The Conversant Mobile solution works for any premium online publisher – not just organisations typically known for producing online media. To see how well it’s working for Australian Rugby Union – and to stay updated with the latest rugby action – grab the Wallabies app from the iTunes store and take a look.

Except…

In my rush to get things done, I copied the wrong ‘John’. The actual John whose email was entered into the BCC field was a John that I really do NOT want to be exposed to the contents of the email.

I process over a hundred emails a day, so I don’t delay in pressing SEND when I’ve reviewed the email.

As the email was being sent, I had one of those moments when your heart races into your throat. I had the wrong person blind copied. The. Worst. Feeling. Ever.

But now is when I’m happy to be using Google Apps for Domain for our email. (In fact, I so happy with the service for so many reasons.)

There’s a feature in Google email for businesses which lets you undo your send, so long as it’s within a minute or so of pressing Send. So I was able to undo the send, copy the right John onto the email, and move forward again.

Heart back into chest.

Yet another example of why having the right tools, configured in the right way, is so essential to a small but growing business.

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Australian publisher Conversant Media .. offers the popular Conversant Mobile “white-label” iPhone application development tool for bloggers who want a stylish, flexible way to display their blog content. Popular trend blogs such as Lost at E Minor and tech blogs such as Mashable and Techcrunch have long been available in iPhone app form.

Conversant Mobile’s features include automatic content updates from your CMS (rare!), multimedia-ready (one-tap Youtube viewing), local search and local data storage (fast) and synchronised content (efficient).

> Visit Conversant Mobile for a full list of our iPhone app features and demos

Nice to see Lost at E Minor keeping the esteemed company of Mashable and Techcrunch in Businessweek’s roundup of popular blogs too!

“For both men and women (36.1% and 32.7%, respectively) the Web is the go-to for sports news, which is followed by local TV programming (23.7%), national TV networks (15.1%), local newspapers (6.7%), national newspapers (3.6%), and sports radio (2.9%).

This trend is particularly prevalent among the important 18-24 and 25-34 age segments, as we’ve seen in action with our Sports Opinion website, The Roar, which has been steadily growing its traffic over the past twelve months.

Well, it seems people in high places have been taking note.

We were thrilled late last week when we saw that Kevin Roberts, the Worldwide CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi, and the inventor of the influential Lovemarks branding ideology, wrote a post on his personal blog about Lost At E Minor and how it has become a player in the ‘Participation Economy’.

Roberts noted that, with Lost At E Minor, Conversant Media has:

‘created a community of conversations that showcases the zeitgeist – new creative projects and emerging culture sourced from the most diverse corners of the Internet, in all flavors — Twitter, Facebook, and Free iPhone app; and is spiced with free downloads, guest writers, a cool online store including the Dosh wallet, and much more’.

It was very heartening to get his perspective on what we’ve been doing. We have a great team of writers, scattered all around the globe and seeking out fresh content to showcase, but as Kevin states, it’s more about the interaction and the discussions that this content generates. So thanks Kevin, for the inspiring words!

[Read the full post by Kevin Roberts here]

Not much needs to be said; suffice to say there doesn’t seem to be the same divide between church and state (editorial and advertising) that there once was.

Back in the day, there’d be no way the lead article in the newspaper would match exactly the massive ad campaign also running.

Even if the lead article as determined by the editors happened to match the site sponsor, they wouldn’t have run it to avoid the perception that there was an editorial conflict.

Not anymore.

Click on the images to see what I mean.

So when we wanted to set-up a tipping competition on our sports site, The Roar, we looked to see if there were any sports tipping plugins available for Wordpess.  Unfortunately not. (We’re massive fans of the content management system Wordpress.  I reckon we know the platform inside out.)

So rather than pay yearly subscription costs to one of the large tipping providers, we decided to engineer our own sports tipping plugin for Wordpress.

We get the following benefits:

• each tipper creates an account and profile on our site using Wordpress’s user management function
• more recurring traffic to our site
• sponsorship opportunities available
• viral spread as people invite mates to join them in their tipping comp

Some of the feautures of our sports tipping plugin include:

• ability to set-up any number of tipping competitions, for ANY sport (or event – think tipping on a Presidential election)
• ability to customise whether missing tips for a round receive all home or all away games
• ability to customise points model for win, lose and draw results
• ability for a user to enter one or many open competitions
• comments on each round by fellow tippers (’Go the Waratahs!’)
• reminder email sent by the system, tailored to the competitions a tipper is registered for
• import address book to invite mates to the tipping comp
• powerplay concept (each round one game gets nominated for double the points if you get it correct)
• open questions (ask an open question and mark it at any stage in the tournament)
• leaderboards by sport showing tipping rankings and movement within the round
• display of ‘legend tippers of the round’ board (those tippers who got all correct each round)
• and lots, lots more.

And here it is in action on our sports site, The Roar:  Sports tipping plugin for Wordpress on The Roar.

Want your own tipping comp on your blog or site running Wordpress?

If you have a Wordpress blog and are interested in running your own tipping competition, then drop us a line to discuss how we can help.

Here is a sample of just a few of the responses:

Jimmy Smutek
I love the huge range of art and design from across a wide array of media. To have all of this information in one spot is fantastic. Additionally, such a huge amount of info could easily be overwhelming, but Lost at E Minor’s well designed, clean, organized, functional presentation takes all of this information and makes it not only accessible, but managable and enjoyable to boot. Truly fantastic site, don;t quite remember how I found it, but I am so glad I did.

Mela Tran
I love pretty much everything on this site. The music, the art, and definitely all the food. I pretty much go on this site everyday to get updated on whatever’s new and unique. Definitely a very original site!

Tambo
What I really love about E MINOR is the unexpected .. I love random mood browsing, and E MINOR is pure sensory indulgence!! I love all of the amazingly gorgeous art in all it’s forms presented on E MINOR. Thanks for the bottomless pit of inspiration. Another Random Thought.

Eric
LAEM is anything but. It lets me sit down once or twice a week and learn about dozens of new creative projects and emerging culture that don’t just feel like they’ve been sourced from the most diverse corners of internet, but instead the actual world; something I’ve yet to find anywhere else.

Hayley
I love the movement of Lost at E Minor, it goes from funky design in Prague to Diners in Nowhere USA. From creepy craigslist reenactments to cute bunny commercials to awing murals. And I love my city Halifax, NS, for all the tiny galleries, spoken word spaces, big bands in little pubs and cars that stop if a pedestrian even looks at the street.

Felicity C
Looooooooooooooooooooooove it
Originality
Stunning artwork
Totally unique

Artisitic
Transcending

Exciting

Myriad of colour
Individuality
Never disappoints
Obviously cool
Revolutionary

Hannah
I cant get away from this site! i check it almost everyday and everyday i am profoundly amazed by what i see and read. It so refreshing knowing that there are so many people in this world that have such passion for what they do and create. Right now i am attempting to write yet again another essay for school and i have just found something to link up my artist, cheers! Thanks for the constant supply of outstanding, shock, horror, beauty, talent.

Read more reasons why our readers think Lost At E Minor is a Lovemark brand.

A recent study – “Natural Born Clickers” from ComScore and media agency Starcom – casts light on who clicks on display ads, who ends up at campaign sites, and provides some interesting take-outs for online advertisers and publishers. Adage covers the study nicely.

The first observation I pulled from the article is that 16% of the online audience in the US are responsible for 80% of clicks.

What to make of this?

Firstly, I think this resonates with how many of us behave online. We see ads. Some cut-through and register with us. Do we click? Well, it depends on the creative.

I’ve enjoyed the recent BWS ads which have run on The Roar. They politely expand and provide compelling reasons to interact with the brand (eg, by asking what kind of wine person you are via a short wizard within the creative).

So as with all advertising, getting cut-through in your message is a challenge. Many ads don’t register with consumers. But some will. The types of people who click on a lot of display ads may be those with time on their hands and not necessarily the people a brand is trying to engage with.

And clicking to end up at a new destination isn’t usually a goal of a consumer. But certain creative makes interacting with a brand more compelling.

So to me, CTRs are a measure of creative effectiveness as much as anything else.

What also comes out in the study is that a low number of clicks doesn’t necessarily mean display banners aren’t doing their job.

The study found that display ads, regardless of clicks, generate significant increase in campaign and brand site visits. Brand searches increased too. As did sales from those exposed to the display ads.

This effect lasts, with people exposed to the ads 45% more likely to visit the brand’s site after four weeks.

So online display advertising works. Can we end this debate now?

We recently completed a campaign on Lost At E Minor with an alcohol brand. The click through rates on the creative weren’t exceptional.

But we would be foolish to say that the campaign wasn’t a success.

To test the effectiveness, we must measure increases in sales. At the point of sale, are our audience more likely to buy the brand given it’s association with our site? I would say yes.

Or are they more likely to pay a premium price for the product? Probably yes again.

But these are harder to measure metrics, especially when a campaign is running across multiple sites and you’re trying to optimise site placement. But these are the right metrics to be assessing when judging online display advertising performance.

Another approach to testing advertising effectiveness is to measure backwards.

Pick a group of your ‘best’ customers. Then find out what path they followed to your brand. A little harder than CTR figures, but much more accurate.