We won a BIMA!

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 - Strategy 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

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

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

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

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!

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/