it’s a common enough occurrence to suggest that it is not so much what technology you have that counts, but what you do with it. This is further backed up by evidence from a great (if seldom examined) source of potential answers: the blogging community.

Much like the Russians in the ‘Space Pen’ anecdote, bloggers rarely have as sophisticated a toolbox as online marketers, yet they often achieve better results using the simple tools they have at their disposal. So what are they doing that we could learn from?

Clue: it’s about content.

The first understanding that bloggers have is that the simple key to achieving a good search engine ranking is to frequently change a site’s content. The immediacy of the medium is one of blogging’s great strengths, and the majority of bloggers post at least daily and, sometimes, more than once per day.

On the subject of content, bloggers also tend to write short, ‘punchy’ copy focused on being direct and presenting an individual idea or concept, rather than drafting long-winded articles that deal with several ideas all at once, or develop a particular idea comprehensively.

Breaking topics or ideas up like this offers several advantages, not only does it help online readers scan their articles and digest the information presented easily, it enables them to keep their sites dynamic by posting several articles over a short period, instead of one, and it can help improve the perception of how topical their site is, which is also better from an SEO point of view.

Bloggers also tend to focus on presenting good content, rather than graphics. Design definitely helps of course, and should never be overlooked, but it is worth remembering that it doesn’t mean anything to search engines, and only plays a role once a visitor has been attracted to a site.

It’s also a great idea to tag content. Most bloggers use tags to describe their content very effectively, making it easier to both locate and associate with other relevant content, within the site, and externally.

Link popularity is another important way of boosting a site’s prominence and effectiveness. Many SEO experts argue that it is the single most influential factor when it comes to determining how well a site performs in search engine rankings, yet it is also something that is beyond even the most advanced tools or technology (well, legally, at least).

Put simply, a site’s link popularity is based on the number, and quality, of links it has pointing to it. Most search engines reason that, the more independent sites that voluntarily link to your content, the better it must be.

Aside of joining lots of directories and promoting themselves to other sites, many marketers don’t believe there is much else they can do about this kind of external ‘off site’ activity.

Nevertheless, our bloggers once again, have seemingly mastered the art of encouraging numbers of other bloggers and sites to link to them, and offer us the very useful clue – it’s all about content.

The easiest way to attract inbound, one-way links is to offer great content that other sites want to link to. This is far more effective than joining large numbers of directories and, as every good blogger knows, the best part is that it doesn’t require time consuming or expensive promotional efforts – it actually happens quite easily and naturally.

All this is very straightforward and simple, yet it’s surprising how commonly online marketers – much like the legendary NASA boffins – forget how effective the most obvious and ‘low-tech’ solutions can sometimes be.

Why we need a unique strategic process for digital

2008-09-23T09:14:00.001+01:00

Digital strategy should not be created in a vacuum. Yes we need to dovetail digital marketing closely with the overall objectives and strategies, but as digital is such a different beast that it really does require its own specific strategic efforts. Those should be a subset of the overall planning processes, but digital should also be managed as a separate entity within that planning process.

I’ve seen companies try to develop a digital roadmap without this sort of comprehensive approach, and the consequence has always been a need to stop midway through the ‘condensed’ process, and go back to perform the steps that have been missed.

A special digital process is necessary because:

Most marketers have some knowledge of the digital behaviours of the consumers, but do not know their consumers at a ‘mastery’ level. Ensuring a complete planning process – including a consumer insights phase – places the focus of digital on the consumer, rather than on what’s ‘cool’.
Consumer digital behaviours change very rapidly. The adoption rates for specific vehicles and platforms are ever shorter. This rapid pace of change requires that we develop a comprehensive picture of digital consumer behaviour as often as possible.
The “best practices” of broadcast media do not work in digital. Effective digital planning requires an entirely different kind of thinking, and building that foundation of thought requires the focus of a dedicated planning process.
There are over tens of digital platforms, whether device- or content based, with solid consumer acceptance, so it is essential to consider all of these when looking at alternatives and developing an optimised plan.

In addition, a special process helps address the very real problem that most agencies have of educating and building the knowledge of all decision makers about the digital environment, and how it relates to the targets. Often, while the people in charge of digital are experts, those higher up in the food chain can be novices, and a comprehensive planning process provides the insights and firmness necessary for selling in a comprehensive investment in the space.

Why brands should consider digital

2008-09-23T09:06:00.002+01:00

After many discussions with my friends and peers, usually over a couple of pints down the pub, and generally on the same issues, I’ve decided to outline why brands should consider digital.

I often find that us digital folk have to combat the tendency from some people to only approach digital from an execution-centric perspective.

I also often come across far too many brands approaching digital media by just reacting to what’s new, or what’s “cool” in the space, rather than taking a more comprehensive, objective-based approach.

Unfortunately, the result of this practice is that millions of pounds are wasted on tactics that don’t properly align with the overall needs of brands.

The idea of having a strategic approach to an area of marketing as critical as digital should not be surprising. Yet there are a shocking number of agencies that dive into this space with little more than a pile of competitor digital activity as a guide. Given the limited time and money available to most brands, it should be clear how taking a strategic approach will pay off in both the short and long terms.

So, unless you’ve been living under a rock, the spectacular growth of digital will come as no surprise, but there are also a variety of factors that make digital a different sort of challenge for brands:

Media fragmentation has splintered audiences and dramatically increased the complexity of effectively reaching most audiences. Where consumers used to have four of five major media choices (TV, Radio, Magazines, Newspapers, and Outdoor), they now have dozens of platforms and literally millions of professional, and amateur, publishers from which to gather information.
The two-way nature of digital-based media (Internet, Mobile, etc.) necessitate that brands have to stop thinking as broadcasters, and adopt a more collaborative and consultative approach to brand development. This warrants special thought and consideration because the “rules” of collaborative marketing are very different from the “rules” of broadcast-oriented branding.
Practically everyone is using digital media. There are millions and millions of consumers using the Internet, and most of these consumers are spending large amounts of their time with digital media.
Digital media are playing an increasingly large role in all purchase decisions. Information on the Web now influences most offline retail sales, and this is continuing to increase year on year.
Certain target audiences are becoming increasingly difficult to reach without digital. For example, men aged 18-24 now spend so much time gaming, online, and with their mobile phones that it is increasingly difficult to effectively deliver against this target audience without digital vehicles.
User generated content and “civilian journalism” has driven a massive shift in how we receive information about products and services, and what sorts of information we trust. Increasingly, people prefer grass roots sources of information and recommendations to the so-called ‘professional’ sources of the mainstream media outlets. Even respected professional journalism organisations like the BBC and CNN are now routinely airing civilian journalism originated news, video, and other types of information, as part of their offerings.
From a practical standpoint, many brands are seeing diminishing effectiveness from traditional ‘analog’ media. Brands need to identify new “on buttons” for their businesses.
And finally, brands are already being represented to consumers in the digital space, even if they do not have proactive marketing efforts in this arena. That is because people (advocates as well as critics) are already talking about them and their products, and are reaching audiences that are potentially in the millions. By monitoring and creating brand expressions in this space, brands can influence the discussion in a very positive way.

When even TV’s biggest historical believers report shifting resources away from broadcast and into digital media, it becomes even more apparent that digital media are “must considers”. Most major firms that used to rely heavily on TV are redistributing spend toward digital. Examples include FMCG products, automotive, and even political campaigns.

Brands are witnessing major competitors pursuing digital initiatives in earnest, but they are probably also finding that many of their initiatives don’t appear to be part of a cohesive strategic platform. Again, this is because many companies do not have an objectives based underpinning to their total digital strategy.

We Are The Toys

2008-09-18T14:07:00.001+01:00

Generally viral videos have either become a bit old hat, or they have been overtaken by more technically complex solutions.

But every now and then you come across one that just makes you smile:

http://www.wearethetoys.com/

‘Brand’ New Thoughts

2008-09-17T11:59:00.002+01:00

So what is a brand, and why is it important?

The Oxford Dictionary, 1602, describes a ‘brand’ as; “To burn with a hot iron, whether for marking or cauterising. To mark indelibly as a proof of ownership, a sign of quality”

But in today’s world a brand isn’t just the trademark, name and logo. It isn’t just the tag line and messages, or the intangible (soft) benefits of using the product or service. Nor is it just a relationship between the customer and the product, service or company, or just something that can be unilaterally controlled and manipulated by its owner.

Brands are omnipresent. They no longer adhere to traditional boundaries. Their definitions extend to activities that encompass; artists/bands (dead or alive), sports personalities/teams/clubs, TV channels/programmes, fictional characters, Political parties, and even countries.

Brands come as sounds (Intel). A brand can be a colour; engagement rings feel so much more special if they come in a duck egg blue box (Tiffany & Co). They can be a taste; orange champagne tastes more fun (Veuve Clicquot). A brand can be a smell (Lush). And even taste alone can define a brand (Marmite).

So a brand must be…

A fusion of the emotional and functional components of a product or a service;
A promise and an expression of potential benefits; both tangible and intangible;
A distillation of the beliefs and values of an organisation;
The external expression of a company’s internal (shared) values;
A relationship that creates and secures future earnings by growing customer preference and loyalty;
Open to personal interpretation, not an objective fact – it is made up of a million or more individual and subjective assessments.

But companies can't own their brand can they? Suely their consumer do! A brand is the things people say about it when they are not there.

So what do brands offer consumers? Well, brands are badges of authenticity. They promise performance, and provide reassurance. Brands transform the experience, and help us organise our lives.

Strong brands...

Capture the essence of what an organisation stands for;
Provide a sustainable competitive advantage;
Promise and deliver a unique and valued experience;
Strengthen image, profile and reputation;
Create value and help drive successful results;
Can accelerate cash flow;
Attract the best talent and retain them;
Attract better suppliers and trading terms;
Can branch out;
Get to charge a premium for the same product/service;
Buy the company time – consumers will forgive the occasional lapse;
Engender trust;
But most importantly they drive value for their companies.

A brand is both a promise and a verification, and behind every great brand is a great idea that;

Is inspirational and aspirational;
Defines the competitive frame of tomorrow;
Captures what makes the offering unique.

It is what is on the inside that really counts. Think of a brand as an iceberg; the 10% above the water is what we see and experience – the name, the advertising, the logo, the products and services. But it’s the 90% below the water (the values, the communications and relationships, the management, policies and processes, the quality, knowledge, and technology) is what needs to happen in order to support that experience.

So what defines a brand? Everything we do defines a brand.

One Genius or Thirteen Smart Guys

2008-09-17T11:18:00.004+01:00

I read a very interesting article by Russell Davies about Malcolm Gladwell's speech last year at the New Yorker conference, and as they summarises my own thoughts so well, I thought I’d share them.

Gladwell’s speech was about genius, and the types of genius we need to solve modern problems. He contrasts Michael Ventris; who deciphered Linear B, with Andrew Wiles; who proved Fermat's Last Theorem.

Ventris solved his problem through lots of thinking, a flash of genius, and was, to some extent, a gifted and enthusiastic amateur, or at least self-taught. He did it largely on his own and his solution was relatively short and simple. Gladwell describes him as a 'pre-modern genius'.

Wiles was more collaborative, his proof built on the thinking of many others. His success is more about tenacity and focus than about an inspired moment of genius. His proof was incredibly long, and was the success of 'thirteen smart guys' rather than one genius. Gladwell describes him as a ‘modern genius’.

And Gladwell stretches that to a fascinating suggestion; that the problems the world faces today are more likely to be responsive to 'thirteen smart guy' solutions than 'one real genius' solutions.

He suggests that the people we're taught to admire and emulate are the lone genius types, and talks about how we're not giving us ourselves enough smart people to meet the challenges of the future, and that we should stop thinking so much about 'the top of the curve', as the problems we face today are complicated and involved, and are likely to require long, detailed responses.

But what he's talking about also explains a lot of behaviour you in see in our world of the creative industries, because the elevation of the genius is certainly big in advertising.

Agencies are always looking for the genius Creative Director or Planning Director that will dramatically turn around their fortunes. No-one's going to issue a press release saying “Agency Hires Fifteen Quite Good People Who All Promise To Work Really Hard”, instead they want to announce “Agency Hires Creative Genius With Many Awards”, and actually, I suspect that if you're product is a 30 second ad, then the lone genius approach might be the way to go. An ad, in the old traditional sense, seems like a Linear B kind of problem.

But the kind of problems we increasingly face now; digital experience problems, experiential marketing, big, complex, thorny interactive issues, social network strategies, the stuff that businesses are increasingly spending their money on, seem more like Fermat-style problems.

These are 13 smart guy problems, and require different kinds of thinkers, more about analysis and tenacity than the flash of inspiration. And maybe that means that we need new structures in agencies, practises not copied from the traditional model, but new inventions.

If you’re interested in the idea, you can watch Gladwell’s speech here: http://www.newyorker.com/online/video/conference/2007/gladwell

‘Engine Room’- HP and MTV’s new reality show

2008-09-15T10:14:00.001+01:00

Hewlett-Packard has teamed up with MTV to launch a global online series for a new reality show called ‘Engine Room’.

The show will feature teams of digital artists competing for prizes. The 16 contestants, which are divided into regional teams for Asia Pacific, Europe, Latin America and North America, will compete for prizes and a chance to program the giant MTV screen in Times Square for a night.

The series, which is aimed at college and university students, will follow the contestants as they work in a loft in New York producing digital art, using HP products such as PCs, printers, Smartphones, and other products.

During the show they will be visited by guests like the musician Moby; the Ting Tings and 'Chasing Amy' director Kevin Smith.

The series is designed to run online, and will feature short-form episodes, which are five to seven minutes long, and run daily over a seven-week period. It will be screened online in nine languages, across MTV's global channels and across its US college network mtvU.

HP want to portray the idea that they don’t so much want to advertise about what they do, but rather let people do things with the product, so the aim here is to amplify how technology brings digital art to life.

Social Computing

2008-09-12T17:28:00.002+01:00

2008 has been a period of digestion. A period to reflect, integrate, and understand what is happening in the digital landscape.

We have well and truly moved on from the static 1.0 Web of ‘one-to-many’, and moved to a dynamic 2.0 version of ‘many-to-many’.

Technology is changing. We now have cheaper and cheaper hardware and software.

Social changes are occurring. Aging consumers are looking to technology to support their lives, while the younger generation are pioneering the use of networks and viral.

Technology changes the speed and force of social change, and social forces shape technology development and custom applications. This is social computing.

Social computing is about a movement, not simply a catalogue of technologies… it has to do with an attitude. As Eric Schmidt, Chairman & CEO, of Google said;

“The Internet is the first thing humanity has built that humanity doesn’t understand, the largest experiment in anarchy we’ve ever had.”

Bring on 2009.

Digital media is taking a more strategic role...

2008-09-12T14:36:00.004+01:00

Digital media is taking a more strategic role in integrated campaigns at all levels.

It is a fragmented market which at best grazes on media, so the opportunity to engage at point of impact is critical. Focus has to be placed on what the individual consumer wants at a particular time, and this is increasingly from the digital medium. We should be looking to use all channels to push ideas… engaging with consumers… then using the whole media mix to pull them in.

Appreciating the needs of the audience is critical to building effective experiences. We need to immerse ourselves in our audience's world to understand their motivations, interests, likes and dislikes.

We have to engage customers or we will lose them. We have to be inclusive and not exclusive with our experiences. We have to understand that today’s consumers own the interactive space, that they have become their own creators, collectors, editors, distributors, broadcasters and community builders. We need to treat them with respect, engaging and stimulating them with creative that involves them, and which builds long-term relationships.

Intel’s real-time voting on London Underground screens

2008-09-12T14:26:00.002+01:00

Intel has become the first advertiser to use the ability to refresh London Underground digital screens in real-time with a campaign that shows who is currently topping its 'battle of the bands' style competition.

The Intel Studio websie allows unsigned bands to upload tracks which visitors can then listen to and rank according to their favourites. The best acts as voted for are then offered support slots at a series of Intel Studio gigs.

The campaign extends Intel’s online Intel Studio activity onto digital escalator panels and cross-track projection, with bespoke content linked to the site and displays the current top five bands across various music genres.

Each screen follows a different music genre with charts including band names, chart positions and band photos, pulled in live from the website, illustrating the extent to which new digital outdoor formats can converge with other media channels.

It’s a changing world

2008-09-12T12:00:00.000+01:00

It’s a changing world.

Today’s consumers are being bombarded with messages from an ever-growing number of brands, via an ever-growing number of channels, but understanding and using these channels is more challenging, and more interesting than ever.

So what does this mean? Well, we need to embrace this new model of communication and interaction. We are going through a period of rapid transformation and it is difficult to predict what will happen in the future. But if you look around, change is everywhere not just in the way we communicate.

Consumers no longer view brands through the prism of traditional channels. Instead they use a complement of channels that help to inform their choices. Digital has radically shifted and shaped the way we interact and communicate with one another.

The emergence of digital technologies has changed who is in control of information, experience, and resources. There is a blurring of the distinction between the creative (content) and the media (the delivery of this content). The new consumer is empowered and in control. They have turned from a user into a creator and distributor of content, in partnership with the media they consume.

Digital is about creating experiences which are focused and entertaining, all stemming from a unique balance of creativity, technology, and human interaction.

As more people choose to communicate with each other digitally, we are finding that the demand for these services continues to grow and evolve – changing the way that brands communicate with their customers, changing the way that consumers, in turn, respond, and changing the way that customers talk to each other about brands.

It really is a changing world.

The power of mobile

2008-09-12T11:55:00.002+01:00

There really are new opportunities from the mobile sector to offer new ways to reach markets; after all mobile is just a new media channel.

Improvements in handset technology and faster IP connections will lead to more convergence, but understanding mobile marketing requires an understanding of the user's relationship to technology.

This is a device that most people have with them most of the time, but most users see the primary function of their phone for; calls, SMS and storing numbers, and something that is very personal to them.

For many people, their phone is connected to their identity in the same way as the clothes they wear, so to get a brand onto a phone, it must be invited.

They key to successful mobile marketing is the development of specifically made mobile content in conjunction with other, and to enhance, existing media, offering a seamless experience and meeting the identity needs of the user.

All you have to remember is that mobile is just a channel. Mobile is personal and cherished and should be integrated. Mobile provides immediate interaction and is a powerful viral network. And ultimately, mobile is, mobile.

UK consumers spend £13bn online in just 3 months

2008-09-12T11:33:00.003+01:00

Despite the gloomy economic outlook and the downturn on the high street, online retailers are continuing to generate massive sales.

IMRG have just reported that during the first three months of 2008, UK consumers spent a whooping £13 billion online, a staggering 85% more that in the previous year.

Then it occurred to me; this amount of money is almost the same as what it would cost the World a year to eradicate hunger!

I'll leave you withthat thought.