Bab00ned

Facebook adds the inevitable "groups" feature

2010-10-07T02:30:00.000-07:00

Facebook has announced the inevitable addition of "groups", whereby users can sort their friends into different groups, so only certain comments/statuses/photos etc. are available to certain groups.

Mark Zuckerberg summarises the problem:
"There are some things you are comfortable saying to all your friends at once but a lot of things you only want to share with your close co-workers or your family and there just hasn't been a great way to do that until now."

This blog has discussed the social problems created by Facebook in the past. In the real world we automatically filter what we say and share with different friends, family, colleagues - so it makes sense that Facebook would include that feature, to further replicate the way we interact in the real world and avoid a variety of social faux pas.

Guardian article:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/oct/07/facebook-groups

BBC News article:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11486427

Google's future of display ads

2010-10-04T08:38:00.000-07:00

Speaking at the recent IAB Conference, Google explained how they want to make their display advertising sexy. They will also be adding social elements to their display ads; such as commenting on, sharing and subscribing to ads. Also included was a new ad format for their YouTube site, called TrueView which allows the viewer to skip ads they don't like.

Read more:
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/09/28/google-wants-to-make-online-display-ads-%E2%80%9Csexy%E2%80%9D/

Further bullet points from the presentation:
http://www.ditii.com/2010/09/28/google-on-the-future-of-display-advertising-demonstrated-youtubes-trueview-ad-format-and-more-at-iab-conference/

Facebook places - Let me check you in

2010-08-25T05:19:00.000-07:00

I was reading this article about Facebook Places and the issues that could arise when checking in other people. It immediately rang alarm in my head as to the problems it could cause in modern society, with all the white lies going around so as not to hurt people's feelings when turning down those numerous Facebook invites - or simply people cheating on their wives / girlfriends!

Also it seems strange that other people can confirm your presence in a location. Facebook compared this to being tagged in a photo, but it feels more personal to me and many others I found out after quick Google. I don't want other people to confirm my presence at a party, dinner, pub, cinema. It would be slightly scary to login to Facebook to be told you've been checked into places.

Luckily you can turn this off with a setting under the privacy settings page on Facebook, which means that you no longer have to worry about friends being able to check you in. Although I wonder how many people know about or can find the setting?

Original article:
http://adage.com/digitalnext/article?article_id=145487

How to change your Facebook places privacy settings:
http://gawker.com/5616338/the-first-thing-you-should-do-with-facebook-places-dont-let-other-people-tag-you

Flash comes to Android

2010-08-13T09:31:00.000-07:00

The Android 2.2 Operating System now has full support for Adobe's Flash player. Will this be a key manoeuvre in the Android vs iPhone battle, seeing as there are no plans for the iPhone to support Flash.

See it in action here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10947784

Facebook ad spend increases

2010-08-06T02:35:00.000-07:00

Spend on Facebook advertising has increased by ten times in the last year. Big brands who were just experimenting with Facebook ads; now satisfied with the results, are using the platform more and more. It is predicted that Facebook ad spends will increase to $1.4 billion for 2010.

Here at Jollywise we've seen a marked increase in interest in Facebook advertising. We've been running ad campaigns for some big brands for a while and have had great success with them. The targeting and reporting available means we're able to meet client requirements and give them real ROI.

Read more:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-04/facebook-advertisers-boost-spending-tenfold-as-site-grows-sandberg-says.html

Wave is dead (long live wave)

2010-08-05T04:19:00.000-07:00

Google have just announced that Google Wave is being put to bed. Although touted as the future of the web and with a large push from Google, it never really picked up. (A little like Google Buzz)

However I believe this is more to do with Google trying to do to much in one leap. I think that a lot of the features of Wave will slowly be integrated into Google Mail and we'll see email / chat / online communication move towards what was being presented in Google Wave, just at a slower more drip-fed pace, so users can get used to the changes.
Just because Wave wasn't successful it doesn't mean that similar sites and features won't be successful in the future. I just think they will be carefully integrated into an evironment the user is familiar with, such as Google Mail and Facebook.

Read more:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/pda/2010/aug/05/google-wave

Is Cost Per Action coming?

2010-08-04T02:05:00.000-07:00

Google have launched a new mobile ad format (see article for full details), which only charges the advertiser when someone actually follows through with an action - in this case - clicks through to the website or calls the business.

Is this going to be the future of ads, that after pay-per-impression, followed by pay-per-click, we get pay-per-action - where advertisers are only paying when they get positive actions back.

Read the full article here:
http://www.marketingvox.com/will-googles-new-mobile-ad-format-usher-in-cpa-on-a-wide-scale-047462/

Bebo gears up for new activity

2010-07-16T02:44:00.000-07:00

Criterion have been making their first changes at Bebo, as they try to turn around the fortune of the social networking site they bought recently from AOL.
They will be investing in new staff and focussing on the niche tween market.

http://paidcontent.org/article/419-new-bebo-ceo-well-staff-up-innovate-then-maybe-sell/

Is Facebook over?

2010-07-13T08:45:00.000-07:00

Apparently Facebook is no longer the coolest kid on the block. It's rapidly becoming the place to hang out less according to stats from OTX and Roiworld. The study has revealed that that they are losing interest, finding Facebook boring and visiting other sites.

Personally I don't think Facebook is anywhere near dead. However I certainly don't think it will last forever. People will talk about the Facebook generation / era, in the future.

Read more about it here:
http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007808

Flash isn't redundant yet says YouTube

2010-06-30T02:36:00.000-07:00

This YouTube blog entry explains why Flash isn't redundant yet and what it provides that HTML5 can't do yet. It's an interesting read:

http://apiblog.youtube.com/2010/06/flash-and-html5-tag.html

Bebo moves on

2010-06-17T08:55:00.000-07:00

AOL has sold Bebo to Criterion Capital Partners for a rumoured $10m or less. Criterion have described the site as "attractive media platform".

Read more:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/jun/17/aol-confirms-bebo-sale
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/cf6e4258-7a08-11df-9871-00144feabdc0.html

Twitter gets on the money

2010-06-17T01:55:00.000-07:00

Twitter has rolled out the second phase of it's monetisation: Promoted Trending Topics. And Disney / Pixar are the first ones to buy a promoted topic. They've chosen Toy Story 3, which gets featured at the bottom of the trending topics list and also gets them the top tweet on the results page.

Read more here:
http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/16/twitter-trending-topics-ad/

Android market share increasing

2010-06-14T09:36:00.000-07:00

Read this nice article explaining why Android is doing better that the initial figures suggest, against Apple. Android's market share is increasing and it's taking that share from Apple.
It also brings up something I keep on forgetting; which is that iOS isn't just on the iPhone - you've got to include iPods and iPads - which take the numbers up to a hefty 18.3 million devices.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/android_steals_market_share_from_iphone.php

Adobe vs Apple - the next step

2010-06-08T08:20:00.000-07:00

In the next chapter of the Adobe vs Apple saga; Adobe have teamed up with Greystripe to land their next move. Together they'll be trying to deliver Flash based ads to the iPhone!
Well is actuality Greystripe will be converting Flash ads into HTML5, which will work on the iPhone. Additionally the ads will work on Google's Android smartphones.

It will be interesting to see if this conversion, almost by hand, by Greystripe and Adobe will work and where it will take us in the Apple vs Adobe ever-continuing war.

Read more:
http://mashable.com/2010/06/07/adobe-flash-ads-iphone/

http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20100607/adobe-tries-creeping-back-onto-the-ipad-with-help-from-greystripe/

Google starts Twitter ads

2010-06-07T09:40:00.000-07:00

Google has given a soft launch to Twitter ads within their Google Content Network. A "no-brainer" as far as I'm concerned and great that Google have created this ad format.

Read more about them here:
http://www.clickz.com/3640539

Yahoo adds Facebook to site

2010-06-07T09:27:00.000-07:00

Yahoo will be adding Facebook features to it's homepage, mail service and other pages very soon. For full details of Yahoo's social media integration read more on the link below:

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/yahoo_adds_facebook_begins_new_role_as_social_network_aggregator.php

Facebook Privacy settings change again (but for the last time)

2010-05-27T02:19:00.000-07:00

Facebook have changed their privacy settings again, but they hope for the last time. This time they've simplified things, whilst maintaining their more granular controls as well.
You now have: a privacy master switch option; an application switch to stop all your data from being shared with applications, including stopping friends sharing your information on applications; the option to hide your friends list and interests;

Mark Zuckerberg's blog entry:
http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=391922327130

Allfacebook gives a good point by point overview:
http://www.allfacebook.com/2010/05/facebook-privacy-must-know/

Zuckerberg explains it's not about the ads:
http://gigaom.com/2010/05/26/zuckerberg-its-not-about-the-ads/

Crowdsourcing isn't over, it's just overused.

2010-05-19T02:37:00.000-07:00

This article below by Advertising Age puts across the point that crowdsourcing is over and that it doesn't work any more, although it does concede at the end that some projects do work.

That's the point that I would make: crowdsourcing isn't over, it's just overused by marketing departments. Just like Augmented Reality, everyone wants to get on the band-waggon, even though it might be pointless and not work for their brand.

There seems to be a pattern with new marketing techniques that goes in these stages:

1. A few pack-leaders do something new with a brand that is willing to be brave and innovative.
2. There is one high-profile successful campaign that brings it to the mainstream.
3. There is mass take-up. Brand managers will say "I want a campaign with X".
4. It's get to a point where everyone is doing it and many badly. Bad marketing agencies are making easy money off supplying the service to anyone and everyone; and brands are wanting to be a part of the phenomenon.
5. The appeal drops off and it settles down to just being another string to the marketing bow, used when appropriate.

http://adage.com/article?article_id=143896

Facebook / Zuckerberg Backlash

2010-05-17T02:50:00.000-07:00

There has been quite a backlash against Facebook recently due to their dodgy and ever changing Privacy Policy.

This piece by Jason Calacanis talks about companies getting "Zuckered" and accuses Facebook of a lot of wrong doing, including the most common complaint of constantly changing it's complicated Privacy Policy.
http://calacanis.com/2010/05/12/the-big-game-zuckerberg-and-overplaying-your-hand/

This site reveals just how much people share, often without their knowledge. It's a search engine for all the public status updates and it's amazing what people will share with the world:
http://www.youropenbook.org

It's not all hate for Facebook though, here's an article defending them:
http://mashable.com/2010/05/16/in-defense-of-facebook/

I think that there is a middle ground here though. Facebook isn't really all that evil. You are voluntarily putting all this information into their system, you are given the options to restrict access to the information you enter into the system - albeit with a changing system, but social media sites are still in their early years and there are problems to be ironed out.
The thing that all these critics forget that lots of people out there want to share their thoughts, opinions, pictures and life with the world and broadcast their life. Most people who stupidly post on Facebook that they hate their boss would have been caught on email / instant messenger or in the tearoom. It's just another forum, that we are still exploring.

I think the article below is far more balanced and tries to explain that Facebook did not take your privacy - I'm inclined to agree.
http://adage.com/digitalnext/article?article_id=143909

The Semantic Web

2010-05-11T06:30:00.000-07:00

There has been quite a lot of talk of the Semantic Web on this blog and we still believe it's the future. This is what will make Skynet become aware: giving all the data out there some meaning.

Anyway if you don't know what the Semantic Web is and what all of this means for you, this brief article and video will explain the Semantic Web to you.

http://mashable.com/2010/05/10/semantic-web-documentary/

Are Community Pages Bad for Brands?

2010-05-11T04:14:00.000-07:00

With the rise of the like button and the introduction of community pages, Facebook is changing and how fans interact with brands is changing with it.

Facebook community pages allow content and information to be pulled from fans and Wikipedia. It should in theory minimise the number of duplicate pages around and be good for brands. However, the problem right now is that there is no way for brands to add or edit the content.

This article explains how to manage risk for your community page

New Facebook features

2010-04-26T07:33:00.000-07:00

There's been lots all over the web about the changes to Facebook, since the F8 Facebook conference. The main point is that like is now a prominent Facebook feature and can be placed on sites external to Facebook.

This article below summarises the essentials concisely, a good quick read to see if you need to read more.

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/TECH/04/21/facebook.changes.users/

The Reality of Augmented Reality

2010-04-23T02:12:00.000-07:00

Have a read of this great little article that gives some advice on using Augmented Reality. A refreshing change from the reams of articles hyping AR with little substance.

http://www.marketingvox.com/5-tips-for-a-successful-augmented-reality-campaign-046752/

Facebook ads to see where you've been

2010-04-19T08:01:00.001-07:00

Facebook is planning on using your browsing history to decide which ads to serve you. Although this might provide more accurate results, it isn't something that users like and could provide some embarrassing results.

People are rightfully protective over their browser history as it's quite a private thing, but some people know that and use it to their advantage, such as the creator of this recent virus.

http://www.itproportal.com/portal/news/article/2010/4/19/facebook-rolls-out-web-ads-track-user-patterns/

Oscars for movie websites?

2010-04-16T08:58:00.001-07:00

Smashing Magazine has decided to give out ask the question: "What if Oscars were give to movie websites?".

You can see the results on their site via the link below:
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/04/14/what-if-oscars-were-given-to-movie-websites/

Battling Banner Blindness

2010-04-15T06:36:00.000-07:00

I often wonder when creating banners how many of the X Million impressions that the banner will get, actually resulted in someone looking at the banner. Not only do people use ad-banner blocking software / plug-ins, but research shows that people quite effectively ignore banner ads or anything that looks like a banner ad.

So how do we get people to actually look at these ads? Or interact with them. Well there's not much we can do if people are using ad-blockers, but for those who are filtering them with their brain, there are a good list of suggestions in the article below.

Give the user something, use a simple design, keep the ads fresh and customise the ads for the viewer are the suggestions - and they're not bad suggestions! Have a read, follow their guidelines and hopefully watch click-rate increase!

http://www.marketingvox.com/4-tricks-to-battle-banner-ad-blindness-046498/

Twitter advertising platform: Promoted Tweets

2010-04-13T08:44:00.000-07:00

Twitter have launched their advertising platform. Following in a Google mould, Twitter will now allow companies to bid on keywords and become listed on the twitter search site above search results.
We'll have to wait to see how popular this will, but I can't see it being very popular with Twitter in it's current state, as at the moment most of Twitter's traffic comes from 3rd Party apps and not through their twitter website. This means that most people won't ever see the priority listed ads.
Twitter are thinking of creating their own apps to rival those 3rd party apps out there. Although I'm unsure of how successful they will be given the prevalence of TweetDeck and other such applications that utilise the Twitter API.

http://www.warc.com/news/topnews.asp?ID=26567

Bebo about to go

2010-04-08T08:40:00.000-07:00

AOL has come to the inevitable conclusion that it will have to sell or shut down Bebo. Bebo has been performing poorly of recent, with it's users in the US down from 5.8 million last year to 5.1 million this year. (This is compared to Facebook's 210 million)
They paid $850 million for it a couple of years ago, a figure that it is unlikely to sell for now.

Read more:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8606379.stm

Become a Starbucks Barista with FourSquare

2010-03-12T04:00:00.000-08:00

The inevitable has happened: Starbucks has teamed up with FourSquare to provide a Barista badge to those customers who check-in to 5 or more Starbucks. At the moment, this doesn't actually get you anything - but Starbucks are saying that they are deciding what to give back to FourSquare Baristas.
FourSquare will also be providing businesses with stats about their customers soon.

Read more:
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/11/starbucks-fans-can-become-a-barista-on-foursquare/

French Connection Run First Chatroulette Competition

2010-03-03T04:01:00.000-08:00

Chatroulette has been gripping the online world for the past few weeks. It has a simple style and concept, Chatroulette randomly connects users from around the world, enabling them to communicate using webcam, text and images. It’s been received with mixed reviews; “surreal”, “addictive”, “voyeuristic”, “explicit”, “a great trip around the world”.

Some may loathe it some may love it but either way, once you try it you’re pretty addicted and guaranteed to waste away a good while.

French Connection is the first brand to pick up and try to harness the craze by running a competition using the controversial site.

They’ve set up a challenge on the Mens Blog to set up a real date with a girl they’ve found on the site. The first one to do so, and prove it, will receive £250 to spend at French Connection.

I’m interested to see how successful this will be…You have 2.9 seconds to make a good first impression on chatroulette . In the interests of research we conducted an hour long experiment, clicking through to about 30 people. Here are the results:

naked men grabbing there crotch = 18

men with their penis out = 10

couples having sex = 1

Girl with breasts out = 1

Women or girls actually chatting normally = 0

We did see a couple of girls in the hour one quickly clicked away, the other just wanted to show us her packet of cigarettes and type random words.

Will girls online really agree to a date with a random stranger? Are there that many girls on chatroulette? Either way it’s definitely given French Connection a PR boost

The Guardian – Online Voyeurs flock to the random thrills of Chatroulette

New Media Age - French Connection runs competition on controversial site Chatroulette

Crowdsourcing aka Cocreation

2010-03-02T06:53:00.000-08:00

As was mentioned in this blog's Thoughts and Predictions for 2010, crowdsourcing (or cocreation as it is also known) is increasingly being used in everything from helping in the case of the Haitian disaster to a new platform, Grogger for crowdsourcing contents for your blog. Pepsi is even using crowdsourcing in place of ads at this year's Super Bowl with their Refresh Everything initiative.

So it looks like crowdsourcing is becoming a popular trend. Why are so many people using it? Well advantages include the fact that you are getting all your design work and customer research done for free. Pepsi's prizes of $250,000 might sound like a lot, but they are a drop in the ocean compared to the budgets that an advertising campaign might usually have for the campaign design and research. (Although it could be claimed that the Refresh Everything campaign is itself a campaign and any cost saved used crowdsourcing would be have been made up for with the development of this campaign.)
A crowdsourced idea is going to be popular with the public by its very definition - well they did choose it. This should mean that the campaign or idea will have a head-start when it does go live. Also any target audience research will be minimal, although it shouldn't be assumed that everyone has taken part in the campaign - remember it could have just been the digital geeks who took part in the campaign and then you'll have a product aimed at digital geeks - most of whom will already know about the campaign.

It looks like brands are embracing the idea of getting the public to do the work for them and it's going to be popular for a while. Will we start to see film posters designed by the public? What about ads or trailers? Or entire outdoor campaigns? We'll have to wait and see how far this is taken.

http://www.nma.co.uk/news/unilever-to-use-social-media-to-aid-product-development/3010319.article

EDIT:
Crowdsourcing is even being used to find the next bestseller!
http://springwise.com/weekly/2010-03-03.htm#tenpages

Augmented Reality – Is it all just a gimmick?

2010-03-01T03:43:00.000-08:00

I’ve been addicted to augmented reality for months now and following the developments closely. It’s definitely got the wow factor but every now and again I have to bring myself back to earth and ask – What is the point? Is it all just a gimmick?

At the moment, the technology is being developed quickly, and I can’t help but feel people are getting carried away with what they can do rather than how can this be useful. There are a few shining examples out there where augmented reality has been used because it’s useful not just for the sake of augmented reality.

USPS developed a postage pricing system, this was one of the first AR apps I saw that had more to it than just holding a marker up and watching animation.
When you’re not sure how much your packet should cost to post. You can use this virtual box simulator to check if it fits in the boxes they ship. It still remains top of my list of AR applications due to how useful this is.

Zugara’s Online Shopping Augmented Dressing Room hit my shopaholic gene.
According to this video 3.57% of visitors to online retail sites make a purchase, could virtually trying clothing on help to boost this percentage? Will the clothes really look like they do on screen? We’ll have to wait for a retailer to adopt this and see just how successful it really is. Not knowing how something will look definitely effects my online purchasing decisions. The really nice part of this is that you can control the application and buy the items through hand gestures.

In a similar try before you buy vein, Ray Ban created the virtual mirror but as soon as you ask a user to download a desktop application, as you’ll see in these stats you’re drastically reducing the number of people willing to interact with your app to somewhere between 35 and 60%.

Of course sometimes the point needs to be just to have fun and be entertained but I think it’s still important here that it’s in a way that we couldn’t before AR.
Animated Lego, AR drumkits, AR magic and Rock Paper Scissor T-Shirts are brilliant examples of this.

Mobile AR applications are also plentiful, while ‘thankfully’ we’re not quite at the stages of Nude It there is a lot of progress been made for the iPhone and other mobile platforms, with apps such as Nearest Tube and Junaio allowing you to interact and discover information about your environment. To browsers like Layar and Wikitude, allowing you to augment your reality with a variety of different types of information that you need. But none of these are an integrated part of our every day life and of course pose hazards; I don’t want to step in dog poo just because I’m staring at my phone walking towards the nearest bar.
Finally of course there are some great looking AR games out there, and using your trainers as a game controller, not the ones you ruined earlier. Is a really nice idea.

Lots of big brands have used Augmented Reality recently to market products, films or their brand. We’ve seen examples from Transformers, Oasis (Rubberduckzilla), Adidas. But how successful were they? How many users have interacted with their content? And bought the product, seen the movie, talked about the brand as a result? This all comes down to does your audience understand AR? Are the only people excited about this and using it AR geeks like us? How many people have a webcam? Or a machine powerful enough to run intensive flash? These are all questions that I’m waiting eagerly to hear the answer to, all of which will answer my opening question, is it all just a gimmick?

FdF

Twitter Ad Platform Coming Soon

2010-02-24T05:56:00.000-08:00

Plans are confirmed that Twitter will be launching it's ad platform soon. Seth Goldstein and Anamitra Banerji have both commented and although there is no confirmed date it is expected in the next month or so.

Personally I don't see how this will work. Most people don't actually go to Twitter.com and I can't see people putting up with ads within their tweets. I've never really thought that Twitter was a monetisable platform and I'll be interested to see how they roll this out and how the Twittersphere reacts to it. It may well not be positive and who knows Buzz might even benefit from it!

Read more:

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=122950

http://www.penn-olson.com/2010/02/24/ads-coming-on-twitter-soon/

http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2010/02/23/twitters-advertising-platform-launch-month/

Up in the Vouchercloud

2010-02-23T09:43:00.000-08:00

The Vouchercloud app hit the app store on 8th February 2010 and has been present in the top 25 free apps from day one. With over 150,000 downloads and a daily average of 10-15000 a day. It seems it may be an iPhone app with a shelf life greater than an X-Factor contestant!

It provides discount vouchers for shops and restaurants in your local area and is the first mobile app to offer such a service. The variety of vouchers is great, as is the mix of small and large chains.
Paying for a subscription gives you access to premium vouchers and further savings but there’s more than enough money off and free cups of coffee to keep you going for a while without.

However it has one big downfall, you need to remember to check the app before you take your wallet out. Perhaps when GPS can pinpoint you down to an actual store we can start to get meaningful push notifications “Hey Fiona! thanks for coming in. Why don’t you use this voucher for a free cup of coffee?”

It’s one step closer to location based promotions but we’ve still got a while to go.

iTunes link:
http://ax.itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/browserRedirect?url=itms%253A%252F%252Fax.search.itunes.apple.com%252FWebObjects%252FMZContentLink.woa%252Fwa%252Flink%253Fpath%253Dapps%25252fvouchercloud

DoubleClick for Publishers

2010-02-23T04:07:00.000-08:00

Google have just launched their latest technology for publishers in the form of DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP). They will be removing the DART branding and replacing it with Google branding.
It's been a long awaited upgrade to their system and one that will include a variety of enhancements to keep DoubleClick at the forefront of the market. Included in these are the new Public API which has been opened up to allow third parties to create applications which utilise DFP.

Google blog post:
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/next-generation-of-ad-serving-for.html

AdAge article:
http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=142237

Freak out with Frank

2010-02-18T05:40:00.000-08:00

Talk To Frank - the drugs awareness website has got a new game about the effects of cannabis on their site with beautiful visuals by one of our designers here. See if you can get through three levels starting in the brain, then through the park and finally in the supermarket to buy your munchies!

http://www.talktofrank.com/freakout.aspx?id=7459

Flash is dead, long live Flash!

2010-02-12T02:20:00.000-08:00

Flash is under fire from all corners at the moment:

The release of HTML5 and subsequent testing by Google of a Flash free YouTube. HTML5 will play video without the need for any extra plugins such as Flash.
Apple won't be supporting Flash in the iPad or on the iPhone. So that's a mobile barrier.
Apparently you can now play Flash videos through JavaScript thanks to some clever bod's coding skills and perseverance.
SilverLight is a competitor and has the weight of Microsoft behind it.

Personally I don't think Flash is under any imminent threat. HTML5 won't become standard until 2022, iPads and iPhones will only count for a tiny percentage of mobile devices. The performance of running Flash through JavaScript isn't there yet and it requires some deep technical knowledge, that your average Flash designer won't have. SilverLight never seems to have taken off and we all know that even with MS behind something it doesn't mean it's successful - Vista anyone?

I think that Flash is established on enough people's browsers and is standard enough that even if they were to stop work on future versions of Flash today it would still be around for a few years to come. I mean people are still using IE6! As it is Adobe are on the ball and I have no doubt will keep Flash relevant in the future for web developers.

Read more:
http://www.flashmagazine.com/community/detail/everyone_to_their_bases_-_flash_is_under_attack/

Flash in JavaScript:
http://ajaxian.com/archives/gordon-flash-runtime-implemented-in-javascript

Have you heard the Buzz?

2010-02-10T06:18:00.000-08:00

Yesterday Google launched Google Buzz. Buzz is essentially social networking in your email. Every Google Mail account will soon be able to use it's features, which include status updates, sharing pictures and videos, commenting on other's content, and discussion.
With Buzz, Google is trying to get into the social networking arena against the big-guns like Facebook. This is something they tried many years ago with Orkut, but that only gained popularity in Brazil and India. It also puts it directly in competition with Twitter, something Rory Cellan-Jones thinks it will be more of a threat to.

To be honest I think that Buzz is a bit of a last ditch attempt to get into social networking, after the hype of Google Wave, which seemed to dissipate as soon as it was launched. I can't really see Buzz getting a mass take-up, as Jon at Jollywise says "Hotmail has more users". Google might rule the search, but they don't rule email yet - so this won't have the take-up they would need to compete with Facebook.

I do agree with Google's outlook on the future: That everything will be online (in a cloud) and accessed through a central interface (your browser). Google would like that that interface was a Google Dashboard with all their products on. And they are on the right track with Google Docs, Google Mail leading the pack with a range of other products in support.

I think that Wave is a better vision of the future than trying to jump on the social networking bandwagon. And I think that a gradual increase in the functionality of Google Mail until it becomes Google Wave is way forward. This means that people don't have to register with a new system and they will get used to the changes as they are added. Google Mail and Wave aren't all that different in their basics at the moment anyway.

I would have suggested a more gradual move into Buzz aswell through allowing anybody with a Google account to comment on things, share things via an email, integrating a "broadcast to many" option in Google Mail. So that people end up doing all these things without thinking about using a new system.

Google are pretty good at creating and leading the way. I for one - love the way that Google Mail works in comparison to normal mail systems and I do believe that Google Wave (or something similar) will become the norm in a few years. They might have got it right with Google Buzz and my doubting voice will be silenced. Despite my belief in Google's success lying elsewhere, I will be following Google Buzz with interest.

Further reading:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/feb/09/google-launch-expand-social-networking

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8506148.stm

"WIDGET" What's in a name?

2010-02-03T10:40:00.000-08:00

When it comes to reaching your audience, quite a lot actually.

A widget is widely understood In digital marketing circles both client and agency. For the purposes of this article (don’t write in and correct me) - it’s basically content that your target audience can take away and install on their social network of choice, Facebook, MySpace et al.

Now here's the thing: A lot of your target audience don’t know what the term "widget" means.

In fact I conducted some pretty unscientific research before I wrote this post. I reached out to my own network, most of them unconnected to digital marketing - to ask what they think a widget it is.

“Is it something to do with Guiness or lager?” was a recurring theme.

Even the font of all knowledge WikiPedia is a little scant on actual detail here:

Running campaigns, with clear calls to action, asking, telling, begging your audience to ...

Install the widget! Grab the widget! Get the widget! Have you had our widget? Why not take our widget?

May all be failing in one big area. The term widget.

We recently ran a campaign for St Trinian's 2 – Our audience? Girls, 8 – 16 year olds. St Trinian's and Girls Aloud (Sarah Harding was in the film) already had an audience across “socialsphere” So, we built a beautifully crafted widget, we put in place a content strategy, begged the film company for exclusive content, enticed consumers with competitions, gave them news, basically if you were a fan of St Trinian's: you needed our widget.

So why didn’t they lap it up in the first couple of weeks?

We turned to our St Trinians Fan page on Facebook, and were shocked to realize that kids don’t know what a widget is. Not only that, but they were embarrassed to admit it, didn’t want to install it because they weren’t sure what it was, and so it snowballed.

So we took the bold step of changing the name of it, over a long call with the media planning agency, the client, and their marketing department, we knocked all sorts of words around, gadget, web widget, gizmo… weighing up the pros and cons of each. In the end we crowd sourced our answer from Facebook, the outright winner was…

WEB APP!! It seemed the term app, which in my head was the preserve of iPhone/iPod, is widely accepted by the kids and your target demo. It comes loaded with it it’s own meaning, people like it, they understand the term app, they know what they’re getting. And if you add the word FREE in front of it, then you’ve got a runaway hit on your hands.

Our campaign started with Grab the Widget and in 2 weeks we had a underwhelming 100+ installs.

We changed to Grab the Free Web App – we started getting 1000+ a week.

So I guess there’s a lesson to learn here: In an age where we’re racing to keep up with the latest advance in our industry, it pays to STOP, THINK and CONSIDER, are all our audience on our bus?? The answer is clear, probably not!

Online privacy icon agreed

2010-01-29T04:28:00.001-08:00

The ad industry has come up with the icon above to signify "Interest based ads", which it is adopting on ads that have been targeted using behavioural data. The industry is adopting use of this icon in an effort to reduce interference from Washington and other parties.

http://www.marketingvox.com/ad-industry-agrees-on-online-privacy-icon-046078/

Hyper Augmented Reality

2010-01-28T09:40:00.000-08:00

A nice video mock-up of what the future of Augmented Reality might hold.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/augmented_reality_heaven_or_hell.php

Common banner ad mistakes

2010-01-28T08:47:00.000-08:00

This article lists a few basic mistakes that can be made when designing banner ads. It is true that you can sometimes see people falling at the same hurdles as previous generations in their design.
Getting your message across clearly and concisely is key in my book!

http://adage.com/digitalnext/post?article_id=141751

Positive predictions for onlines ads in 2010

2010-01-21T01:41:00.000-08:00

Despite predictions that traditional advertising will fall in 2010, there are predictions of online advertising rising.

Read the article below for more details:
http://www.marketingvox.com/magna-2010-ad-forecast-online-to-have-strong-year-046018/

2010 - Our thoughts and predictions

2010-01-05T11:00:00.000-08:00

2010

Continue our move towards cloud computing
Ever since the introduction of Google Apps, we’ve seen more and more of a move towards cloud computing. Everything from our documents being stored remotely, to whole applications being stored elsewhere and accessed from our browser, we are seeing this move take place. 2010 will continue this inclination, not to its extreme yet – but in the next few years we’ll see computers simply being the way to access all our applications and date remotely, as they will be in “the cloud”!

Tablets (led by Apple)
If the rumoured Apple tablet computer does make an appearance next year, as is widely expected, there’s a good chance that it will transform the market in the same way that the iPhone has done.
We can’t be sure that the tablet even exists because Apple never comments on rumours but there is good reason to suspect that the device will feature a 10” LCD screen and resemble a large iPhone. It seems to be the established rumour – that Apple will announce this some time this year!

Apple are not alone in the tablet computing space, of course. Microsoft’s Courier tablet - another device that exists only in rumour - looks promising and offers two screens, making it more like a giant Nintendo DS. Budget computer maker Asustek are thought to be working on a tablet and so are Dell.

Not all tablets are mythical, however. You can buy an Archos 9 for £449 and be working on one right away. Tablets offer the advantage of a netbook-sized screen but are far lighter. The major disadvantage is the lack of a physical keyboard. Many people find a touchscreen keyboard difficult to use for long periods. Still, tablets are great for video, internet use and, if and when publishers get their act together, could offer an innovative way of reading newspapers and magazines. The latter possibility makes them a real threat to the growing e-book reader market.

Real-time
Twitter has been the single biggest technology story of 2009 – now the micro-blogging site is beginning to charge businesses for using it and Google and Bing are starting to include tweets in their search results. Those two facts mean that any doubter can be sure that “real-time” social websites such as Facebook and Twitter are here to stay. But the big question has to be how to gather their short-form contents together in such a way that it becomes genuinely useful – at the moment, the wisdom of Twitter is hard to revisit. The solution is far from obvious, however: even more so than the internet in general, Twitter especially is full of other people’s opinions, and so presenting them in such a way that their relative merits are obvious is almost impossible. What does seem certain to continue, however, is the continued predominance of individual influencers, from Stephen Fry to Ashton Kutcher. And more and more pieces of data are likely to become available instantly – the Conservative Party’s Shadow Cabinet expenses are already available on Google Docs, for instance, as soon as they’re submitted. As the real-time web becomes home to information as well as opinion, it will become even more influential.

Analytics will become more important
As we get more and more data on everything, analytics will play a larger role, because we’ll have the data to support the success / failure of marketing campaigns.

As online video consumption continues to rise, advertisers increasingly value viral viewings as a clear and visible sign that their campaigns are engaging audiences.

This information will fuel a more scientific approach to viral campaign planning. Rather than just place videos online and hope an audience will come, advertisers will invest in viral seeding strategies. They'll promote their videos via online influencers, Facebook video-sharing applications and targeted, paid placements. Advertisers will also become smarter about developing and selecting ads with the most viral video potential before they employ the seeding.
While there are likely to still be more misses than hits in the viral space, the opportunity of being next year's T-Mobile "Dance" or Evian's roller babies is something many marketers will plan for.

Online display: Don't be blinded by the shiny and new.
In 2010, advertisers will experiment with new, larger ad formats. These formats may be initially attractive because they are different, but the basics of brand building beyond awareness shouldn't be ignored. Most of the new formats perform very well in the short term. Dynamic Logic has previously reported the high performance (brand impact) of video ads when they were first introduced. They found that video ad performance, relative to average ad performance, declined over a two year period following introduction as the novelty wore off. We'd expect this to be true for most of the new, larger ad formats and their progeny.
Ultimately, over the next several years only the fittest for these larger formats will survive. If they prove too intrusive, they may make people less favorable toward the advertised brand or the website on which they are served. Other advertisers and agencies will use these formats more cautiously, taking note of creative best practices gleaned from prior work.

Maps and location based technology / augmented reality
Google street map made news early last year with its controversial drive-by views of people’s front doors and people themselves. But, other innovative mappers also are emerging. Openstreetmap.org is about people mapping everything worldwide from great hiking routes to ski runs or and wine tours. Gatt describes it as a kind of wiki of special interest maps.

As more people invest in iPhones and other smartphones with geo-locational hardware incorporated, we can expect this to play a larger role in people lives.
Remember the digital screens that overlapped the physical world in the Steven Spielberg film “Minority Report”? Soon, you may be able to point your camera phone at a restaurant and have the view overlapped with user reviews.
With smart phones integrating all forms of digital media, augmented reality is the next step in bringing the virtual and the real together in one experience. “It’s a part of a larger goal – how do you make marketing useful? That’s the holy grail for everyone,” he says.
People are already using programs like FourSquare, Loopt and route planner software to plan their journeys on the go, when delays / breakdowns occur. And although this might only be the realm of the geek at the moment, you can be sure that it will become the norm sooner rather than later. 2010 will be the year for brands to figure out how to market to them. Local bars/restaurants have been the main advertisers. However, opportunities shouldn't be limited to food. For example, luxury retailers could target consumers checking in at upscale restaurants and invite them to sample sales or give discounts.

Fewer Registrations - One Sign-in Fits All
As consumers grow increasingly frustrated and resentful about registering yet again on another website, juggling different IDs and remembering a dizzying array of passwords, information-managing services such as Facebook Connect and OpenID will becoming even more useful and will continue to be adopted at great speed through 2010.

More Flash, Not Less
Outside of the obvious brand sites, micro-sites and media sites (video, games, etc.) where it appears absolutely necessary, Flash has often been looked down upon if not completely discounted by both techies and search engine optimizers. It seemed to face an uncertain future as a viable tool for serious websites and applications such as eCommerce tools and corporate websites. However, Adobe's rich media tool has enjoyed the grit and determination of its advocates and external development community. Now, several tricks, authoring tools and server side scripting workarounds have meant that Flash-built websites no longer serve up a single, impenetrable page. They offer deep, searchable, indexable sites that will allow acute, detailed traffic and behavioural analytics and search engine optimization.
As websites continue to increase in their importance as a company's storefront, the demand for rich, brand-extending experiences will also increase. Further proliferation of fast broadband will reduce download issues while the adoption of Flash on mobile devices will dramatically increase and fuel reach and the desire/need for highly usable, brand transporting, conversion oriented experiences
Also the introduction of Flash to many TV sets and set-top boxes will proliferate Flash even further.

The year that people get to grips with marketing on social networks
2009 has been the year that a few brands and agencies have produced stand out work that properly leverages the scale and features of social networks and utilities such as facebook and twitter.

'Tag a sofa' campaign for Ikea by Forsman and Bodenfors, Whopper Sacrifice by Crispin Porter + Bogusky and the awesomely popular 4320:LA for V Austrailia by Droga5 are beginning to show people that you can have product relevant, powerful and spreadable ideas that exist in these previously hard to tame media spaces.

These campaigns have opened people's mind to a new way of thinking about this sphere that is much more focused on the individual functionality of the platform. Finally, people are recognising that for an idea to work, it must be landed in an existing behaviour.

Brands that haven't embraced the medium will understand that social media marketing is not about slapping a brand page on Facebook and hoping for the best. Efforts will start with a sound strategy, a commitment to participate, and a willingness to listen and respond. This may seem obvious, but there are brands that still aren't fully engaged. As more brands like Ford and Pepsi hire heads of social media to lead the charge, 2010 will be the year that brands realize that social media is no longer a novelty; it's serious business.

The internet will bleed into reality
People will sort of cut up the internet and use bits of it to augment the real world. It's a hard thing to explain, but you can see a nice example of what I'm talking about here http://www.pokelondon.com/story/project-launch/mmmm-doughnuts-arduino-style-/ where Poke London built, using Arduino technology http://www.arduino.cc/ a device that lets the baker tweet out his freshest produce to the surrounding shoreditch ad-men and fancily sneakered designers so they can take a break from Powerpoint and flash coding to gobble a pain au chocolat and a double espresso.

Devices like the Nabaztag http://www.nabaztag.com/en/index.html (Armenian for 'rabbit) were way ahead of their time, this was an internet/real world crossover device that launched in 2006...expect to see more of these in 2010.

Now this is nothing new, if you remember the classic coffee cam from 1991 http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/coffee/qsf/coffee.html , which became a popular press story in the 90s. However it’s taking this things to a new more practical level. A service which informs you – rather than you having to check a photo of a coffee mug.

The Android is nigh
2010 will be the year that Android grows and grows. It was released early to fanfare amongst geeks and not much noise elsewhere, Android 2.0 is being released as we speak and it will mean that the various devices that run it will get a worthy, mass market, operating system.

For all the talk of the size and popularity of the iPhone app store, iPhones are still and will remain a minority. Android will become the mass platform of choice and the integration it offers between cameras, microphones, maps, social networks and GPS will mean that there's potential for brands to release some killer applications

Crowdsourcing

These ideas need continuing investment and can often have an impact on the structure of a business. Walkers managed to get involved to great success with 'Do us a flavour' but opportunities to ask a client to hinge it's whole budget on a crowdsourcing idea that requires above-the-line support don't come up that often.

Expect to see smaller initiatives coming out, in CSR, product development and marketing development. This is one of the small fires that Marketing Directors should be very keen to begin starting.
Social media is typically thought of as a vehicle for branding and relationship marketing, but there are direct sales opportunities. For example, Best Buy celebrated opening day for the movie New Moon by asking its Facebook fans what their favourite vampire-themed films and books were. They put 50 of those items on sale on BestBuy.com. Many fans thanked Best Buy for listening to them and readily purchased the products.

The most important thing for brands to remember is that we should spend less of our efforts trying to predict "what's next for 2010" and focus on adapting quickly to changes in consumer behaviour and technology. The one certainty is that social marketing strategies will have to evolve with whatever comes our way next year.

Note. Some contents of this may be taken from other websites.

Studio spending on online marketing increases

2010-01-04T07:27:00.000-08:00

The studios are changing where they are spending their marketing budget and an ever increasing amount of money is going towards online marketing, with 8-12% being spent on new media now. Also on the increase is mobile marketing, with the main loser being newpaper ads following Transformers 2 having spent virtually nothing on newspaper advertising and still taking enormous amounts at the box office.

For full details, with some great examples of movies' marketing budgets and allocations read the article below:

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118013209.html

Send your tribe a Christmas card

2009-12-04T09:29:00.000-08:00

We've just launched the St Trinian's 2: The Legend of Fritton's Gold Christmas e-card. You can choose your tribe (posh totty, ecos, rude girls etc.) to send the card to and your friends will receive a e-card tailored to their tribe. Add your own message to personalise it! So get out there and send everyone an e-card!

http://www.sttriniansmovie.co.uk/christmas_card/

We won a BIMA!

2009-11-20T06:19:00.000-08:00

Jollywise went to the BIMA Awards last night at Koko in Camden. We were nominated for three beautiful BIMAs and against stiff competition managed to walk away with one! We won the Special Award - Achievement - Stra tegy for "The Competition That Rocked" site we did for Spotify and Universal.

We all had a great night; mingling with the Digital Media elite, watching Beardyman perform, and drinking lots and even more once we'd won!

Digital Agencies are Ready to Lead

2009-11-12T09:25:00.000-08:00

Great article about the role of agencies with the advertising industry and how they are ready to take the lead.

"...it's clear that digital agencies have proven their value, not to mention their ability to innovate, inspire, and create the big idea."

I think this is particularly true, as the agencies are the ones who will be dropped by the clients if they aren't constantly innovating and producing the best creative and ideas. They are the ones pushing things forward, competing with each other for the work and only the best are going to get the work.

http://adage.com/digitalnext/article?article_id=140498

Bebo makes cuts in the UK

2009-11-12T07:00:00.000-08:00

Bebo have announced cuts in the UK of 100 jobs. They are also ditching their web TV division, which was working on KateModern and Sofia's Diary. They seemed to fall behind Facebook, and irreversibly so. Their service and support for businesses hasn't matched that of other companies and I wonder how much longer they can continue without finding a niche.

It makes the purchase of Bebo for $850m like another poor business move from AOL.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/nov/12/bebo-cuts-jobs-web-tv

YouTube to try out skippable pre-roll ads

2009-11-12T06:33:00.000-08:00

YouTube have been experimenting all different kinds of advertising in their videos. Over the ad, next to the ad, during the ad, before the ad - they've tried it all.

I've previously said that I thought that YouTube would lose people if they put pre-roll ads onto their site. YouTube seem to have agreed, as they stopped testing them. But they are back with new pre-roll testing, however this time it will be skippable with a "No thank you" link. I think that this is far more likely to survive, as it has on other file sending sites, such as zshare and relay it. Maybe they've found a happy medium here? I still think that relevant ads alongside content are the way to go. Make them highly relevant and of a high standard and people are more likely to be interested and less likely to be annoyed.

Jollywise go back to school with St Trinian's

2009-11-11T09:30:00.000-08:00

Well the Jollywise team have done it again. This slick site for the second St Trinian's film: The Legend of Fritton's Gold, went live this afternoon. Featuring info about film, cast, gallery, video clips, and two competitions, including your chance to appear in the next film!

To be updated with further content in the future, including more video clips, downloadable content and look out for the widget coming soon!

Pizza Hit with iPhone!

2009-11-04T09:54:00.000-08:00

Pizza Hut's iPhone app has apparently made them more than $1 million in sales. iPhone apps seem to be hot stuff at the moment and companies are working out where they are appropriate and useful.
Although a clue to it's success could be that people who book with their iPhone app get 20% off.

http://mashable.com/2009/11/03/pizza-hut-iphone/

Disney launch iPhone app

2009-10-29T03:37:00.000-07:00

Disney are launching an iPhone app, allowing Disneyphiles to access content wherever they are. It also features the Click2Life feature, whereby exclusive content can be accessed by taking pictures on the phone of images on posters and on the website.

http://www.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUSTRE59R0HX20091028

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/10/28/business/AP-US-Disney-iPhone.html

Uniques or loyal returners?

2009-10-26T12:15:00.000-07:00

Thanks to our little Paul monkey for this link. It's an interesting article about the thoughts of Matt Kelly - and The Mirror project that he oversaw. It discusses whether we are looking at the right metrics for sites. Are we too obsessed with unique hits on a site and should be looking to build a regular returning fan base?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2009/oct/01/daily-mirror-digital-media

Michael Jackson's This is it - 377 nominations and counting

2009-10-22T06:15:00.000-07:00

We've just launched this promotion with our buddies Spotify. We're trying to find out the nations most favourite MJ song. The early front runner is "Man in the Mirror" with the lions share of the voting.

Personally I'm all about songs from "Off the Wall" but hey it's the nations choice. not mine!!

The promotion is a tie up between Sony Pictures and Spotify and the winning entry picked at random, will bag 2 tickets for the Global Premiere of the Michael Jackson's - This is It, plus hotel accommodation and £150 notes spending money.

As far as prizes go.. You can't "Beat It" (you see what I did there?)

BIMA me up Scotty!!!

2009-10-22T05:53:00.000-07:00

Well butter my spuds and mash my beans, but the Jollywise crew have bagged not 1 but 2 nominations for the BIMA awards.

We've been nominated in both the Display advertising, and entertainment sector categories. For a company that's only been trading since 2006 this is big news for us, and we're over the flipping moon to be shortlisted with the great and the good.

If you want to see what all the fuss is about, here's the 2 bits of work...

Display Advertising - Client: Walt Disney. G-force UK Media Creative

Entertainment Sector - Client: Universal Pictures/Spotify - The competition that rocked

Wish us all the best of luck for the awards ceremony on the 19th November

Flash comes to mobile (properly)

2009-10-05T09:20:00.000-07:00

The full version of Flash is coming to SmartPhones (although the iPhone isn't playing ball). The next version of Flash will be designed to work on SmartPhones as well as PCs. Advances in the software mean that is can be used with HD video and touch screens.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8287239.stm

Article in Figaro Digital magazine.

2009-10-05T09:10:00.000-07:00

We had a case-study in the latest issue of figaro digital magazine. It discusses our work with Spotify.

Check out the full article below:
http://figarodigital.co.uk/CaseStudy.aspx?pkCaseStudyID=011c325f-32cf-407f-9555-737f20807c6b

Vinyan Virtual junket

2009-10-01T09:35:00.001-07:00

Here's a nice article in NMA about a Virtual Press Junket that we ran for Revolver for their new release Vinyan with Love FiLM.

http://www.nma.co.uk/film-streaming-model-could-be-key-to-lovefilms-success/3004897.article

No-ones clicking any more...

2009-10-01T09:05:00.000-07:00

Apologies for the lack of blog posts during the last month - it's not that nothing has been happening - I've just been really busy!

"The number of people online who click display ads has dropped 50% in less than two years, and only 8% of internet users account for 85% of all clicks..."

It's stat-tastic, but despite this it's still an interesting read about web users habits and what they are and aren't doing. The highlight, being that people aren't clicking on ads.

http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=139367

A pet without the mess

2009-09-07T04:31:00.000-07:00

Always wanted a pet, but you already blow all your money on a Playstation? Well here's the answer. Get the new eyepet! Available from Nov 17th, this augmented reality pet works with the PS Eye for the Playstation. It all looks like lots of fun and another step towards a fully augmented world.
I can't wait for Project Natal.

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2009/08/eyepet-in-stores-on-november-17/

Will people pay for content?

2009-08-19T09:51:00.000-07:00

Paid content seems to be getting a lot of coverage at the moment (not just on this blog!). E-consultancy have put together a nice list of the Five Biggest Paid Content Myths:

Nobody pays for content
Content just wants to be free
We need micropayments
Content is a commodity
 Paid content is a solution to the print media's woes

It's an interesting read. One of the comments makes the very good point, that we'll always have the issue of the BBC and their (IMHO) excellent online content in the UK.

I've also attached an article about the success of the Financial Times, which has been charging since 2002.

Read more:
http://econsultancy.com/blog/4389-the-five-biggest-paid-content-myths

Financial Times doesn't want to be free:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/17/business/media/17ft.html

"Social news" on the Huffington Post with Facebook

2009-08-19T07:07:00.000-07:00

The Huffington Post have been working very closely with Facebook to create Social News on the Huffington Post. It's a much deeper use of Facebook Connect than has been seen before and both sides are hoping that it will be beneficial. Huffington Post want to become the place to get your news on Facebook and comment.

http://kara.allthingsd.com/20090816/huffington-post-and-facebook-go-social-with-connect-on-steroids/

How virals spread

2009-08-13T05:31:00.000-07:00

Spanish scientists have researched how memes spread across the web. It depends upon how "infectious" people are, how quickly virals spread and from this: who gets the viral and how infectious they are.

Read more:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17581-infectious-people-spread-memes-across-the-web.html

Kids search for the funniest things

2009-08-12T03:37:00.000-07:00

Some interesting statistics on what children search for online have been revealed in a report by Symantec. They search for sites (YouTube, Google, Facebook, MySpace, Yahoo), Celebs (Michael Jackson, Fred - a new one to me, but he has the most subscribed YouTube Channel, Eminem) and of course Sex (sex, porn, boobs).

Read more:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-10797_3-10306357-235.html

Facebook eats Friendfeed

2009-08-11T09:42:00.000-07:00

Facebook has acquired startup FriendFeed. Facebook say that they did it to attain the "the best engineers". FriendFeed employs many ex-Google employees - whom I'm sure that Facebook will be keen to have in their building! Initially the two sites will remain separate, but much of the functionality of FriendFeed will eventually come under the Facebook site.

http://www.facebook.com/press/releases.php?p=116581

http://blog.friendfeed.com/2009/08/friendfeed-accepts-facebook-friend.html

Scan with your mobile

2009-08-11T09:17:00.000-07:00

M&S have started to use QR codes on their products to provide more information and to give access to exclusive offers. Although QR codes have been around since 1994 it's only recently that the technology has become commonplace to read them on the go. Now that most mobiles have cameras with a high enough resolution to read QR codes and have access to the web, a simple lookup is possible. By scanning a QR code the user can then be taken to a website for example. The applications here are endless...

http://www.crackunit.com/2009/08/07/qr-enabled-ms-orange-and-mango-juice/

Increase in Online Video Streaming

2009-08-10T03:11:00.000-07:00

Apparently Americans have taken to streaming TV show and movies online like ducks to water, according to the increasing online viewing stats.

I was particularly interested by the following line:
"This is more than two times the levels measured in September 2008, and indicates that - fueled by ad-supported websites that make it happen..."

They think that it's ad-supported websites that make it happen. Which would beg the question whether it was a good decision by various big players, notably Disney and Rupert Murdoch, to be making users pay for content online in the future.
Is the uptake good because it's free? Or because people actually want to watch these programmes and are willing to pay for them as well?

The monetisation of the web, whether it be video, news or music is a particularly hot topic at the moment, and one that I don't think anyone really knows how it is going to pan out. I'm sure that what people are willing to pay for will vary in different industries.

http://www.marketingvox.com/hulus-growth-fuels-rise-in-online-video-streaming-044799/

Murdoch makes you pay

2009-08-07T04:40:00.000-07:00

Rupert Murdoch has said that he will introduce payment for content on all News Corp sites. This includes: foxnews, Times Online, The Sun, News Of The World, New York Post and Wall Street Journal (which already charges for content).

Murdoch wants to distinguish the journalism on the News Corp sites. By ensuring it is of a high-quality, he thinks that people will be willing to pay for the better sites. It is unsure of exactly how the payment scheme will work. This could be by subscription, or micropayments per article or both.

I'm unsure of whether this will ever be completely successful, especially when there are free sites such as the BBC News in the UK, but many sites are looking to subscriptions at the moment. See Spotify in Europe and Hulu in the US.

Read more:
http://www.marketingvox.com/murdoch-empire-to-charge-for-online-content-next-year-044800/

What other people have to say about it:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/aug/06/charging-content-sunday-times-website

Guardian FAQs:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/aug/06/charging-online-content-murdoch-faqs

Yahoo and Microsoft seal the deal

2009-07-29T09:47:00.000-07:00

Yahoo and Microsoft have made their deal official. It's probably easily summed up by this quote from the MS press release:
"In simple terms, Microsoft will now power Yahoo! search while Yahoo! will become the exclusive worldwide relationship sales force for both companies’ premium search advertisers."

There's not much more to say other than this is a 10 year agreement. Read below for full details.

Gigaom have got an updated blog post with the details of the deal:
http://gigaom.com/2009/07/29/yahoo-microsoft-ink-search-deal/

Yahoo and Microsoft have created a site to celebrate their deal. It's got some hilarious corporate clip-art too.
http://www.choicevalueinnovation.com/thedeal/Default.aspx

Microsoft Press Release:
http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/press/2009/jul09/07-29release.mspx

Surrogates page takeover

2009-07-28T09:02:00.000-07:00

Check out this pretty awesome page takeover that's been done for Surrogates. I love the way it spills out and becomes a proper experience. And the fact that the leaderboard and MPU ads only change occasionally - giving more impact when they do.

http://www.vidiia.com

Government Guidelines on Twitter

2009-07-27T09:02:00.000-07:00

Whitehall has released a 20 page document on government use of Twitter. It's all seems like sensible advice, if a little lengthy. Precautions are taken to avoid government gaffs, and the use of a proper tone with Twitter is mentioned, which I think is key to successful tweets.

The 20 page document:
http://blogs.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/digitalengagement/

Guardian article:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/jul/27/twitter-socialnetworking

Yahoo goes Bing!

2009-07-27T08:06:00.000-07:00

What is it about these exclamations eh? YAHOO! BING! Now Yahoo search may be powered by Bing does that make it YABING? or BINGHOO?
Well whatever people are exclaiming, we've got to wait until next week to have this confirmed.

Read more:
http://www.marketingvox.com/bing-may-power-yahoo-search-044724/

Spotify iPhone App is finally here (almost)

2009-07-27T04:27:00.000-07:00

Spotify have released a video of their iPhone app. Apparently a few reporters have been able to see the app in action as well. It will be available to all Spotify Premium users for free.
The key to the app is the that you will be able to play songs offline, so you can use the app at home, on the train and even on the underground with no connection.

http://www.spotify.com/blog/archives/2009/07/27/spotify-for-iphone/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2009/jul/27/spotify-digital-media

EDIT:
A more in-depth review:
http://sharemyplaylists.com/spotify-iphone-app-in-depth-review/

Facebook Connect in many languages

2009-07-24T04:00:00.000-07:00

Facebook connect is now available in 64 languages. This means your facebook connect applications will now be easily accessible to people all over the world!

http://mashable.com/2009/07/21/facebook-connect-adds-foreign-language-support/

Ads you can share

2009-07-23T09:30:00.000-07:00

This is an interesting article about shareable banner ads. We've been experimenting with this here at Jollywise, by trafficking our widget as an ad.

http://digital-examples.blogspot.com/2009/07/blog-post.html

Would you pay for it?

2009-07-09T10:03:00.000-07:00

Company bosses disagree about whether people will pay for content online. Disney boss Bob Iger reckons they will, I think they won't. It seems there is an even split across the two camps. Only time will tell to see who's right!

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ct-sunvalley8-2009jul08,0,6252478.story

The Medusa Project site launched

2009-06-30T03:00:00.000-07:00

The Medusa Project is an exciting new series from Sophie McKenzie and we've just launched the new site. Featuring character profiles, with Spotify playlists for each character and details on their special powers, about the books, and a competition where you can win iTunes vouchers.

http://www.themedusaproject.co.uk/

Following this up, here is an interesting article discussing why young adults like reading book about character with supernatural powers:
http://www.boston.com/ae/books/articles/2009/06/28/young_adults_feel_affinity_with_supernatural_characters_in_books/

Pixar's lamp comes to life

2009-06-30T02:55:00.000-07:00

Check out this cute video of Pixar's logo lamp "Luxo Jr" as he comes to the real world.

http://gizmodo.com/5303312/pixars-animatronic-luxo-jr-melts-our-hearts-in-live-action

Useful implementation of augmented reality

2009-06-12T09:49:00.000-07:00

The US Postal Service are doing the first useful implementation of augmented reality that I've seen. You can find out which size bracket your parcel falls into. You can see a video of how it works here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpS3LeCiCtc

I've seen fun uses of it, the best being the music video for Ride My Star:
http://www.julianperretta.com/ride_my_star/

More information here:
http://www.marketingvox.com/augmented-reality-technology-brings-useful-service-to-usps-044353/

Community site for kids on Cartoon Network

2009-06-12T03:39:00.000-07:00

Cartoon Network's new site is being launched on June 16th, with a social networking site "My CN". I like the idea of letting kids communicate through pre-written messages. It means that they can still express themselves and their emotions to each other, yet there's no chance of any unsavoury messages appearing on the site. It's a bit like letting them communicate via emoticons.

Read all about the site's new features here:
http://www.netimperative.com/netimperative/news/2009/may/cartoon-network-gets-community-site

Social Media Trends

2009-06-11T07:06:00.000-07:00

The news is that whilst Facebook is expanding, Bebo and MySpace are contracting. Facebook is continuing it's world takeover, with more and more members each day. Also on the rise are LinkedIn and Twitter, although I believe Twitter will be a passing fad for the masses I'm sure, remaining popular only for the insecure celebrities and the geeks.

MySpace is a great place for bands to host a few songs, tour dates, and advertise themselves, but as a personal profile social networking site I never though it had any longevity. And Facebook sealed their downfall in this area I think. I would love to see MySpace evolve into an online directory for bands, artists, creatives etc.

Bebo I feel has just not provided a high enough quality of service. The site has always been behind in changes to the way it works and the support is reportedly not to a high level. I think it might just be a case of the better person winning when you compare Bebo and Facebook.

Interestingly FriendsReunited is mentioned. They made the massive mistake of making you pay, which Tagged doesn't seem to have learned from. They "entice" you to buy VIP memberships to give you extra functionality on the site. A mistake I think.

Read more with the full stats:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/jun/11/myspace-bebo-social-networking

Epix: Hulu for film

2009-06-09T03:30:00.000-07:00

As Hulu grows and grows and in the wake of it's deal with Disney, it seems that other film studios are getting in on the act of online films. Paramount, Lionsgate, and MGM studios have got together and developed epix.
Working like an on-demand TV channel, the service is currently in beta, it will only be available to those with the epix TV channel. This means that your cable provider will be a deciding factor in whether you have the channel or not.

Read about it here:
http://mashable.com/2009/06/08/epix/

Flash coming to Android

2009-06-05T04:53:00.000-07:00

Flash is coming to Android and probably before it appears on the iPhone. Flash has been sorely lacking on many mobile devices. With Android being open source, it was only matter of time before someone enabled Flash on it. Although Apple and Adobe are working together to get Flash onto the iPhone. The Palm Pre (which I'm quite excited about) will also support Flash.

http://www.moconews.net/entry/419-will-flash-come-to-android-before-the-iphone

new iPhone ad units

2009-06-04T06:25:00.000-07:00

Ahead of version 3.0 of the iPhone and its software, AdMob have announced three new types of ad unit.
The new units will be:

Mobile Social Networking, which lets consumers access advertisers' social content from an ad, including their Twitter feed, Facebook page, Digg, MySpace account, Flickr photos, and Linkedin.
Search, whereby users can run searches within an advertiser's mobile site straight from an ad unit.
Multi-Panel Banner, which delivers multiple calls to action in one rich media ad unit.
Scrolling Canvas lets audiences access more information about a product or service without clicking away from the application they're on.

Read the full story here:
http://www.marketingvox.com/new-iphone-ad-units-focus-on-social-search-fresher-rich-media-044269/

Window's 7th Heaven?

2009-06-03T05:54:00.000-07:00

So Acer UK's boss let it slip: Windows 7 will be released on 22nd October this year, not even 3 years since Vista was released.
I haven't had a play with Windows 7 yet, but it can't be worse than Vista. Nothing was compatible with it, the user interface was all wrong and the Aero-preview certainly didn't make up for it.

Read more:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8081003.stm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2009/jun/02/windows7-october

Germany and Turkey are biggest online

2009-06-02T09:58:00.000-07:00

Germany has the most unique visitors of any country in Europe and Turkey is the most active, viewing the most internet pages.

Marketing Vox does a nice summary of the stats:
http://www.marketingvox.com/germanys-online-audience-europes-largest-turkeys-most-engaged-044230/

Homepage Takeover tips

2009-06-02T05:13:00.000-07:00

This is a great article on homepage takeovers.

10 keys to a homepage takeover that works:
http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/23305.asp

Bing launched

2009-06-01T07:05:00.000-07:00

Microsoft's new search engine bing has been launched. Now I didn't like live.com (now redirects to bing) but I've had a play with bing and it's actually a decent search engine. They've got a lot of ground to make up, but Microsoft might actually have something worthwhile here. Now they've just got to convince people of it and probably pull something out of the bag in the next year or two - to give people a reason to use them over google.

Read more: (Make sure you read the acronym note at the end. LOL)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2009/jun/01/searchengines-microsoft

Pixar launched UP to top of US box office

2009-06-01T06:54:00.000-07:00

Pixar's latest film UP has gone straight to the top of the US box office, taking $68.2 million. All I've got to say is go and watch it. This film is beautiful, funny, emotional and cinematic!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8076541.stm

Adobe UK price raise

2009-06-01T06:46:00.000-07:00

Adobe is increasing the price of its software. Creative Suite Premium 4 will rise £123 to £1,372 (all ex. VAT). This means that it will cost £1,578 incl. VAT a total of £480 more than in the US.

Quick summary:
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/254173/adobe-hikes-uk-prices-by-10.html

Lots more here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2009/jun/01/adobe-price-rises-pound-dollar-exchange

Google's new Wave

2009-05-29T03:59:00.000-07:00

Google's new large venture is Google Wave - a kind of mix between email and chat and the future. It's easier to read the Tech Crunch article than a summary by me, but they're pretty excited about it.

Read more:
h ttp://www.techcrunch.com/2009/05/28/google-wave-drips-with-ambition-can-it-fulfill -googles-grand-web-vision/

Read about WaveProtocol:
http://www.waveprotocol.org/

MS Ba-da-BING

2009-05-28T09:15:00.001-07:00

Microsoft is launching it's new search engine: Bing.com
It can't be any worse than Live Search - which is awful. Competing with Google is always going to be a challenge. As I've blogged about recently Wolfram-Alpha is taking on the search giant, but with a different slant on searching.
Bing will try to be intelligent about searches, by using the current date, time etc. to make your search results more relevant. It will also provide related search results and search terms.

It's explained well with examples here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2009/may/28/microsoft-bing

EDIT
More information here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/may/28/microsoft-search-bing-google

EDIT 2
And more about how it works:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/may/29/microsoft-bing-search-engine

Facebook runs a fifth of all UK ads

2009-05-28T09:11:00.000-07:00

Apparently Facebook ran 21.6% of all ads in the UK. That's a lot of ads.

Read more:
http://www.nma.co.uk/new-measure-of-ad-views-finds-facebook-runs-a-fifth-of-all-uk-ads/3000814.article

Is adding the third dimension worth it?

2009-05-28T07:05:00.000-07:00

This journalist on the Guardian website reckons that the new spat of 3D films isn't anything big and isn't going to be here to stay, and that cheaper technology is far more important.

I'm inclined to agree. I saw UP in 3D the other day and it being in 3D added nothing to the film what-so-ever. (Excellent film by the way.) Coraline (Which is a beautiful film.) made much better use of 3D, but I still think it would have been a great film without 3D.

Read more:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2009/may/28/up

Spotify goes offline

2009-05-28T06:12:00.000-07:00

Spotify are developing an Android app that allows you to listen to your music offline as well. Going on the Tube, but still want to hear that funky music - no problem: The app will cache a few tracks for you, whilst you're offline.

Read more:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/05/28/spotify_offline_and_mobile/

Will the web get clever on our streams?

2009-05-27T06:17:00.000-07:00

An interesting article on social network data streams and the semantic web. I think it's all about creating standards and the data-mining after.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/activity_streams_poetry_or_nihilism.php

Pre-rolling on YouTube

2009-05-26T10:17:00.000-07:00

YouTube are going to trial pre-roll ads in the UK. I'm dead against this and I think it's one of the things that has made YouTube so successful is a lack of these forced ads. I guess this trial will see some large scale feedback on the subject.
Personally I think the way forward is highly targeted ads, like facebook provides. The video that someone is watching can mean far better targeted ads, than I currently see on YouTube.

Read more:
http://www.marketingvox.com/youtube-pilots-pre-rolls-across-uk-network-content-044166/

BOO! The Sound of Twittering?

2009-05-26T03:12:00.000-07:00

Is AudioBoo the sonic version of Twitter? In the three months since it launched it's become the popular way to say something online. Stephen Fry using it must have been a springboard for its success. But then again our very own Mr Mason has AudioBooed already, which can only have increased its popularity:
http://audioboo.fm/boos/11729-eye-of-the-tiger

Will people find vocally twittering as popular as the 140 characters? Only time will tell, but with iPhones becoming ever more popular, it's probably easier than typing in the 140 characters.

Read more:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/may/26/audioboo-youtube-twitter

Twitter to remain ad-free

2009-05-22T02:47:00.000-07:00

Twitter will stay ad-free says founder Biz Stone. Apparently they've still got plenty of money and therefore time to find a way to monetise Twitter. Time will tell if there is any money to be made, and if they can find it in time!

http://www.marketingvox.com/twitter-to-remain-ad-free-founder-says-044139/