1. How many hours of video were uploaded to YouTube in 2010?
2. What percentage of smartphone owners, use their device while shopping?
3. What Australian state most frequently searches for the weather forecast?
As a planner, I’m always chasing that one research tool to bring them all together, and while Think Insights with Google attempts to do just that, it does fall short in a few areas. It’s missing the core search functionality that is the cornerstone of Google’s business. After all, the nirvana of a planner research tool would provide just that, a simple way to intelligently search and prioritise, facts, stats and behavioural trends based on a simple question, such as: ‘How many Australian’s use their laptop in the kitchen while cooking?’
On the flip side, this is a good resource if you are looking for general information on search and mobile related topics, particularly for Google brand related products. And, it does include over 100 custom reports, so you can certainly pop it on the list of go-to resources for all things digital.
My personal favourite resources on the site are: Our Mobile Planet tool (though the data is a little shady for the emerging markets such as India and China) and the Research Library finder.
Ultimately, Think Insights with Google is the perfect tool for media planners, and a useful resource for digital strategists too. Despite it’s downfalls it is one of the best free resources that I have found.
If you’re not familiar with the report it is compiled by Razorfish in the U.S. and provides an in-depth analysis of emerging trends in media, technology and creativity.
A major theme from this year is collaboration, content and relationships defining a new approach in media.
The year in digital media is reviewed here and other hot topics include:
So who has the best interactive walls? Here’s some of our picks below. As we move into a world which is transitioning to devices using the NUI (Natural User Interface) there’s a lot to keep an eye on. If you know any more please post them in the comments.
1.University of Groningen: Pros: Looks awesome, very responsive. Multi-user capable. Cons: You can’t go out and buy one off the shelf. Touch based only?
2. Microsoft Xbox 360 Kinect AND Windows Phone 7, working together! Pros: Kinect SDK on the way for PC (fingers crossed) so a very affordable way to develop. Multi user. Facial recognition. Supports second screen in this video. Cons: None. Seriously! SDK pending, this will be the easiest entry point to start building your first video wall.
3. Toyota Vision Multi Touch Wall: Pros: Massive 82 inch screens at high res. Very responsive. Cons: Expensive setup.
4. HD 18 Screen 20 ft Paint Wall with iPad integration. Pros: Very cool. Huge. HD. Responsive. Works with a second screen (iPad) Cons: Looks a bit like a one off application for now. Can’t go out and buy one.
5.Yahoo’s Gesture based Video Wall. http://vimeo.com/19177169 Pros: Looks good, hi-resolution and seems responsive. Cons: Tiled screens. Looks like only one user at a time?
6. Microsoft LightSpace Pros: It’s a true 3D interface for an entire toom. It projects working interfaces onto your arm/ hand. Cons: Early days. Long way to go here (but still very cool).
7. Hard Rock Cafe Vegas: Pros: Multi user. Smooth and responsive. Great content. Cons: Looks expensive?
8. Ring Wall http://vimeo.com/6648869 Pros: It’s a massive 425 square metres in size. Enough room for everyone to play. Cons: With 15 HD projectors we’re betting the ongoing running costs might stack up?
9. The Schematic TouchWall with RFID Pros: It recognises RFID cards allowing you access to personal info. Social integration. Cons: Nothing obvious. This wall is pretty cool.
10. The BendDesk. Pros: It’s horizontal AND vertical. Cons: Not quite wall sized! It’s a prototype so a little rough round the edges.
11. Canon’s big wall – Expo 2010 Pros: It’s looks big and multi user. Cons: We can’t quite tell if this is a ‘smoke and mirrors’ job. This video is more about the camera than the wall itself.
12. HP’s video wall of touch (link): Pros: Nice tight looking tiled screens. Cons Already looking a bit dated compered to the others. Touch only. Touch looks a little laggy.
13. The Giant iPhone – Table Connect Pros: Pretty simple concept. Just plug in your iphone and mount it on a wall! Cons: Do they make a wall sized one yet?
We’re pretty sure we’ll be seeing a lot more of these soon. Please send us any good ones we might have missed! 🙂
We love unboxing gadgets! …and the AR Drone from Parrot is GREAT fun. The Drone is controlled via an iPhone app which works by tilting your phone to steer whilst viewing a live video feed through a camera mounted in the Drone. It’s a truly usable Augmented Reality device.
How to buy in Australia: We ordered it from Amazon.com. It took 3 days to be delivered to Sydney from the US and cost just under $350.00 AUD including delivery.
So here it is the unboxing through to a test flight…
Amazon delivers it in a HUGE box…
Slightly smaller, but still big box inside…
The Drone is neatly packed surrounded by protective cardboard.
No unwrapping necessary. It pops straight out. Nothing to assamble.
Battery, battery pack and stickers for the external shell.
It comes with the outdoor shell, and adaptors for Au, UK, US, EU.
Below: Unboxed looking at home in the studio…
Below: @bradyohalloran takes an instagram photo of the AR Drone:
Below: Flight Test: This a video taken from the Drone’s camera in the studio.
Below: We do like the idea of attaching a GoPro camera to the Drone to attain HD video – here’s a nice clip of someone flying the drone pretty high… (you can unlock the altitude sensor in the iphone app allowing you to go up as hi as the wifi lets you).
Below: The Promo Vid for the AR Drone.
Things you should know before you buy:
You get one battery that lasts for about 15 mins flying time. Charger comes with four adaptors incl AUS, UK, US, EU. You need an iphone or ipod touch to control it. You don’t need a wifi network (the Drone creates one). It takes about 5-10 mins to get to grips with the controls. You need a seperate app to record video. Onboard Video is 15fps There is a secondary camera on the bottom of the Drone. You need 2 of them to have a virtual dogfight. It’s much bigger than it looks. It’s a lot of fun.
Here’s a little something we worked on recently for Xbox Australia that was pretty fun. We kidnapped a bunch of Xbox gamers, stuck some probes on them and then left them alone in various locations at the Quarantine Station at Sydney’s North Head. Oh, yeah, they got to play Alan Wake before anyone else in the country.
Interesting to see how the body responds to intense situations in games. Alan Wake has its share of them too. I’ve had a go myself and I’m in no hurry to go wandering in the woods at night any time soon.
Even though Apple’s Steve Jobs was very clear about not liking a stylus, it looks like Microsoft Research went back to it to combine it with touch input and give the user new tools that weren’t possible before.
Of course this comes from the research department and might never see the day of life, but it looks awesome and I can see this “addition of the past” bringing some useful things to the end user.
So how does an iPad really stack up against its competitors? We did a quick analysis and compared it with the Kindle and a ten thousand year old rock. The results are in:
Sidenote: Just for fun ok! Also full respect and homage to the original iPhone Vs Rock parody from a few years ago (author unknown) here:
Great article and helpful insight about Big Spaceship’s experience working with Silverlight.
“I had the pleasure of diving headfirst into Silverlight in building the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show. I walked in with the same sort of attitude that I believe is prevelant across the industry at the moment — Silverlight is an inferior platform, that we were working with a Flash wananbe and that this would be to the project’s detriment. Why use Silverlight when I can already know Flash so well? It does the same things as Flash anyway, right?…”
Here’s a real world test on Google’s latest functionality – real time search results. There’s been a lot of hype over Google’s announcement that it now has ‘real time’ functionality. You can read the announcement (here). Below is Google’s promo video on how it works in case you missed it:
The real world test:
How well does it work? In the video below I’m using my Twitter account (@eunmac) to enter a tweet which contain the words GOOGLE, REAL, TIME, SEARCH. I already have a ‘real time search’ window open looking for these words and the theory is that the moment Google has indexed my tweet, it should show on-screen (no need for a refresh). The video is shot using Camtasia, and recorded/plays for as long as it took for the results to show.
Result: It took Google 52.3 seconds to display my tweet in this instance. Not exactly “real time” but pretty good. Of course this is a one off test and the result should be taken with a pinch of salt. We’ll be evaluating speed in a more quant manner over the next few weeks.
How do I do a real time search in Google? A couple of people have asked me how you get to the real time search results. Here’s how: Step 1: Search for something from Google main page. Step 2: In the Blue bar click [Show Options] Step 3: Under the LHS menu that appears, click “Latest” under the “Any time” section.
Since 2002 auDA have been handling disputes over domain names (brands and individuals who believe they have the right to a domain/URL but are not the registered owner). Whilst some disputes appear to be clear cases of cybersquatting, others are just co-incidental making for an interesting debate.
VS Above: It’s not always cyber squatting. But if it is, auDA is here to save you* 🙂
“GIVE ME BACK MY URL!” In all about 160 cases are in the system which is not many considering this covers the last seven years. Although it’s a cost effective option (usually between $2000 and $4500 AUD) many companies still use a below the counter/direct approach and simply buy out a domain direct. Having been involved with quite a few of these direct URL ‘transfers’ there are sometimes good reasons to go direct – for instance if you lose the case at auDA, you may end up having to pay a LOT more as a result – so it pays to do your homework first to decide which route will work best.
Some interesting brands in the list below that have used auDAdrp: Facebook, Neilsen, BT, WhitePages, IBM, Telstra, Calvin Klein, Virgin, True Local, Hey Hey it’s Saturday (to name just a few). Current records show that roughly two thirds of cases were won by the complainant.
List of Domain Names that auDA have handled and resolved 2002-2009:
* UPDATE: Since posting this article I’ve had several people contact me complaining about auDA and its process. One person explained to me that they were told by auDA that their case (their registered business name taken) had been “investigated” and denied even though the domain had not been used in seven years, no trademarks, no business name, noe events etc. This person also claimed to have discovered a direct connection between the board of auDA and the holder of the domain. The following article “auDA a Law unto Themselves” goes into other issues with auDA.
“Customers are being faced with increasingly complex buying decisions, especially when it comes to technology and services. As a result, increased pressure is being placed on store associates to provide knowledgeable service to customers. Our Emerging Experiences team used this opportunity to develop a solution to demonstrate how an immersive interactive experience can assist customers and store associates with complex buying decisions in a retail setting.”
Using Windows 7, the Razorfish Touch Framework and NextWindow touch screen technology, Razorfone is another example of how multi-touch experiences are going to become a bigger and bigger part of our lives.
“In today’s increasingly digital world, the experience is the message.” Razorfish’s Group Vice President of Experience Planning Garrick Schmitt (@gschmitt) introduces the 2009 FEED Report, a concise and invaluable output of leading edge digital consumer research.
Topics include:
Digital Brand Experiences Create Customers
Actions Speak Louder Than Advertising
Digital Fluency
The Language of Love for Brands? Deals.
Measuring Brand Engagement
…and more.
“This report is probably the best analysis of online consumer behavior” according to Guy Kawasaki.
Xerox has developed a cheap conductive ink that could potentially be used to draw electronic circuitry. No more etching, just draw!
It’s not quite ready for prime time yet as you might imagine, and you will need some reasonably high temperatures to apply it, but it’s a pretty exciting glimpse into the future.
I was just checking my folder where I keep interesting screenshots of stats (ok, I admit they’re probably only interesting to me but hey… I just like sharing). So here’s some ‘interesting’ moments where power shifts occur in the world of social and UGC. (Note: Stats are from the publicly available Alexa site). Note that I screen grabbed these at the time and saved them because there’s not always a guarantee you’ll be able to get the data in the same state in the future. Currently Alexa now only goes back 2 years since they changed their data analysis so the first screenshot below is something of a collectors item (if you collect screenshots of stats that is).
Below: What has happened since (in a little under 3 years)
Below: Another change in global domination in 2009. Facebook passes YouTube in July.
Below – What’s next? Despite the hype surrounding Twitter it’s got a long way to go to catch Facebook which continues to grow at a phenomenal rate with YouTube appearing pretty solid – although interestingly Twitter appears to be now on par with MySpace and looks set to pass it next month.
An experimental site, www.twinfluencers.com created by Amnesia Razorfish launched ‘softly’ today. It takes a live look into “influencers” and what they are saying on Twitter as it happens.
What does Twinfluencers do? Twinfluencers is a dashboard showing live tweets from Twitter users considered to be influencers within specific groups (Journalists, CEOs and Twitterati). Currently we are breaking these out into Australia and US regions.
FAQs: So what’s the point?
Whilst there are many tools which track trends, hashtags from the masses this tool takes another angle and provides a peek at live information being generated from these influencer groups. You can jump in at any time without needing to be a Twitter user. It also saves you having to follow and segment the 900(ish) people that Twinfluencers is watching!
Why did we build Twinfluencers? Firstly, we love doing experiments – the point is we’re not 100% certain of ‘what comes next’. Secondly, we’re of the school of thought that if we’re going to become better at working in social media then “doing stuff” is the way to go. Building the tool may prove useful or useless, but the mere act of building it allowed us to learn some new things. We might yield some insight and analytics that become usable -that would be a bonus. Finally– we couldn’t find a tool that produced what we wanted to see so decided to do it ourselves (although half way through build we found a similar tool muckrack.com for US journos which is actually very good).
What might the site do in the future? The lists will be keep being compiled and updated. We may add other countries if the demand is there. It would be nice to see some historical data, trends etc from these groups. There are a few minor UI tweaks to be made. We’ve already been asked to do a celebs version, although we specifically avoided celebrities in this round. Alternatively – if we learn nothing or find something better to do then maybe it will just fade away 😉
How many people are in the lists? At time of writing, but being updated regularly at present; Australian: Journalists (500) Twitterati (101) CEOs (30) USA: Journalists (105) Twitterati (101) CEOs (30)
Where do the lists come from? This was possibly one of the harder parts of the experiment and something we consider to be work in progress:
Journalists: We received lots of help from Dave Earley (@earleyedition) in sourcing a very consolidated list of Australian Journalists. US Journalists came from a variety of public sources and some Razorfish US assistance – we also decided to limit the number down to about 100, compared with a much more expanded number of Australian Journalists.
Twitterati: This was a slightly tougher list to quantify. In the end we based the list mainly by combining and filtering results from Grader, Retweetability index, Twinfluence, Twittercounter. We removed known ‘spammers’ or those using ‘follow agents’ to grow their count and occasionally factored in the start date of the account (earlier being better).
CEOS: Various sources (some tips) including Laurel Papworth.
How can I get my hands on the full list of these groups? Whilst we’re still in beta testing we’re not openly distributing. The plan is that if the site generates any ongoing interest we will open the lists up – initially to individuals who are willing to contribute to the ongoing maintenance of the lists, and then open to public. Please remember, keeping these lists up to date is quite a lot of hard work.
”How can I get on the list? ARrgh – I deserve to be there!” Firstly – tweet something and wait a couple of minutes (there can be a delay before you see your tweet appear). Not there? Yes… We know how this works and of course there are people who should be on there who aren’t and vice versa. We’ll keep adding but we’re trying to make this less about the egos, more about a tool that offers some value that we can learn a little from. For those who believe they have been wronged (and we do not mean to wrong anyone) there are some instructions on the site at the bottom of the page to suggest follows, “but” we will apply the same filtering and vague scrutiny to try to keep a balance. 🙂
Most of us (internet users) use Wikipedia everyday, weather it’s for work, school, or personal development. It’s a valuable resource for all, young and old.
Recently the Guardian wrote an article about how Wikipedia became one of the biggest repositries of knowledge and what’s install for it’s future.
Personally I think Wikipedia is great but I often wonder: Is Wikipedia’s future bright? Or will it be superseded? How will it change? Is the user experience built to last?
“The online encyclopedia is about to hit 3m articles in English – but growth is stalling as ‘inclusionists’ and ‘deletionists’ fight for control.”
A great visualisation tool highlighting the top ranking Australian website statistics (here) built for Neilsen and AIMIA by the interaction consortium. It’s not only a much more usable interface for getting a grip on trends and traffic, but it also gives some interesting insight into how quickly the digital landscape shifts and how those of us in the industry must continue to adapt and innovate. Pretty (and functional) work.
It’s been over six months in development but this week has seen the release of the inaugural issue of Fluent: The Razorfish Social Influence Marketing report.
Why did we create this report? There’s a lot of fluffy thinking and hype surrounding social media and this report highlights how Social Influence Marketing encompasses every part of marketing and every dimension of an organisation, as well providing a new metric for the measurement of SIM
The study, which consists of a Razorfish survey of 1,000 consumers, examines the importance of social media and social influencers in consumer purchasing decisions. Results show that traditional top-down marketing will become increasingly ineffective as the importance of social media grows.
If a brand provides current, relevant content, consumers will engage with it. Survey results show that consumers are willing to stay actively involved with a brand on social networks if the brand gives them a reason to do so.
Brands need to understand the different roles influencers play throughout the purchase decision. They must identify which type of influencer – offline peers, blogs, anonymous reviews, etc. – is most affecting their customer’s brand affinity and purchase intent. This group will change as the consumer moves through the marketing funnel.
Measuring Social Influence Marketing, introducing the SIM score – By Shiv Singh
The old ways of measuring brand strength don’t effectively take into account conversations that consumers have about a brand. The SIM Score is a new index Razorfish developed to determine how a brand is being talked about online. Two factors – a brand’s “reach” and “likeability” – were used to establish the company’s SIM Score relative to its competitors.
This report determined a SIM Score of 5-6 companies within four industries- financial services, pharmaceuticals, media and auto.
With the help of TNS Cymfony and the Keller Fay Group, Razorfish also accounted for offline influence like word-of-mouth data in calculating the SIM score.
We believe the SIM Score could become something akin to the Net Promoter Score.
Complementing the report is a number of essays from the folks at Razorfish on the Future of Social Influence Marketing
– Can social ads do better than display ads? – By Chris Bowler
– Viral marketing through social: No free lunch – By Greg Pomaro
– Have social graph, Will travel – By Andrea Harrison
– Social media: The last quarter mile of customer relationship management – By David Baker
– Ten ways to make the Twitterverse work for you brand – By Diana Stepner
Please feel free to contact us with any questions relating to the report and we would love to get your feedback. Enjoy! @carlmoggy
Smashing Magazine comes though again with a brilliantly in-depth article about the user interface design of social networking sites and what makes them good user experiences.
They’ve chunked them down to 9 key points:
1. Simple Interface Is The Key
2. Prominent and Functional Search
3. Prominent Call-To-Action-Buttons
4. Calm Separation of Elements
5. Treat text as User Interface
6. Simple and Usable Forms
7. Real-Time Updates
8. Word-Of-Mouth-Advertising and Personalization
9. User-Centric User Interface
The article is a must read for any web designers or social media gurus, its very in-depth and definitely one to bookmark and pass on.
In the past 50 years, per capita fish consumption has almost doubled, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation. They measure (i guess in a round-a-bout way) how many of each species is caught each year.
Good Magazine has produced this awesome (looking) chart to represent the depleting numbers of our most mouth watering sea dwellers.
Unfortunately though, a pretty graph isn’t necessarily an accurate one. The article on Good Magazine has sparked some rather fierce debate as to not only the data charts accuracy but whether the info should be displayed like that at all!
Read through the comments at the source to learn more… i don’t know… something smells… off.
Posted by @mariagioffre 
VS 
It’s not quite ready for prime time yet as you might imagine, and you will need some reasonably high temperatures to apply it, but it’s a pretty exciting glimpse into the future.
Amnesia Blog 
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