Well done Becki (thanks News Digital Media)

becki winner

News Digital Media recently ran a promotion where you could win lots of prizes including the chance to be an Agency Hero. So guess who won an Agency Hero Award and $5000 for our Christmas party? Becki Luxton! @bexlux

In her own words..

‘Every week I correctly answered the quiz and it turns out I’m the hero! We have a giant cheque (I’ve always wanted one of those) and a week to plan our ultimate Christmas party. Thanks News Digital!’

You were already a hero in our eyes Becki, but here’s to News Digital for spotting it too!

Hacking the Xbox Kinect

I have to start this post with a whinge, I pre-ordered Xbox Kinect from JBHifi. When I pre-order something I do expect it to get to me on the day it gets released or at least the day after. We finally got our Kinect here at the office after it was already released for over a week. I could have just walked  down the street and picked on up.

but that is not what I want to talk about here. It is all setup in our reception area and we already had a lot of people trying it out and loving it.

There are some very smart people out there and it only took 3 hours before the Kinect was hacked and an open source driver was created so you can use it on your PC, a little later on your Linux box and then on your Mac.

and what are people doing with it? They are creating some awesome things. Here is a small collection of the things I came across:

Best interactive Puppet

Have your own lightsaber

Capture yourself in 3D

same guy in 3D with a little awesome surprise at 0:53 – watch it it’s worth it

use Kinect to control Windows 7

there are heaps more videos after the break

The multitouch desk of the future

We all know that Steve Jobs doesn’t like vertical multitouch, but I think it doesn’t hurt having that as well.

And the guys from Media Computing Group seem to share this opinion as they just showed off a cool concept workspace that is curved. For them this is the multitouch desk of the future.

It holds 2 projectors and 3 cameras and supports 10 touch points at a time.

If you thought a Microsoft Surface table was big and spacious then have a close look at this one. I think I will need to build a new office to fit it in.

Check out the video below as they are showing off a couple of applications (including a version of space invaders)

@maniac13

Will it go dot.mum? (the real adnews article)

A new phrase has entered the building – dot.mum. It was blurted out (as these things normally are) in a creative brainstorm the other day, ‘I like it, it’s a great idea, but will it go dot .mum?’.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lwr/3946109956

At the time, it came out as shorthand for ‘the mainstream’. The incomplete thesis behind the mumbling was once you’ve gone dot.com you then need to go dot.mum, which means you’ve pretty much got yourself into every household (pretty much – an incomplete thesis as I said).

As the presumed ruler of the household purse, Mums have long been the targets of some pretty one-dimensional strategies (we’ve all seen it before in this industry; food = fear, toilets = pride, etc) and, of course, the terrible advertising that accompanies it. There is a lot more to dot.mum than meets the eye though (now that I’ve actually bothered to explore my mind fart) the truth of the matter is that actually dot.mums are changing the nature of what the mainstream is.

The Entertainment Association of Australia quietly released a study last month which predicts mums are set to overtake teenage boys as the new gamers (ask anyone at Facebook and they’ll tell you they’ve already seen it happen). Their study shows that 46 per cent of the Australia’s gamers are now female, with the average age 30 years.

While we’re fighting some female marketing stereotypes, I’d like to include a side point of clarification here: In the same way that mums aren’t fear-driven, pride-seeking, FMCG buying machines, when women play games they do not necessarily want teddy bears and shopping apps.

A study undertaken in 2006 by the Australian Catholic Univeristy no less (their misspelling not mine… Given this, perhaps we should view all results as indicative at this stage) found that female gamers find mental stimulation, creativity, interesting story lines and superior graphics more important than anything else (more important than dolphins and flowers for example).

Once you’ve put your copy of Ad News down go and check your analytics for some genuine insight. When we launched our paper plane game (check it out – it’s fun) we found out that the majority of the users where female (55%) and since then we’ve taken specific learnings into a number of campaigns. One implication is the fracturing of engagement (mum’s are very busy people) so we need to make any content bite sized, flexible and something they really want to return to.

Make no mistake the dot.mum phenomena has its downside. Is something still cool if it has gone dot.mum? Just ask Dido. And then there is the question of where dot.mum finishes? Once the chick chick boom girl appeared on sunrise her cache evaporated. So where does Sunrise fit and should we include Sunrise in our media plans for dot.mums? That really is the stuff of sleepless nights.

So guess what, games are increasingly a mass marketing channel and women aren’t idiots. No, there is much more to it than that. Going dot.mum is important, it is the future of the mainstream, a future mainstream we must connect with and, in order to do so, ultimately understand. If we can’t get that far let’s at least make sure we don’t fall back on some of those bad marketing assumptions.

Now you’ve read this rubbish, go and check out some serious gamer girls here – girlgamers.com.au, thumbbandits.com or womengamers.com (the latter of which is now 11 years old btw).

Ben Hourahine is Strategy Director at Amnesia Razorfish – @benhourahine

————————————————————————————————————————————————-

Published in Adnews - ‘Dot.mum is the new mainstream’ – 19.11.10

This is the original version before the re-edit, my name is also spelled correctly here too

 

Once you’ve put your copy of Ad News down go and check your analytics for some genuine insight. When we launched our paper plane game (check it out – it’s fun) we found out that the majority of the users where female (55%) and since then we’ve taken specific learnings into a number of campaigns. One implication is the fracturing of engagement (mum’s are very busy people) so we need to make any content bite sized, flexible and something they really want to return to.

Why marketers need to rethink their opinions on ‘early adopters’

The graph below shows the Rogers innovation adoption curve* (1983) explaining how successive groups of consumers play their role in any technology achieving market share. It is a curve that many marketers have come to accept as a default when it comes to planning ahead in relation to marketing and tech. The reality is that this curve is so out of date that it is something of a liability in a modern marketing or business strategy.

The next graph** shows the speed to market of technology over the years from 1900 to 2005. The humble Radio took 40+ years to gain 100% adoption in the US. As you can see the incline of various technologies are being adopted faster and faster as time continues.

 

 

What’s ahead is quite incredible; Morgan Stanley (below) predicts that Smartphone penetration will outnumber both PCs and Laptops combined within the next 18 months, effectively doubling the 2009 penetration within 30 months. Any mass adoption of technology creates changes in consumer behaviour. Big shifts in consumer behaviour mean that businesses inevitably have to rethink their strategy from marketing and potentially their product or business offering.

***

It’s time for clients and agencies to rethink the term ‘Early Adopters’ (and how many of them there are) and start reassessing the impact of impending technologies at a much earlier stage. Smartphones and tablets are important, but it’s not the only thing coming; the rapidly approaching age of Internet enabled TV’s (complete with their own app stores etc) look set to shake the advertising and communications industries in an even more dramatic fashion. Not to mention other revolutions occurring such as in the battery and power space and of course the interface of all devices as we move away from the GUI to the NUI. The early adopter has gone, the mainstream digital adopter is here and the next 5 years of technology take-up will probably make the last 10 years look like the warm up act.

Just sayin’
@eunmac

 

* Source Wikipedia   ** Source NY Times     *** Source Morgan Stanley

Web Vigilantes being banned from social media sites.

Cyber crime and Twitter scams make good headlines but somewhere underground there are a few concerned citizens that take a vigilante approach to dealing with these scammers and fraudsters. For instance http://www.419eater.com/ bait scammers using highly creative methods to engage Nigerian conmen, waste their time and then attempt expose them. There’s also the Salty droid who names and shames would-be conmen who utilize Twitter and other channels to exploit consumers. But it turns out that life of a digital freedom fighter is not easy.

Here’s the problem : Many scams consist of intelligent, organised individuals and groups. They syndicate and they collaborate, and they actively wage a reverse war on the people trying to expose them. Ironically scammers are using the same processes created to report spammers to shut down the people trying to expose them.

Sadly YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Vimeo accounts etc belonging to web vigilantes trying to alert people to scams are being shut down faster than than those belonging to the scammers. How do I know this?  Read on:

The Sad Story of the SaltyDroid

I’m not sure how I first came across the Droid on Twitter but I became interested in the Droid’s outspoken ‘attacks’ on certain individuals. Some of the people it was targeting had HUGE followings on Twitter, some with high profiles and. SaltyDroid had no qualms in confronting them directly in public view and alerting other users. I have no reason to doubt that SaltyDroid’s only purpose was to expose people it believed were engaged in unethical practices (such as this one which was exposed). 

I noticed a few months ago that SaltyDroid (which had a few thousand Twitter followers) just ‘vanished’. The blog was still alive and kicking so I wrote an email to find out what the story.

Me: “What happened? Where did your accounts go?”

Salty Droid: “I lost. I’m basically banned from the Internet.  Twitter, Facebook, Vimeo, Bluehost, Youtube, etc. Everywhere I go the scammers file false complaints and horrific lies about me.  The web companies all default to caving in and banning you rather than risking "trouble".  Most of them, and especially Twitter, do it with zero notice, process, or chance to respond. It says sad things about the state of free speech on the all important fringes … IMO.

I don’t have time to fight the web companies and the scammers … so I just gave up on the web companies.  I’m on a special free speech server where some really great people take special care of me … and otherwise I’m silenced.

And the Twitter bannings are not as bad as the death threats, the private investigators, the plots against my personal life, etc.”

 

The Droid also let me know that although he began his pursuit anonymously it wasn’t long before a syndicate of scammers found him at which point the he decided it would be safer to unmask the droid. Revealing himself as a lawyer it  gives the whole saga an even bigger sense of irony.

In summary, it’s easier for a scammer to have a web vigilante shut down than vice versa. The Droid is now absent from all social networks and yet the people being named in his blog continue to tweet freely etc. In an age where consumers are able to interact so easily with anyone from close friends to complete strangers there is no easy and quick way of distributing warning messages to others in the case of genuine scams. That’s a service SaltyDroid was attempting to provide before being shut down in social media circles. The internet at present sometimes appears lawless and wide open territory for the scammers, and the presence of government and local authority is limited, and at best slow moving. I’m not condoning Salty droids methods or even agreeing with all his posts but freedom of speech is important so I certainly don’t want to see people prepared to take on these issues disappear especially with the bad guys roaming free so easily.

Beware wolves in birds clothing: Currently I know of one major Twitter account belonging to a convicted spammer in Australia with close to 100,000 followers. This person appears free to be able to act on Twitter regardless of their history. Sadly the only way you are likely to hear the name of this person is via someone like SaltyDroid.

What can you do?
1. Send this link on to people in the industry.

2. Copy and paste this story – reproduce it in your own blog.

3. Help Re-activate or read the Saltydroid: If you know someone who works in Twitter or Facebook etc ask them to reinstate the banned SaltyDroid accounts eg:  http://twitter.com/saltydroid

4. Support freedom of speech but don’t be a web vigilante. Salty Droid is a lawyer in real life and is better equipped to deal with bad people on the internet. Report web crime here:
http://www.ic3.gov/default.aspx – USA
https://www.scamwatch.gov.au/content/index.phtml/tag/reportascam/ – Australia
http://www.met.police.uk/fraudalert/ – UK

Above: Clearly Charles Bronson wouldn’t have lasted long in Facebook or Twitter.

Cheers,

@eunmac

Disclaimer to be quite clear: The opinion above is that of the author only and does not represent the views of Amnesia Razorfish etc.

The next gesture based (multi-touch) system is already out and cost $194

Xbox Kinect is hitting the market and I pre-ordered the one for the office yesterday. And then I saw this today – someone hacked it for the greater good to bring us gesture based multitouch using Kinect and sitting on the couch.

Full body tracking Microsoft Surface Style – Simply awesome

check it out:

 

@maniac13

EBay takes on Westfield in new Ads

The new eBay ads have been causing some interesting conversations in the office and on Twitter. We wondered if this is a pre-emptive strike by eBay on Westfield who are rumoured to launching an ‘uber-commerce’ website soon. As you can see below Ebay’s traffic is still trending pretty well Year-on-Year with the silly season about to kick in. In other timely news DJ’s has launched it’s own ecommerce site (here).

Above: Twitpic Photo from @kelpenhagen

Below: As yet Westfield has not made an impact on the digital retail landscape.

Below: DJ’s new shopping portal.

Google’s Place Search to squeeze returns

In the search engine marketing and optimisation sector, it really does seem that change is the only constant.

In June, I wrote about the launch of Google Caffeine and the impact of social search in the marketing mix. Just four months later and Google has added another game-changing feature to their search engine results pages (SERPs), called Place Search.

As its name suggests, Place Search prioritises search results based on proximity of the website to the user’s current location, in an effort to make consumers “feel like a local everywhere [they] go”. It is very similar in concept to Yellow Pages but doesn’t require users to leave the Google homepage.

This is good news for consumers seeking local restaurants, shops, entertainment and the like, but for companies there are new challenges that come with it.

In addition to having its own dedicated category, Place Search also appears in natural results on the main SERP (in the form of business listings with reviews and a map showing result locations) when Google predicts that the user is looking for local information. But it is what that new content is replacing that is of concern.

Companies currently paying for Google AdWords to gain higher visibility on more generic search queries may find that their click-through rates suddenly take a tumble thanks to the new Places map, which is positioned in what was previously a lucrative AdWords position: the top right-hand corner.

Not only does it take a prime position, it maintains that position as the user scrolls down the page, which means significantly less visibility of company-sponsored AdWords.

It would not be far-fetched to expect AdWord costs to increase (due to the increased competition and importance of gaining the top three spots), despite a greater risk of fewer click-throughs and thus a decline in return on investment for those not appearing in the top spots.

In every challenge, there is an opportunity. In Place Search, the opportunity for companies is to raise the visibility of bricks-and-mortar stores to among 60 per cent of Australians who research online with an intent to purchase offline.

To do that, I asked one of our search experts here at Amnesia Razorfish to provide their top five tips on optimising for Place Search:

1. Get listed and be consistent: claim your free listing by providing your company details at www.google.com/places, ensuring that multiple locations each have their own profile containing the location/suburb in the Places title. Choose your categories carefully, and ensure your description is consistent across other directory listings.

2. Enrich the experience: take the opportunity to add additional information such as opening hours and rich media content (photos, YouTube videos, and so on) to your Places page; you want consumers to get a good feel for who you are and what you do.

3. Reviews: customer reviews play an important role in Place Search ranks. Ensure you have the process in place to monitor and respond to user reviews about your business.

4. Sponsored map icons: make your business stand out by investing in a personalised map icon that displays your logo.

5. AdWords ad extensions: link your Google Places listing with AdWords to enable users to see your location from the sponsored ad.

And my recommendation? Make the most of this opportunity while it is still free, as you have to assume Google is not out to destroy its own commercial model.

To that end, I would expect to see related new forms of paid advertising being launched by Google in the weeks and months to come. Given its current focus on location, my guess is that mobile advertising is next on the hit list. Watch this space.

Jennie Bewes, Director of Social Media & New Business, Amnesia Razorfish

As published in The Australian Financial Review, 3 Nov 2010

Is you iPhone screen big enough?

If you just answered no then you should get yourself one of these:

simply connect your iPhone and start up the app (for now it is still an app, but they working on not even using that) and you can see your iPhone on a 58-inch multitouch display.

awesome – yes
fun – yes
practical – no

@manaic13

Blekko – the future of the search engine or just another Google competitor?

Blekko is a search engine (in beta at the moment) that claims that it is a better way to search the web by using slashtags. Slashtags search only the sites you want and cut out the spam sites. e.g. if you only want to search for tech related stuff you put /tech after your query

The slashtags are user generated and can be either private or public. There are already hundreds of them, but you can also create your own.

But the CEO explains it a bit better in this video:

blekko: how to slash the web from blekko on Vimeo.

 

Another cool feature is the SEO link that you get with every single result

 

It gives you quite a substantial amount of information about your site, like inbound links, hostrank, crawl stats, site pages, you can compare your site to other sites and it tells you about duplicate content

There is also a SPAM link next to all your search result and you can get rid of searches you don’t want permanently – that search result will be dead to you.

Another interesting feature is the visualizing feature – here you can compare up to 4 different URLs with each other

 

 

Definitely a great idea and even though there are still some shortcomings blekko will be someone to watch out for. It is going to be big.

check it out: http://blekko.com

and let me know what you think in the comments

 

@maniac13

Amnesia Razorfish’s Social Election: Insights

What could be better than combining two of your greatest loves; social media and politics? Nothing!

Last night I had the nervous pleasure of presenting our insights into the 2010 Federal Election’s use of social media at the Social Media Club Sydney. It seemed to go well, and I thought you might like to see what I presented. It involves infoporn!

 

 

But the highlight of the tremendous amount of data and analysis we captured during the Election, is definitely Ben Thayer’s Infographic.

Again, massive thanks to my brilliant social team Rachel Beaney and Paul Cotton, as well as Ben Thayer for his awesome graphic skillz.

Would love your thoughts on how social media was used (or not used) during the 2010 Federal Election, or even other case studies of Political campaigning?

~ Karalee Evans, Social Strategy Manager