TRACTA :: 4eyes

The people have spoken, and New Zealand’s favourite websites have been announced in the Netguide People’s Choice Web Awards 2010.

Amongst the results, Stuff was awarded the Site of The Year prize, but missed out on Best Media Site, to TVNZ.  TradeMe came top in the Trading Site, Property and Employment categories, and runner-up in the Mobile Site and Site of the Year categories.  And international trends are reinforced by our votes for Google (Favourite Search Engine, Best Homepage), YouTube (Best Entertainment Site) and Facebook (Favourite Social Networking Site).

In other trend-watching news, an American university does an annual survey of incoming freshmen to find out what they are doing, thinking and believing.  This year’s incoming class were born in 1992.  Amongst the insights:

- Fergie is a pop singer, not a princess.

- Czechoslovakia has never existed.

- Clint Eastwood is better known as a sensitive director than as Dirty Harry.

- Rock bands have always played at presidential inaugural parties.

- They’ve never recognized that pointing to their wrists was a request for the time of day.

This is the voice of the new generation, where communication technologies are omnipresent and information (but not knowledge) is available at the click of a button.

In Social Media News, Facebook is starting up location-based services.  This means users can tell Facebook where in the world they are, and Facebook will tell the world.  This will offer more chances to meet your virtual network in real life, and more opportunities for nearby businesses to promote their products/services to you.

Facebook are also launching a live video streaming channel.  They are using it for Facebook information and promotion at this stage, but there’s obviously the opportunity for it to rival TV channels for audiences, if they can gather enough “Live” content.

Still on Facebook, a bit of research has revealed the obvious.  Brands that are most successful on Facebook are those that have multiple pages, each cross-promoting each other; use easy-to-find names for the pages; adopt a conversational tone; update often; post video and other rich-content types; allow fan-initiated interaction; and encourage fan-to-fan conversations.

And finally, in more “so-obvious-but-we-had-to-do-the-research-to-prove-it” news:  A Twitter user is more likely to be a brand advocate or influencer than your average Joe.  They engage with more brands partly for the benefits such as discounts and new product knowledge, and partly so they can be seen by their followers as being in-the-know.  It’s largely a self-fulfilling cycle, and those of us that understand the need of these influencers to have “prior knowledge” can use that to  the advantage of our businesses.

That’s enough heavy stuff for a Monday.  Be careful out there!

Cheers,

It’s Friday the 13th.

That might be scary, but this assortment of news from around the web sure isn’t.

(Unless you’re centophobic.)

Facebook News

A new application for Facebook on mobile allows users to make free phone calls from smartphones to other smartphone users. Try it out here.

You can now access your Facebook pages, friends and conversations, through different software.  The Wowd software client (available here) includes real-time search and a “social dashboard”.

And if you’re worried that some of the stuff you (or others) have put on Facebook might come back to haunt you in the future, it might be time for you to hire an online reputation manager!

Google News

It’s an ongoing battle between Facebook and Google to become masters of the online universe.

Google has recently purchased or invested in two of the most popular apps developers for Facebook: Zynga and Slide.  This gives Google a very strong foothold with Facebook users and their data.  Where to from here?

You don’t hear much bad news from Google, but the much-hyped Google Wave is to be shut down.  The service that was supposed to allow freer sharing of content between users just hasn’t got to the critical mass of users that Google was hoping for.  Or is there something else in the pipeline that’s going to replace it really soon?

That’s not to say Google are sitting still though (as apparent from their multi-million dollar investments).  They have also just released an updated interface for GMail, showing that email is still a core activity for them.  It won’t be long until GMail includes all social media activity too, I reckon.

Twitter News

In previous posts I have highlighted how Facebook has set up policies for dealing with its users who have died, either removing their profiles or keeping them (minus some personal details) as memorial pages.  Twitter are catching up, and now doing the same.  Or if you’re willing to keep on your online reputation manager after your passing, he/she can take care of it for you!

Police News

This may seem an unusual category to include in Four Eyes, but these stories are all about technology and communications in policing…

Boston Police catch flasher via Twitter

NZ Police radio encryption is working

NZ Police using radio programmes to educate Samoan parents about the dangers of youth gangs

A couple of cool websites

To stimulate your creative juices…

The V Isokinetic website.  Very interactive.  Very cool.

A new shoe website.  Again, very interactive.  Quite sexy.  And the shoe has fingers for your toes!

Cheers,

Another week gone.  Two weeks, in fact, since the last Four Eyes post.

So there’s a bit to catch up on…

And what do you know?  Google just continues to grow!  They are now looking to infiltrate two of the biggest media industries we have: television and music.  Google TV is set to roll out on Sony televisions and with set-top boxes.  In short, it’s going to be an interface that allows your TV to connect to the internet, and gives access to all the functionality that represents.  It will be interesting to see whether Google TV will only present Google-owned sites (such as YouTube and Picasa), or give them prominence in search functions. Watch the video at the bottom of the page linked to above for a super-easy explanation.

Google is also setting up to take on the monolith that is Apple, as they prepare to launch a music download service in competition to iTunes.  Google isn’t confirming anything at this stage, but the news broke via the Wall Street Journal, a publication that does tend to check its facts before printing!

In Social Media news, the news is… there is no news.  Or at least that’s what marketers seem to think, as nearly half of corporates using social media are doing so with no strategy behind it.

Other corporates, who you would think do have a strategy, are seeing the benefit of just getting friendly with social media “influencers”.  Virgin Airlines are inviting selected social media influencers to fly for free, in the hope (we’d guess) that the influencers will write something good about VA.  Poignantly though, VA make the point that they don’t expect anything from the influencers.  Whether they say anything or not is up to them.

What are we going to call this new breed of social media influencers?  How about Hypersuaders??  Any other suggestions are welcome!

For some good examples of how social media can be integrated into above-the-line campaigns, check out my What’s Hot posts.

According to Wikipedia, Crowdsourcing is the act of outsourcing tasks, traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, to a large group of people or community (a crowd), through an open call.  With the mass connectivity of the internet, crowdsourcing is influencing everything from journalism to fashion.

You may have heard that Stuff.co.nz has recently experimented with crowdsourcing, asking its readers to go through thousands of MPs’ receipts, looking for “anything we can turn into a story”.  But did you know that YouTube has recently launched CitizenTube, a facility for anyone to load newsworthy videos, thus cutting out the need for news networks entirely.  As this article explains, the site is more than just a repository for videos, but is sorted and presented so that breaking news comes first, and only decent quality footage will be selected.

In other YouTube news, you’ll soon be able to edit your videos online with their new “cloud-based” video editor.  You can try it out here, or read about it here.

Thanks for reading!  I hope you learned something.

Cheers,

Have you used a Google service today?  Whether it’s the search engine, G-Mail, maps, books, youtube, ad networks, picasa, mobile software or the chrome browser, chances are that you have.  Since the brand became a verb, Google has continued to grow, acquire competitors and push the boundaries of what is possible, and acceptable, in terms of online marketing.  Their unofficial motto is “Don’t be evil”, which given the amount of information they now have about search habits, web and mail usage, is a pretty low benchmark to achieve in terms of protecting users’ privacy.

Now Google has admitted that when they were driving their Street View camera cars around, they were also collecting information about wireless internet usage from the houses (and presumably businesses) they were photographing.  Authorities see this as a potential serious invasion of privacy, and Google hasn’t yet said what information they collected or, more importantly, what they intend to do with it.  Google isn’t a stranger to court cases, and I’m sure this won’t spell the end of Google Inc, but it may seriously dent the trust that users have in using their services.

Meanwhile, Google is continuing to innovate, entertain and engage with their audiences.  The search home page currently includes a link to Google’s World Cup section.  They have also run a Google Doodle competition to support the World Cup (NZ finalists here and our winner here).  Ensuring warm fuzzies around the Google brand.  If those warm fuzzies get you wanting to be closer to the brand, here’s your opportunity, with everything from Google cricket sets to Google pens to Google lava lamps available for purchase.  And apparently, due to caffeine, Google’s search powers are greater than ever.  Is that why coffee prices are rising so much?!?

Tune in next week for more Google news. Same Google time, same Google channel.

Cheers

Welcome to another Four Eyes Friday!  Today I’m attempting to show what might happen to media consumption in NZ in the near future, following trends in the US and taking into account the plethora of developments happening at Google.  It might look like I’m a Google-freak, but Google are at the forefront of a lot of technology and if they’re not, well they’ll just but the company that is!

First up though, internet on the TV.  It’s been talked about for a long time, and the new TiVO offering in NZ allows subscribers some online access, but nothing like what HDTV can now do in well-connected countries like the USA – as evidenced by this ad for a Vizio TV (screened during the Superbowl).  And from this news of Tetris being available through satellite TV, it may not be long until you’ll be able to do on your TV, everything you now do on your PC (or Mac!).

So, what’s Google up to? First up, this week they launched BUZZ - a social networking application attached to G-Mail.  In essence it looks very similar to Facebook, as it allows users to share status updates, photos, videos, etc.  The main difference from Facebook is that it integrates directly with G-Mail (setting up friends lists from a G-Mail contacts list) and draws in content from other (Google-owned or affiliated) social sites – Flickr, Picasa, Twitter and more.  And of course, there’s a mobile app too!

Official Google introduction video (scroll down).  Detailed rundown on the launch.

So what’s coming next?  Google’s recent patent filings indicate that software to improve ad targeting (geographic, content-based and behavioural) and delivery across multiple media will be a big part of Google’s plans.  It sounds like Street View could be used as a virtual mall, with retailers paying for ads on their own buildings.  Google loves patents.  Last year they even managed to patent their (admittedly iconic) homepage design!

Google are also talking about technology that automatically translates phone calls between two people speaking different languages.  Sounds great, but translation can be a tricky business, as Google themselves have found in the past.

And to finish, if you’d like to picture yourself skidding down an Olympic ski-run Google has even made that easier, with StreetView imaging of the Winter Olympics venues. Quite cool!

Googled out?  I think I am.  I’ll catch you next week!

Google = New World Order?

Ho ho ho Merry Christmas!  This will be the last Four Eyes post for 2009.  Bring on 2010!  As is the norm with Christmas-time (TV schedules, newspaper content, etc) I’m going to keep this relatively light-hearted and low on substance.  Noone wants to work hard in the lead up to Christmas!

Maybe informative

There’s this guy in Poland who is redefining the look and feel of newspapers, and actually increasing circulations.  This is how he did it.  (6min video, the best bits are from 2:30-5:00).  How can this new thinking be applied to advertising?

Firms who kept up marketing during the recession are now ahead of the game.  Well, duh!  But this is an expert analysis.

Stats show that despite the popularity of social media, email is still the preferred tool for sharing online content.  And the humble email isn’t just about text any more, with the advent of technology that can embed LIVE streaming video into emails.

Somewhat interesting

Internet monitoring allows us to see at a glance the ups and downs of a brand/personality/issue.  From Google’s Zeitgeist to Nielsen’s Buzzmetrics (online perceptions of John Key and Bill English here) to measures of Tiger Woods’ “celebrity score” (he’s more well-known than ever, but not as liked, surprisingly), if you want to know what the masses are thinking then the internet is the place to look!

The Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen has made that a hot topic recently and it has been interesting to see the approach taken in advertising to encourage consumers to change their behaviour.  Social marketing in New Zealand has typically used scare tactics, but these examples use humour to get the message across.  In Brazil, they want people to pee in the shower.  And in Britain it’s as simple as turning the lights off.

Purely entertaining

I just discovered yesterday that Google Earth has a cool, free feature.  You can turn it into a flight simulator and fly around the real world.  I crashed several planes into Wellington yesterday!  Instructions are here.  Have fun!

Have a four eyes christmas, don’t go swimming with sunglasses on, and see you all back in 2010!

WHAT?!?!? December??? Can you believe it?! You couldn’t tell from the weather, but hopefully these bytes of interesting internet information will sunny up your day!

News

NZHerald has made a few changes to their website lately, with a new article layout and a new shopping section that is very similar to Telecom’s failed Ferrit.  See the shopping section here, and read comments from StopPress here.

America’s Next Top Model is coming to New Zealand!  If you see any of the contestants, please give them a sandwich!

SKY TV are going back online, with plans to Live Stream of Winter Olympics planned.  They’re going to test this with a live stream of the 3rd Cricket Test NZ v Pakistan, which happens to be at McLean Park from next Friday.  So you won’t need to skive off work to watch – you’ll be able to do it from the comfort of your desk!

Despite the advertising downturn experienced recently, online advertising in NZ continues to grow, with a 16% increase in online ad spend for Q3 2009 over 2008.  Good news for online publishers, and good news for agencies with digital abilities!

We can also now promote YouTube content with text&image promo links, much like Google Adwords.  YouTube is the biggest repository of online video IN THE WORLD.

Warnings

If you’re on leave for “Health” reasons, don’t post party pictures of yourself on Facebook!

Don’t go keying any cars if it looks like there might be cameras around.  This is the man behind the newspaper that recently put together a 12-page advertiser-funded supplement for Farmlands’ new store opening in Cambridge.  They did a good job of that.   (I had to say that in case my car gets keyed too!)

Don’t go crashing your car at 2:30am if you’re the most famous golfer IN THE WORLD.  Someone will make a movie about it!  Subtitled in Taiwanese but I’m pretty sure you’ll understand!  What she said happened vs what we think happened.

Cool stuff

How much does it cost to buy all of the presents listed in The 12 Days of Christmas?

What have been the most searched terms on Google this year?  In NZ?

Winter Olympics 2010 social media effort: challenge the athletes.

Microsoft Bing’s social media effort.  It’s an application on Facebook so they get to collect all sorts of data from everyone who participates.  Good thinking Microsoft.

Happy sunny weekend!

Phew!  Next week it will be December.  Christmas is coming, the sun is shining and we’re all busy as really busy things, so I’ll keep this short and sweet.

In fact, I’m going to keep this post clear of any “hard” news.  Nothing Googley, nothing statisticy, this is pure entertainment.  But be warned – you may learn something too!

In New Zealand…

Did you know that some courier companies are offering advertising on their fleet vehicles?  As they have dozens of cars doing hundreds of kilometres around urban centres, TelstraClear saw this as an opportunity to promote their Business Network in Auckland.

Want to know what’s going to be on TV in March 2010?  TVNZ have released their New Season 2010 programming and schedules – all the links are here.

Want to know what TV people have been complaining about in 2009?  It’s all here.

Around the World…

How to integrate outdoor, PR, online and viral activity to sell 337% more chowder.  Clever, well executed and successful!

According to Guiness World Records, this is the most viewed online ad in the world.  Cute eh?

Sorry, I couldn’t do it.  Again!  I couldn’t do a whole post without a reference to Google Almighty. Sometimes their algorithms throw up results they’re not proud of, and they have to apologise.  However when I read this article and clicked on the “see the search results here” link I didn’t see the image in question, BUT Google kindly suggested a separate search for me!  And then they’ll apologise for it!

That’s the weird world wide web wrapped up for another week.  Have a good one!

Here we go again!  More mad news and interesting insights derived from the wonderful world of the web.

I’m going to call this post the TOP 5 at 5.  Because it’s 5pm.  And I have 5 news items.

Number 1: TVNZ OnDemand has a new, bigger, better viewer.  See it here.

Number 2: Dominion Post have a new layout.  See what the editor, and readers, have to say here.

Number 3: Farmers want broadband!!

Number 4: Free MySkyHD for Vodafone customers! Cross-media deals anyone?

Number 5: Google’s next big thing… the Google Phone.  Next… Google jeans, Google cars, Google ice cream?

But I won’t leave it at that!  You know you hang out for the fun bits at the end of these posts!

Here’s a little game from Seek (the recruitment website).  You can upload your own (or someone else’s) photo and shoot yourself (or that someone else) from a cannon!  Would you like to know who I have shot out of the cannon so far?

That’s all.  Have a good one!

Since it is Friday the 13th and we’re all petrified of black cats walking under our ladders and stepping on the cracks with their umbrellas up, I thought I’d keep this issue of 4Eyes fairly light.

But of course you can’t escape the Google Monster!  This week they’re in the news because they have completed StreetView mapping of all 50 US states, and are now ready to go off-road.  And in case Twitter, Facebook, Yammer et al aren’t enough to keep up to date with your friends, Google can now help find them in real life.  Also in the news is the newest iPhone feature “Monocle” which allows users to point their camera at a location and see real-time data about it, like restaurant reviews, movie times, sale items… the potential here is great!  No real Facebook news this week, but in a vote of confidence in the social network, major games producer Electronic Arts has bought Playfish for $400million.  Playfish make some of those annoyingly addictive Facebook games, but is not even the biggest player in that market.

Smart Wired

Kiwibank has launched its own social media site to connect young people in NZ (and connect them with Kiwibank by offering cool and relevant prizes a-plenty).

TVNZ are happy with their first foray into interactive web telly Reservoir Hill.

I enjoyed this site where you can mock up your own moustache (and see yourself morph really strangely), brought to you by Schick and GetFrank for Movember.

Weird Wired

Hastings new slogan/logo.  Contentious?  Check out the comments below the main article!

Tweeter lands book deal, sitcom.  Goes to show if you can create the content, someone else will market it for you!  Having looked at the twitter stream Shit My Dad Says (caution: explicit language) it could be funny…

The new Wii made especially for women (again, some content may offend…)

And with that, I leave you to your weekend.  Have a good one!