Facebook May Be Growing Too Fast. And Hitting The Capital Markets Again.
Facebook May Be Growing Too Fast. And Hitting The Capital Markets Again.Posted using ShareThis
posted by Brad Down at 11/01/2008 08:03:00 AM
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Saturday, November 01, 2008
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Thursday, September 25, 2008
2008 ADMA MOBILE MARKETING AWARD WINNERS
The MMA Award for m-Commerce
THE WINNER IS:
Hoyts BlueZone network
AURA Interactive, Hoyts Cinemas
Finalists were:
Hoyts BlueZone network AURA Interactive, Hoyts Cinemas
mHITs
moshtix iPhone site News Digital Media
Commonwealth Bank Home Loans New Dialogue
The MMA Award for Relationship Building
THE WINNER IS:
Saying "Thx :-)" increases loyalty Telstra
Finalists were:
Stimulating Telstra Customers to use MMS George Patterson Y & R, Telstra
WotNext Music TigerSpike, Telstra
Hoyts BlueZone network AURA Interactive, Hoyts Cinemas
Saying "Thx :-)" increases loyalty Telstra
Ritchies CB MORE Loyalty Program Third Screen Media
Jeanswest Go Mobile Third Screen Media
The MMA Award for B2B or Enterprise Application
THE WINNER IS:
AURA BlueZones network AURA Interactive
Finalists were:
AURA BlueZones network AURA Interactive
Ritchies CB MORE Loyalty Program Third Screen Media
BeamMe.Info BeamMe.Info, CNET.com.au & homehound.com.au
mHITs
The MMA Award for Most Creative Mobile Solution
THE WINNER IS:
Foxtel Mobile Guide Foxtel, Hyro
Finalists were:
Foxtel Mobile Guide Foxtel, Hyro
United Nations Voices Project Saatchi and Saatchi, Dialect, Hyperfactory, Mobot
Mobile Warnie - Summer of Spin TigerSpike, Foster VB
AURA BlueZones network AURA Interactive
Tooheys New World Record Australia Dialect Interactive
BP Australia - 2008 Formula 1 ING Australian Grand Prix AURA Interactive, BP Australia
The MMA Award for Consumer Content Offering
THE WINNERS ARE:
United Nations Voices Project Saatchi and Saatchi, Dialect, Hyperfactory, Mobot
So You Think You Can Dance, 'Backstage Pass' mobile content Singtel Optus, Channel 10
Finalists were:
United Nations Voices Project Saatchi and Saatchi, Dialect, Hyperfactory, Mobot
TrueLocal iPhone site News Digital Media
news.com.au iPhone site News Digital Media
TheVine Mobile TigerSpike, Fairfax digital
So You Think You Can Dance, 'Backstage Pass' mobile content Singtel Optus, Channel 10
BP Australia - 2008 Formula 1 ING Australian Grand Prix AURA Interactive, BP Australia
The MMA Award for Mobile Advertising
THE WINNER IS:
27 Dresses Promotional Campaign Vodafone Mobile Advertising, Brand Logic, BigMobile, 20th Century Fox
Finalists were:
Commonwealth Bank Home Loans New Dialogue
American Gangster 5th Finger, UPI / Mediacom / One For All
27 Dresses Promotional Campaign Vodafone Mobile Advertising, Brand Logic, BigMobile, 20th Century Fox
Carlton Draught Sky Troop ninemsn, MediaCom, Clemenger, Vodafone
Nokia Nseries Yahoo!7 Mobile, m.Net Corporation
Fame or Shame Mark Agency, Optus, Run the Red
The MMA Award for Mobile Entertainment
THE WINNER IS:
Festival Buddy TigerSpike, Virgin Mobile
Finalists were:
WotNext Music TigerSpike, Telstra
National Nine News Mobile ninemsn
The Pitch 3 mobile
Festival Buddy TigerSpike, Virgin Mobile
American Gangster 5th Finger, UPI / Mediacom / One For All
The MMA Award for Promotional Campaign
THE WINNER IS:
Toyota Camry/ The Great Outdoors Consumer Promotion Yahoo!7 Mobile, m.Net Corporation, Toyota
Finalists were:
Paramount Pictures BlueZone® campaign AURA Interactive, Mediaedge:cia; Paramount Pictures, Hoyts Cinemas
Toyota Camry/ The Great Outdoors Consumer Promotion Yahoo!7 Mobile, m.Net Corporation, Toyota
"My Space" "Dark Knight" Black Curtain Event Third Screen Media and Fox Interactive Media
CBS Interactive Mobile gaming tournament CBS interactive, IBM, Neo@Ogilvy
Smirnoff Secret Party Communicator Interactive
Pepsi ConX U! mobux, The Marketing Store, TigerSpike
Helga's European Experience 5th Finger
The MMA Award for Cross Media Integration
THE WINNER IS:
Live Earth Commitment Campaign 5th Finger
Finalists were:
Foxtel Mobile Guide Foxtel, Hyro, Rivet
Optus Pre-Paid “Recharge & Always Win” CSM Australasia, Optus Administration/ Optus Prepaid
Paramount Pictures BlueZone® campaign AURA Interactive Mediaedge:cia; Paramount Pictures, Hoyts Cinemas
Tooheys New World Record Australia Dialect Interactive
Smirnoff Secret Party Communicator Interactive
Give a dog a home on your phone RSPCA (Victoria), M&C Saatchi, Touchpoint
Mobile Warnie - Summer of Spin TigerSpike, Foster VB
Vidcast Participation TV Gravity, MTV, Optus
Live Earth Commitment Campaign 5th Finger
Mobile Marketer of the Year
THE WINNER IS:
Neil Wiles Managing Director, Mobileactive Limited
Finalists were:
David Hayes Head of Sales, Information Dialling Services Pty Ltd
Claudia Sagripanti Director of Mobile Communications, GroupM
Neil Wiles Managing Director, Mobileactive Limited
Matthew Costello VP - Strategy, 5th Finger International
The MMA Award for One to Watch
THE WINNER IS:
Ritchies CB MORE Loyalty Program Third Screen Media
The MMA Award for Best of show
THE WINNER IS:
27 Dresses Promotional Campaign Vodafone Mobile Advertising, Brand Logic, BigMobile, 20th Century Fox
posted by Brad Down at 9/25/2008 01:00:00 PM
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Tuesday, April 29, 2008
TALK TO THE HAND: THE FUTURE OF MOBILE PUBLISHING - PART 2
How are marketers and advertisers going to benefit?Annual mobile ad spend to pass $1 billion in 2008!
HAMPSHIRE, UK: April 15th, 2008 - Mobile streamed and broadcast TV services will become the most lucrative delivery channels for mobile advertising by 2010, according to a new report by Juniper Research.
http://www.mobiadnews.com/?page_id=2134
The Shostek Group say the global mobile advertising market could reach $9.6 billion worldwide by 2010 - 20.4% of $47 billion online advertising spend.
The Australian mobile market is expected to reach $250 million by 2010 - 8.3% of projected $3 billion online advertising spend.
But people detest mobile advertising don't they? Just to dispel a few myths, according to Vodafone research performed on 1500 respondents last year (May 2007) were asked. Would they want to receive generic advertising on their phone = 68% said no, but then change the question to: 1a; Would you want to receive and ad that was linked and relevant to you = 71% said yes! It gets even better with: 2. If the ad involved an incentive would you be interested to receive it = 76% said yes.
So how do you get a piece of the pie?, There are a multitude of advertising and profile building opportunities for those smart enough to give the users what they want. Mobile ad banners are the most obvious form of advertising at the moment, text message advertising is the largest segment and mobile advertising is predicted to become huge. Viral is certain to have huge impact and what about premium content, its already a multi billion dollar industry.
What marketing technologies will be available to talk to mobile users?
How do we keep up when we haven't even got our heads around digital and web? How do we get our clients involved? What options are available? Where is the technology going? How does social media fit into all this? The facts that make mobile such a unique and attractive advertising medium are:
- The enormous penetration - 99% of Australians have a mobile and 3G will happen fast
- You can reach and interact with consumers anywhere, anytime.
- Its immediate and personal
Mobile internet
With the advent of better mobile devices will come better mobile web applications, the examples that I spoke about earlier are just a taste of what is to come. Apple has registered some 200,000 developers that are developing for the iPhone already. Phone applications that are linked to the internet will probably become more prevalent than the actual web browser that we are used to seeing. Internet enabled mobile applications will become available for specific tasks. The web will still exist but pages will be optimized for mobile devices and advertising associated will take a different form. Consumers want beneficial, non-intrusive and relevant advertising.
Mobile web banners
Many companies are developing systems to deliver banners to mobile web pages, Google and Yahoo both have these services and AdMob claim they have just delivered their 20 billionth mobile ad. Check these links out for more:
Google Now Offering Mobile Banner Ads
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/24/google-now-offering-mobile-banner-ads/
AdMob Serves 20 Billionth Mobile Ad
http://www.mobiadnews.com/?p=2077
Mobile video ads
In the Juniper Research we saw they estimate that mobile TV will be the most lucrative service in mobile advertising by 2010 ($2.5 billion in 2013). As mobile internet access speeds increase and the quality of the viewing experience gets better people will watch far more video content on their mobile phones. It is an obvious place for mini tv commercials to appear along with sponsored content and advertiser viral content.
Beam advertising
Beams are a new technology provided by BeamMe.Info, they allow a website publisher to put a button on their site that allows a user to send content from the site their mobile. As an advertiser there is an opportunity to sponsor these messages and place adverts which include links to mobile URL's within the messages. The ability to drive traffic directly from these ads to specific mobile destinations is a great way to promote mobile services.
Location based services (LBS)
LBS allow advertising relevant to a users location such as time based campaigns based on proximity to a location. The technology has reached a point where it is beginning to live up to its hyped promises over the past few years. There are two primary technologies at work here, GPS and network triangulation. GPS operates via satellite but is currently a bit dodgy due to the time it takes to locate you and also the fact that it is unreliable when you are indoors. Network triangulation finds you by figuring out where your signal is coming from within the mobile phone towers you are between. The more towers the more accurate the position. The drawback to this technology is that it can only locate you within a 1000 metres or so in an urban area and even further outside. Both these technologies combined have started to show some promise, just check out the My Location feature on the Google Maps mobile application.
http://www.google.com/mobile/gmm/mylocation/
LBS technologies are now starting to be found in dating services where people have their mobile linked to their profile. If somebody matching their profile is within the vicinity they are alerted. For advertising services local search on mobile will obviously take one step further.
Unique SIM identity
A mobile phone number gives a much more powerful identifier than an email address or user ID. One a users SIM is identified this can than be used to build a profile. Everything they have been doing online, purchases they have made, websites they have visited will all be carefully measured, input into an algorithm, weighed against the content of the information being published and then have a relevant advertisement attached the SMS alert and the mobile destination pages. These adverts will then wait for a click or visit from the user and send even further data back to the profile and the advertisers tracking system which will then trigger if a purchase is made, possibly again using the mobile device.
Viral marketing
People who receive interesting content on their phones love to share it. Sharing from a mobile however is a tricky business. Forwarding MMS messages is the most common form at the moment. Good quality sponsored viral mobile content is a powerful tool to get in touch quickly with a specific demographic.
Mobile search
Mobile search at this stage is limited to Google and Yellow Pages style searches which are based on their website counterparts, the mobile experience however will be driven by location based search as well. Whoever gets mobile search right will be a big winner. Check out the following article:
The Real Threat to Google
As more consumers browse the Web on their cell phones, the No. 1 search engine must cope with less space to place ads
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/apr2008/tc20080427_580014.htm
Who is leading the way in mobile advertising and publishing?
All of the big players are making developments in the mobile space. They are all creating advertising and marketing opportunities that will become very sought after in the next 12 to 24 months.
These guys are developing what is called off deck media. On deck is un-metered content that exists on a carriers network. Eg Telstra Bigpond mobile sites, Vodafone Live etc. Off deck browsing is charged at the full data rate however the value of the new content developed is starting to out weigh the cost of accessing it in a consumers eyes. Everyone who is building mobile assets at the moment is under utilising them. The big players are pouring a lot of money into developing mobile assets yet there is little traffic and they are asking why. The problems lie in the infrastructure and user experience. As mentioned earlier the speed is too slow and the cost is too high and the sites are just replications of the web - the mobile Internet will evolve to become a different creature.
As the infrastructure problems get sorted out, these guys will pretty much have the content market figured out and sewn up. These guys haven't spent all this money and developed all this content for nothing, their research shows that soon they will have a huge market and millions of eyeballs. Those of us investing in understanding mobile advertising now will be the winners in the future.
"Online and off-deck media will become huge and change the way people behave and their relationship with marketing..." Matt McGrath - CEO, You and Rubicam Brands
Summary
As far as mobile advertising is concerned there are some key learnings that we must take away from this information in that mobile advertising must be:
- Targeted - be relevant to the users activity
- Entertaining - and suitable for the mobile medium
- Non-intrusive - don't show a user something unless they want it
- Beneficial - give them the information they want quickly
- Complementary - to whatever the user is doing
- Incentivised - give something in exchange for the right to advertise
- Participatory - interactive and sharing
posted by Brad Down at 4/29/2008 03:32:00 PM
1 comments
Saturday, April 12, 2008
ULTRA PORTABLE 2.0: WHAT THE MACBOOK AIR SHOULD HAVE BEEN
I must say that I am a little confused by the release of the MacBook Air. As far as I am concerned the 15 inch MacBook Pro is the perfect laptop, maybe minus a bit of weight and heat, but for a laptop computer with enough power to do reasonably processor demanding tasks it is perfect. And the soon to be released MacBooks I am sure will be even more perfect.
The Air just seems to be a bit of a whimsy. Big enough that it still has to be lugged, yet with a feature set that makes it a little weak to be the only computer you own. I think the MacBook Air is the kind of computer I would buy if I already had an iMac at home.
When the hype and rumour of an ultra portable started to circulate I was expecting Apple to deliver something super unique, not just a smaller laptop. I did expect it to have touch screen like the iphone and I definitely expected it to come sans keyboard. So on the release of the Air my expectations have been a little mis-matched, such are they when I have so much faith in a company that develops the best technology in the world.
Steve, if I could just have your attention for a second I think this should be your next move. The Star Trek PADD style computer. You know we have been waiting for them since we first saw them on The Next Generation and knew that one day this is what a portable computer would look like.
This is the computer that I want. Something big enough that it reads like a book and fits neatly in my bag. But not something small enough that I have to take it with me everywhere and drop it on the ground every five minutes. I want a computer that I can take with me where I usually take the news paper first thing in the morning. A computer that I don't have to squint at for an hour on the bus on my way to work. I want a computer that I can touch and caress in order to see the things I want to see.
Jonathan, I know you can design this, Steve, I know you can make it happen...I believe in you. Apple...let there be Light!
posted by Brad Down at 4/12/2008 04:01:00 PM
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Tuesday, April 08, 2008
TALK TO THE HAND: THE FUTURE OF MOBILE PUBLISHING - PART 1
The mobile revolution is upon us and Gen Y is moving fast to adopt everything mobile as fast as it appears. Us poor old Gen Xers are desperately trying to understand this fascination with mobile but haven't really gotten beyond the understanding of why anyone would want to use such a slow, frustrating and fiddly technology like mobile internet. The advent of Blackberry push email has certainly opened a new mobile communication channel and SMS is as strong as ever but the whole shebang just seems to be so disconnected.The carriers are trying to own all their respective bits of turf not allowing the other kids to play there, mobile internet needs to be logged onto which is tedious at best and nobody seems to have cracked a decent browsing interface yet. Browsing itself harks me back to the days of 56K dialup, then when I get my phone bill after surfing all those off-deck sites and suddenly paying $4 per message for love match SMS seems like a bargain.
So why the enthusiasm in mobile? The potential is incredible. The advent of the iphone and the innovation it has spurred with the likes of the Android mobile operating system by Google and the accelerated R&D path of the Blackberry has basically changed the path in which mobile computing and communication will evolve. Miniturisation is no longer the goal, getting the user experience right and making the device useful and fun is the trick. The iphone and its competitors have proven this, and once it is here the 3G mobile experience will be well on its way to being somewhere near useful.
We have all used SMS, some of you have probably even browsed pages on the mobile internet. You have migrated your news reading habits from press to web and are possibly just starting to get used to the idea of getting all of your news together in an RSS reader.
These technologies are just part of an exciting evolution in communications to the next level of mobile. As mobile internet goes 3G, data transmission gets faster, devices get easier to use, web applications become integrated with mobile and the overall cost of data gets lower, the natural progression will be that more and more you will consume your information on mobile devices.
There are many questions for the publishing and adverting world and I will try to answer a few of these questions for you in an informative way.
What does mobile publishing look like?
Mobile publishing in the future will mean that as soon as the story leaves the publishers fingertips the story will be consumed by users. I call this instantaneous publication a content absorption.
A new platform is evolving that will enable this kind of communication. The platform will exist as an instantaneous multi-directional publishing platform and I saw it first on Gossip Girl. In case you are wondering, Gossip Girl is my wife's favourite new US TV showing on Fox 8, it has a kind of 90210 meets Sex in the City vibe. The narrating character is called Gossip Girl who runs a gossip blog of the same name. In the latest episode the heroine is snapped by a sneaky passer by purchasing a pregnancy kit. The story instantly arrives on the blog site and alerts are then sent out to all of the subscribers by SMS and the gossip is spread.
The story is published instantly from the author to the reader who can then respond back with comments. This is publishing in real time and this level of interactivity can only work with mobile. This level of instantaneousness is currently experienced on twitter but its just one way and with just text. But the promise is there...
Users are getting more and more savvy to what their mobile devices are capable of. In a recent UK consumer study by Yell.com Mobile 49% of mobile users were interested in trying mobile search and 72% would choose to use mobile web for practical, information services.
Here are the top five functionality requests as extracted from the study
- Maps/directions and local information
- Email and instant messenger
- Banking
- Transport information
- News and sports
From this we can see there is a high demand for information services on mobile devices especially by users likely to take up 3G services. Design and aesthetics are exchanged in favour of speed and usability.
People do not need tons of graphics and superfluous navigation on mobile, they need to be able to receive, share and interact with information that is relevant to them. The best way to do this is by initiating the distribution of the information from the web. People can find good quality and useful content quickly, and for nothing, and then send it to themselves or share it. People want information mobile for different reasons. It has to be useful when they need something, entertaining when they don't and give them something cool to show their friends when they are being social. If they can link quickly to the content they want and share it easily with people it makes the experience that much more useful..
I have many times tried to show a friend something on my web-enabled phone but it just takes so long the experience leaves me frustrated. Anyone who has tried to look up information on their phone while cheating at a trivia night will know the pain.
If I could just have a link directly to the information I want, it would make the process much less painful. All of these services are available now in some form in some part of the world however the take up of these services is slow to say the least.
What is slowing the development of this technology?
There are three main reasons that mobile services have been slow to take off.
- Cost - browsing off-deck mobile sites incurs data charges from the carrier. These charges lay outside the normal cap plans and many people have been getting a shock after seeing their bills when they have started to play with mobile internet and email.
- Speed - 3G is better than GPRS but is still slow.
- Usability- Phone usability in general is terrible, accessing the internet requires logging on which is slow and typing in URL's with predictive texting is a nightmare.
There has been a lot of press in Australia recently about consumer usage of mobile internet based on studies done by Sony Erricson and the University of Adelaide. Check out the following link for more information.
Most Aussies don't use expensive mobile web
The survey, released by Sony Ericsson and 3 mobile, revealed that 91 per cent of respondents don't use their phone for accessing the internet, believing it costs too much or offers a poor user experience.
http://www.news.com.au/technology/story/0,25642,23536956-5014109,00.html
Mobile web 'commonplace' within a year
RESEARCH tracking Australians' propensity to use their mobile phones to access the internet indicates use of the mobile internet will be commonplace within a year.
http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,,23553152-15306,00.html
In part 2... How are marketers and advertisers going to benefit?
posted by Brad Down at 4/08/2008 10:01:00 AM
2 comments
Thursday, April 03, 2008
Today we are proud to announce the launch of our new web based bulk SMS application BurstSMS. Our new system sends SMS for 10c each across the board whether you send 1 message or 100,000. It also allows you to brand your own SMS service and on sell it to your clients at a margin you build in.The application is totally web based, it is free to register and there are no ongoing costs.
We hope you enjoy using it. Try it now at BurstSMS.com
posted by Brad Down at 4/03/2008 12:04:00 PM
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Wednesday, April 02, 2008
You can read blog.known on your mobile phone by visiting http://m.known.com.au in your phones web browser. Alternatively use the contact Beam on the right to send a text message with the address straight to your mobile.
posted by Brad Down at 4/02/2008 05:22:00 PM
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For the past eight months, my colleagues and I have been working feverishly on our very first start-up, it has been a major undertaking for our small team; finding investment capital in a turbulent market, developers during a skills shortage and clients in a still immature digital marketing environment.Nevertheless, we threw ourselves headlong into the process and have our first completed products. The ride was emotional and draining but we learned so much along the way, far more than we ever would working 9-5. We also had and are still having a lot of fun, every day is exciting. There are a lot of risks and the pay is terrible but overall its been a positive and rewarding experience.
The top 10 things I could impart after enduring the start-up process are:
1: Agree everything up front - even when you don't have a business all parties have expectations and the only way to meet them is through making agreements and sticking to them.
2: Hire good people - I know this is obvious and we were lucky with the great talent we managed to get hold of, but it is fundamental and when I mean good I don't just mean fast and efficient, you need people that use their initiative and offer up solutions. 3: Incubate your idea - get a prototype up and running quickly, tell people about the idea and get feedback. The key to knowing when you're on a winner is when everybody you show it to starts asking why this hasn't been done before.
4: Stay agile - Never lock yourself into a plan. Keep your business plan fluid so that if you get into a project and think of a better way to do something be flexible enough to do it.
5: Set deadlines - Without deadlines the business will never get off the ground. Remember things in development world always take twice as long as you think they will, so set realistic deadlines.
6: Don't expect Google Search to sell your business for you - Search results don't make deals happen. Get on the phone - Your startup is not going to sell itself. We were lucky enough to have one of our partners from a sales background and it has made a huge difference to our business.(Mind you, if your idea is good enough, you might well start expecting Google to buy your business!)
7: Don't release something half-finished - we have released our app in public beta and we are constantly making improvements, however the functionality and user experience are complete. I hear the advice a lot just to get something out fast, even if it doesn't quite work. I believe this is bad advice. Focus on the details, especially the user experience; without a good UI your app is going to struggle.
8: Don't be afraid to go to the top - forget talking to middle management. If you really want your business to succeed, you really need to speak to the people at the top. It takes some work but once you have those relationships working it makes life so much easier.
9: Give your business personality - people love dealing with businesses that they can interact and have fun with. Focus on a personality for your business and live it.
10: Have fun - we recommend foosball & wearing hats on Friday. If you get good drop us a note and we'll arrange a match.
Anyway, I am sure the suspense is killing you. Check out http://www.beamme.info to check it out. If you want to see a Beam in action visit http://www.bestrestaurants.com.au
posted by Brad Down at 4/02/2008 04:59:00 PM
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