Afternoon all,

Get ready for fireworks and bonfires this w/e and if you have a pet watch for some helpful tips from our friends at MoreTh<n. Before then though here are some exciting things that have been happening this week in the wonderful world on the internet.

A big thank you to Alison Keith for this one – a location specific Angry Birds game, which can only be played in a restricted area, namely, McDonalds. This is a great, as long as the game has the pulling power, way to take advantage of a unique feature of a phone – gps. No doubt it will drive hordes to the restaurants.

What a load of shEEt: So, Everything Everywhere, EE, have gone live with the UK’s first 4G mobile network. Reports from the early users are that it is blindingly fast and woks great. But, everyone everywhere let out a collective moan when they saw the prices . It seems the dark days of mobile tariffs and stringent data caps are back upon us. Mobile networks reverting back to stifling growth in the sector through strict usage limits. Recent ComScore data from the US shows that 4G users are 33% more likely to stream video on mobile (in a hugely growing market), at current quality levels that means that the entry level for EE 4G data, costing £36 month for 24 months will get you approximately 25 minutes of high quality streaming per month before you blow through your 500mb cap.

I leave it to Clay Davis of the Wire to express my incredulity at what EE have done (don’t click if you don’t like sweary words)

Windows 8: I’m sure you all read Laura Desmond’s piece on Yammer, no not the Hartell photo, about the SMG work that went in to the launch of Windows 8. But just in case you missed the video of the amazing launch in Times Square that our American colleagues created and the unveiling of a Windows pop-up store in the famous landmark, here it is (warning, a lot of screaming).

Xbox Smartglass: Last week we touched upon the ever increasing interactivity of the Xbox and how it is communicating with tablets. In follow up to that we have uploaded a new video to our YT channel giving the official walkthrough from Microsoft for the Xbox SmartGlass offering. Great opportunities for us to really engage with audiences.

Nike+ fitness coach: Also prepare for healthy Newton, I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of my Nike+ Kinect fitness coach. No doubt updates will come aplenty. In all seriousness though this is a really nice example of cutting edge tech being used to make aspects of life into a game and get you to focus less on the chore of exercise. Nike have great pedigree in the space with their Apple offerings and this takes it on even further.

Pinch multiple screens together: This is very cool. Seeing the continuation of how devices talk to each other and the technology behind it dissolving in to the invisible. The opportunity to create collective experiences where you get friends to join their phones to see a bigger and better image is compelling. They are talking to developers so we could already start building this in to our offerings if we wanted to.

Coke in Brazil: Great idea showing the merging of print and digital and awesomely low tech about it

Very cool: And no other real reason for other than it is exceedingly cool. Control the camera on an F1 car as it speeds around the track. Thanks to Stinger for the link

And finally... Have a Happy Halloween playing pumpkin Tetris.

Have a great w/e.

Oli.

Morning all,

Huzzah and congratulations to the EMI team for their brilliant win at last night’s Campaign Media Week awards. For the blow by blow account give Foley a shout.

The W8 is over Windows 8 has arrived and it promises to be pretty spanking big. Prepare to see this everywhere. For the official videos and immersion

Samsung top dog (look at the 2nd video) over Apple for video views: A great piece of research from Visible Measures that shows how Samsung is doing great things with video views. Garnering a whopping 51.4M to Apple’s, dare I say paltry, 17.5M.

Well done to the Samsung team because as the numbers show this isn’t a flash in the pan but a year-long dominance.

Kinect history and SmartGlass: Kinect is coming up to its 2nd birthday and this seems like a fitting time to have a trip down digital memory lane. Check out this article explaining how gestural interfaces have progressed over the years. My particular favourite is the Weird Al Yankovich dancing under the Gesture Tek 1991 heading.

Today though Kinect has continued improving and opening up new and amazing ways for brands to get involved, from the Honda car showroom in your living room approach to a broader approach where the Kinect is used in more of a hack style approach. Either way, it promises to unlock huge opportunities for us to create immersive experiences blurring the lines between physical and digital.

If you have an xbox I would recommend you DL the smartphone or tablet app for it to unlock the joys of SmartGlass. Think about this could be used to bring your campaigns to life. No doubt we will be learning more as MSOFT bring this properly to the UK.

Clever use of Instagram: Instagram is easily my favourite social space and I love seeing how brands are waking up to using it in an interesting and value add way. Here is a great example from a restaurant using a collaborative approach with its diners to show off the delights form the menu with a dedicated hashtag [#ComodoMenu] (http://bit.ly/LookatmyFood)

Use YT videos easier: Embedding YT videos in presentations can really help to bring it to life a bit, but often it is a hassle to get just the right bit you are after. I have started using ChopTool to quickly extract just the bits you want. Give it a crack.

Weve has arrived: Finally the joint venture between the UK mobile operators has been approved and is now launched. Roberto and Michael will be sharing info over the next few weeks, but have a flick through their site if you want more immediate info.

Tenuous link to get in a Superman story: Argos has announced they are slashing numbers of their printed book, Newsweek will printing their final copy at the end of the year and now Clark Kent has got involved in seeing that the shift to digital is happening by announcing he is leaving the Daily Planet after 72 years to work as an online blogger reporting the “real” news.

A nice little video from the Guardian with a comic book expert discussing it

Want to see the new YouTube layout ahead of time?:
Open up YT using the Chrome browser
Hit Ctrl+Shift+J
A half screen window appears, paste in this piece of code document.cookie="VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE=jZNC3DCddAk;"
Hit return
Refresh your page and you should have a shiny new and cleaner YT.

And finally... Everyone loves a good robot video, so here is DARPA’s climbing robot - it is quite reminiscent of something out of the Terminator movies and would scare the living bejesus out of me if it was chasing me.

Have a great w/e.

Oli.

Afternoon all,

There was only one thing last w/e and it wasn't the crazy exciting 2nd episode of Homeland. Felix Baumgartner jumped from the edge of space and fell to the earth with just a parachute. 8m people watched on YT alone. And yet this wasn't a tv event, this was a screen event.

Soundtrack to this weeks note

There’s a star man, falling from the sky: Interested in the guy who was talking to Felix all the way through?. Arguably even madder. He did a similar jump when the solution to outside temperatures of -50C wasn't thermal wires in your suit but simply wear more layers. Crazy.

As we touched upon last week, video can be so much more than just a pre-roll, this was the ultimate example of that and as a shadowy media type who sits near me but wishes to remain nameless pointed out, the mistake, which I am sure we will see played out at conferences over the next 12 months, is to try and condense this in to a social media stunt. Yes, it played out well across social platforms but let us not forget; this was a man jumping from the edge of space.

Get in the hole: I missed the Ryder Cup and had to relive it through newspaper coverage a few days later. All sounded very exciting. Beyond that though, one of the cooler media expressions I saw coming out of it was the tweet a sky writing message. CURB, a company we speak to quite regularly and are always full of great ideas that heavily fall into the left field category were the ones behind it. Here is a great visualisation of it - explore it with the cursor keys, much easier than a mouse.

And a great video showing the players having a cool experience with it.

Could Starbucks power America?: Fact of the day: If Starbucks amped up their in-store wi-fi to cover 5 miles they would be able to provide free wi-fi to over half of the US, for that and some very cool data visualisations

And finally... Always fun when a childhood hero is referenced, researchers at Georgia Tech have been given a grant to develop a robot which they have described as being able to “think like MacGyver” and for the fans, here is the big man in action

Have a great w/e.

Oli.

Afternoon all,

Hooray, it’s Friday. Holidays are over and we return to the regular cycle of updates. Lots has been happening and some great news about some mega client campaigns being recognised as we enter in to award season (EMI and Professor Green / EMI POEM for MediaWeek and Samsung Zeebox and the Harveys app for Campaign amongst others). And a big huzzah to Mike Hartley and Heineken team for their bronze award at the Ocean Outdoor Art of innovation

But before we get the champagne out here is this weeks round up of what happening around the web.

Spotify tv: If you have a swanky new Samsung SMART TV set then rejoice, they have just inked a deal with Spotify to bring its music service to the device. If you don’t have the TV then upcoming Blu-ray players will enable you to access it and the rest of the SMART functionality.

Here is nice little thought from Steve Smith on it

As we move into the 2013 expect to see a lot more opportunities around connected tv advertising and ways of engaging with viewers beyond just pre-rolls.

YT channels: YouTube have been in the news this week with a further push to their branded channels. A whole host have been announced, for the full list They range from repackaged BBC offerings such as Natural World to new online only content by the new stars of online. It is worth checking out as from the original 100 channels they launched last year over 25 of them are already garnering 1m+ views a week and racking up the subscriber numbers.

For YouTube we need to start thinking of Subscribers as the core metric, not just views. Much like Facebook has seen the shift from the all encompassing ‘Like’ as will YouTube. Get ahead of it and think bigger than just a pre-roll.

Bird on a Vine: Keeping with the video vibe, Twitter bought an interesting company this week called Vine. Interesting for a number of reasons, such as Vine being a mobile video service that hadn’t even officially launched and only set-up in June, but most of all for it being a short form video offering much like the video equivalent of a tweet. Users record snippets of content and then the clever Vine system puts them together into a single longer shot. From the snippets of video I have seen it is a lot like the quick change type of camera angles that programs like 24 used or the real originator for the old school tv aficionados This life. Here is a video from one of its beta users.

My reason for mentioning it though is that as Twitter becomes more of a self contained platform driving users through the official offering it makes sense to bring in a video product that it controls.

Looper in your ear: Heading the box offices before Bond’s Skyfall is released is the new film Looper (93% on RottenTomatoes) about a time travelling mob hit target. What struck me about it is two things, one it is potentially the start of a new trend of Chinese funded films and is the first Western film to open bigger in China than the US but also because its director has come up with a novel way to get viewers to watch it again. He has released an accompanying director’s commentary to be listened to in the cinema. Also worth noting the services he is using to promote and create – Tumblr and Soundcloud. Neither of which are traditional media sites. A new dawn indeed.

Everyone loves cool things? Of course you do, who doesn’t want to read about Dark Energy cameras or Strongbow’s RFID bottle cap? Well now you can. Priya puts together a weekly piece of cool things and you can find it on her Yammer page here

UK Kickstarter: Regular readers of this email, or anyone who sits near me, will be well aware of my love of Kickstarter.com and see the little things I have bought and championed. I’ve written many times about how it is one of the driving forces behind the change of funding we are seeing. Well, brace yourselves, it is now launching in the UK and from next month you will be able to seek funding for your projects. Hooray. Why not for a future campaign flip your thinking round a bit and ponder the challenge of how you make it in to a Kickstarter project and get your audience to co-fund it with you, maybe a piece of NPD.

And finally... Everyone loves a good robot video and the flying quadrocopters playing the Bond theme a while back were popular, so here they are back learning how to throw and catch a ball.

This isn’t pre-programmed this is robot learning based on super clever algorithms. Skynet is one step closer.

Have a great w/e.

Oli.

Afternoon all,

It’s been a while since the last update. My apologies, a combination of company Away Day and conference (of which more later and in actuality the bulk of this week’s update). This is still a regular update but will again stutter over the next two weeks due to holidays. It will though return to weekly posting after that so please stick with it and thank you for having noticed it wasn’t being sent (some nice emails received).

But, let’s focus on the joys we have at the present and revel in this one. We will look at Future Trends from the IAB Future’s Group, share some ideas on the conference and see what’s in Google’s Sandbox

The Future of the living room: I have the pleasure of sitting on the IAB Future Trends Working Group and we have just published our first paper; the Living room of the future, 2015.

There are some [hopefully] interesting views on how key technological changes will impact on individual consumer behaviour, as well as advertisers' strategies for communicating with customers

SAY: CREATE thoughts and notes: Here are the early scribbled thoughts and links from the conference I attended. It isn’t designed to be read as fluid piece of copy. It is scribbled notes and interesting links which are being shared as a way to bring others into the concepts and ideas. Delve in, hopefully you will find something of interest and spark a conversation

I will explore a few of the themes in later updates

Google Sandbox: The sandbox is a delightful place where we learnt to play as children. Google has created their own place to celebrate how our industry is playing now. See amazing pieces of digital work, get inspiration and learn new tricks. We already have some examples from the broader company globally in there but have a think about the work you do and how we can put a lot more in and celebrate the great things we do every day.

And finally... Ever wanted to see Liquid Thread’s Matt Waller learn to ice skate? Well want no more our own Christopher Dean (Torville and Dean) takes to the ice

Have a great w/e.

Oli.

This isn’t designed to be read as a fluid piece of copy. It is scribbled notes and interesting links which are being shared as a way to bring others into the concepts and ideas. Delve in, hopefully you will find something of interest and spark a conversation. I will explore a few of the themes in later updates.

Brands having a POV: Troy Young, SAY: Media

"Without POV you will never start a conversation". It's boring to talk to people with no viewpoint.

Not how the world perceives you but how you perceive the world - A brand's POV is critical to how they are interpreted. POV is best when it starts at the core. Great example is Tom's shoes - "You buy, you look good, you give back". Good example: TODS Buy one share one

Too many brands and people think sharing a link is a POV, it isn’t. 25% of all social content drives links. Not enough for brands to just share, still need to differentiate and give people a reason to click - best reason is make it good.

"Democratised distribution". Check out ClueTrain Manifesto (site looks very low rent but it is the right place).

"Everything is cause marketing now" - AMEX FourSquare local shops. Give value from your campaigns, not enough to just think pretty images. Great example - Bone Marrow PLaster

"POV is more important than topic". Let people know your place in the world. POV doesn't mean taste; give something for people to talk about you.

POV means you might disagree, but that doesn’t have to be a bad thing.

"POV is changing retail". Becoming curatorial not just pushing products. http://bit.ly/JCrewLiquorStore.
Also think Kris Crinkle Miracle on 34th St, happy to recommend a competitor mall when his didn’t have the toy.

"Yes, it is just advertising". P&G moms.

We are limited by imagination, not category.

"POV is breaking down the wall" - editorial or content? Collaborations between brands and publishers starting to create amazing content that otherwise would never have existed. Bring value.

Example: IBM and Vice collaboration

"Finding a way to engage people in an on-demand world is the marketing challenge of our time".

"Rethink the USP" - will allow you to be more interesting.

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Cammy Dunaway - Kidzania "Doing business with passion, purpose and play".

Intro to concept where kids learn through fun and roleplay

How brands can learn from Kidzania: Creating meaning - be relevant Passion - create rich environments, take the care to make it right. Visually stimulating. Purpose - act with intention, set goals and make choices. Strategy is about deciding what not to do. Understand your essence and focus on the core. Apple as an example. Give value – Think about how you can help others achieve their purpose -. Play - Play to learn.

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Chip Conley - Intersection of Psychology and Business

Maslow's Hierarchy of needs: Survive, succeed or transform. The iterations based on user stage. Employees - Money, recognition, meaning. Customer - Expectations, desires, unrecognised needs. Investor - transaction alignment, relationship alignments, legacy.

Emotional equations: Despair = suffering - meaning Happiness = practice gratification / pursue gratification. Anxiety = uncertainty x powerlessness (If anxious, draw 4 columns; what do I know about the situation, what don't I know, what can I influence, what can't I influence)

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Frank Partnoy - The art and science of delay

Procrastination is good. aka Managing delay. What time world are you living in - How long can you delay? Procrastinate and wait until the last possible moment to make the decision.

Observe / Orient / Decide / Act.

Great example given of an trading house from San Fran. Clearing up in the market with algorithmic trading. Decided to move to everything New York to take advantage of shorter server call times with the trade floor. Opened in New York and saw performance plummet. Was discovered that the reduction in server time didn't benefit but actually hindered as meant that the system was being caught up in the period of uncertainty and fluctuation that it has previously avoided causing their algorithms to buy blindly. Moved servers back to San Fran previous positive perfromance was resotred. Even a computer needs time to "think" or at least to better evaluate the options and then act.

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Brian Monahan - consuming content

Av. user spends 39 secs on a web page, studies show less ads on the page lead to higher attention - clearing the clutter.

How to find the native ad experience for digital? At present display doesn't have the native experience. Search, FB, Twitter have started to crack the code for their platforms. But content sites are still struggling. Functional ads seem to be a step in the right direction. Ad as content. Responsive design movement - working with the page you are on.

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Evolution of video, panel - Rickroll this

Carlton Evans - Disposable film festival Kirsten Lapore - Dir and Animator kirsten.lepore.com William Abramson - Yourstru.ly Daniel Hayek - Vimeo

Flipcam (2005) is to video what iphone is to mobile. Cheap cameras led to more experimentation.

Film making now moving away from technology (so cheap to buy HD camera) that seeing the talent seperate themselves. The internet does enable the best to rise to the top.

No longer content as king, is concept.

Brands as the new artist and creator patronage.

What is future participation of engagement and connection on video? At present YT is just crap flamewars in comments. Vimeo drives a better "conversation". The distribution platform is the answer - Tumblr etc. That dictates the how and who will engage.

The role of livestream? A great way to bring the audience closer in. A voyeuristic quality to open your event up.

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Amber Case - Cyborg Anthropology (@caseorganic)

A lot easier to put data in than to extract it. We have become digital hoarders. Hyperlinked memories - we rely on saved data to augement our memories. Information jet-lag - constant different time zones mean we lose ourselves in the info. Panic Architecture - creating new rules to try and deal with the flood of info (email sabbaticals etc).

Steve Mann and Thad Stern as the original genesis of Google glass working over 30 years from MIT. This wasn’t an overnight concept.

Non-visual wearable computing. Belt for pointing north etc. Since the 80s we have been playing with wearable computers.

What next?: Calm Technology - tech moving out of the way, your actions become buttons, invisible interfaces, trigger based actions. Location and invisible buttons - i.e. digital post-it notes, we use location to borg ourselves up with the triggers activated via our phone (for the time being, but eventually no need for phone). Bringing static content to life - data surfacing for you not relying on your having to go to web and search it. Using location to ascribe information to place – akin to a digital post-it note.

"The best tech is invisible, it should get out of the way and connect people". - Mark Riser.

To see Amber in action, here is her TED talk that was the basis for the above

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Hopefully a little insight in to a very interesting couple of days. When I have access to the videos I will post them on our YouTube channel