Monday, December 31, 2007

Predictions for 2008

A few personal predictions for 2008:

Firstly, take it for granted that the number of internet users, mobile ussers, PVR users and braodband users will go up, as will the amount of money spent in both advertising and also purchasing online.

Main predictions -

The Google Doubleclick deal will be approved in Europe, as it has been in the US, and this will shake up display advertising. Network inventory will become more valuable as Google (& others) develop more sophisticated ways to target consumers. At some point in the future when you arrive at a page the ad server will decide to show you an ad based on either a) what pages you have previously viewed, b) what search result took you to the page, c) the content of the page you are on, or d) your geographical location. I have also heard rumours that if (when) the deal goes through some major sites will refuse to take Doubleclick tags, as it will let Google indirectly see how much traffic they are getting, what their click rates are etc, so expect major standoffs. & journalists will still fail to understand what ad serving is, and why it is important - for example The Observer this weekend still referred to Doubleclick as an advertising company.

Social networking will grow, but many individual social networks will decline. From the industry data I've seen some of the big players are at or near saturation point in major markets - can they really get over 40% reach in markets in a month? Also, people will get bored of what is on offer. I know I visit the sites less often - do you too?

Gaming will become even more interactive, with the launch of 3 new games next year - the Wii Fit (a foot-controller for the Wii), Rockband (like Guitar Hero, but for 4 players), and the all-conquering Grand Theft Auto 4.

In mobile, other handset manufacturers will try to catch the iPhone with new handsets, and Apple will launch a greatly enhanced new iPhone.

More bands will do a Radiohead, and release music directly to fans. Trent Reznor of the NIN has a good business model - the music for free, a higher quality version, with artwork etc for a fee.

Digital media in Asia will grow faster than in Europe, with the effect of the Olympics, and also the continuation of current trends - for example India added more mobile subscribers in 2006 than the UK has in total.

New Web 2.0 companies will continue to be bought for amazing amounts - $300m for Digg anyone?

& some company that we have never heard of will be on everyone's lips by the end of the year, showing that the continuation of innovation in digital media.

Monday, December 17, 2007

ASCII search ads for Sixt

This is genius, and I'd love to know if anyone has ever tried this before.

The phrase for Car Rental in Germany is Mietwagen, and this yields many, many paid search results, all looking pretty similar.

So Jung vin Matt, agency for Sixt, created some search ads in ASCII code - leading to far higher standout.




See full info here


Thanks to my colleague Peter Horvath at Kirowski for telling me about this!

Monday, December 10, 2007

3 Skypephone Competition

Regular readers will remember that I recently featured a quick & positive review of the new 3 Skypephone.

The good people at 3 have now been even more generous, and are giving you the chance to win some of these to make Skype calls yourselves.

The winner of the competition gets three 3 Skypephones, the runner up gets two, and the person in third place gets one. Here, niftily copied from the email they sent me, is what you have to do:

You need to tell 3 why you want a 3 Skypephone – and it can be done however you want as long as it can be linked to. For example, it could be a blog post, forum thread or simple webpage, a picture or a set on Flickr (here’s something 3mobilebuzz knocked together, a link to a YouTube video (can you do better than this?) or even a Facebook group where 100 friends sign up and support the quest for a 3 Skypephone. The more creative the better.

The only rules are: the content needs to be original, not ripped off an insignificant YouTuber (they’ll know because you have to tag all your videos 3mobilebuzzcomp1!), and the URL of the site which brought the competition to entrants attention needs to be included on the entry
email - i.e. digital-examples.blogspot.com . The deadline for submissions is midday on Monday 17^th December.

Entries must be sent to the hallowed keeper of prizes, enforcer of rules and judge of all (it says here), Jack@3mobilebuzz.com .

As always 3 will keep everyone updated as to the best submissions via
www.3mobilebuzz.com

3 await your gems of creativity in the name of free goods!

Friday, December 07, 2007

Supergrass Secret Gig

This is a good example of how bands can use the internet to organise special, low profile shows.

Supergrass have a new album out next year, and the first single from it Diamond Hoo Ha Man comes out soon.

To promote this two members of Supergrass are playing a series of low key gigs under the name Diamond Hoo Ha Men. They've set up a MySpace page for this band here , with Supergrass as the first friend, and also leaked news to the NME, and to their fan forum

At time of writing tickets for the main London gig at Madame Jo Jo's have now all gone (but I got one - woo!)

What I like about this is that anyone who was a fan could get involved (tickets didn't sell out for a few days), without using the name of the band explicitly outside of niche channels. OK, it's not the full band, but it should be a great show for any fans of the band. Also, in the week that Radiohead announced tickets for a giant gig in Victoria Park, it was possible to get tickets for this much more intimate event.

Fingers crossed for a great gig!

Monday, December 03, 2007

Tubeguitar

I was at a conference about online video today, and someone predicted that in a few years time 80% of the online video content will be professionally produced, because people will get bored of other people's home made stuff(aka User Generated Content)

I totally disagree with this. I think YouTube and other video sites have shown how keen people are to make and share their own content. It really doesn't matter if it's any good or not, because that is a very subjective judgement. People always think that the user generated content is dogs on skateboards, kids hanging around in the park, or similar, but it's actually far more complex, and is driven by interests and passions.

For example... I'm learning the guitar, and I've just discovered the whole subculture of guitar videos online, where people have posted video lessons of how to play different songs, and how to do different techniques.

One site that collates these is TubeGuitar - www.tubeguitar.com To me, trying to learn how to play a blues riff, or the intros to popular songs, this is far better quality content than the professionally produced stuff, and the fact that it is made by enthusiastic amateurs makes it better.

I've only just discovered this subculture and any trawl of YouTube will show that the breadth of material is beyond anything anyone could have imagined a couple of years ago. So will the user generated stuff only make up 20% of this content in a few years time? No chance.

(As a slight aside, this ten minute lesson on playing the blues on ukulele is one of the best things I've ever seen on YouTube. With kids in British schools now being taught the uke in music lessons (instead of recorders and violins), expect some incredible guitar bands in about ten years or so.)
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