digital consultant

Digital Consultant links for August 26th through September 5th

susi — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 15:00:21 +0000

These are my links for August 26th through September 5th:

Google pays $8.5m to settle Buzz privacy invasion suit – It's hard to feel sorry for web overlords Google, but 2010 appears to be their year of flops. After Orkut fails to gain ground, and their Google Wave failed to transform how people use email, Google Buzz have now been sued for inadvertently revealing users top contacts. Google Buzz seems to perform now better/different function to Twitter and Facebook, and is rarely used so is likely to lead to another wave goodbye moment. Interestingly, they will use the fine to support a $8.5M fund for internet prviacy organisations.
File sharing solicitor to face disciplinary body – Which? Report on how solicitors heavy-handed techniques to accuse (often wrongly) consumers of illegal downloading are getting them a rap on the knuckles. Which? also have a useful guide to how to respond to an accusation of file-sharing. No doubt the implementation of the Digital Economy Bill will mean consumer should arm themselves with a better understanding of their legal rights.
Crowd Sourcing HealthCare: Sustainable Digital Strategy for the Pharmaceutical Industry – An interesting comparison between lessons in social media monitoring, niche markets and crowd sourcing in the music industry, care of WIRED editor Chris Anderson, and how it can apply to the pharmaceutical industry.
500 Internal Server Error – 500 Internal Server Error
500 Internal Server Error – 500 Internal Server Error

Digital Consultant links for August 18th through August 25th

susi — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 10:00:37 +0000

These are my links for August 18th through August 25th:

25 brilliant examples of Facebook brand pages – Econsultancy rounds up some of the better user experiences and brand experiences on Facebook, with great examples of integrated web content and call-to-action marketing. All to often, brands have extremely limited designs or interactivity on Facebook, yet with Facebook XHTML language, you can create micro-site experiences similar to a website. Back to basics web marketing. I 'like' it.
500 Internal Server Error – 500 Internal Server Error
500 Internal Server Error – 500 Internal Server Error
500 Internal Server Error – 500 Internal Server Error
The Web Is Dead. Long Live the Internet – Chris Anderson, author of 'The Long Tail' and 'Free', and Michel Wolff muse the demise of the web browser and rise in closed, app systems and economies for receiving content, and the implications for business and consumer. The growth in mobile doubtless fuels the app economy. Is the web browser dead? Anderson, a known futurologist, is a good trend spotter but the reality of the death of the web browser is greatly exagerrated.

Digital Consultant links for August 16th through August 17th

susi — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 10:01:02 +0000

These are my links for August 16th through August 17th:

500 Internal Server Error – 500 Internal Server Error
What Makes Social Media Trustworthy? – An enlightening survey that shows levels of perceived 'trust' in different forms of social media, with blogs by people you know as the most trusted source, but Twitter/Facebook updates less so. The best element for creating a sense of trust: be open to both positive and negative comments, and sustain a high quality dialogue in your online community.
What Nonprofits Can Teach Brands About Social – US research shows charities are trendsetters for using social media, with an impressive 97% adoption in some form of social media use. What a great way to engage with volunteers, givers and stakeholders.
Trinity Mirror’s Birmingham Mail Linking Out To Local Bloggers – The hyperlocal trend continues, and this time local blogs are being used by local papers to stem the loss of journalist content (cynical view) or to create interactive, locally driven content. This article talks about a relationship between the publisher and blogger, but via the Twitter watercooler it appears that no permission has been sought in fact. This open up an interesting dilemma for bloggers: by releasing a RSS feed, are you giving permission for others publisher in the professional media to re-publish your work? Creative Commons license give scope for this.
MTVN UK Does A Bebo, Commissions Its First Online-Only Social Drama – The future was looking bleak for interactive drama in UK since the main funder of the form, Bebo, has gone into demise. Youth brand MTV has taken up the mantle by commissioning an issue based drama, Being Victor,combining filmed, blogging and social media elements.

Digital Consultant links for August 10th through August 15th

susi — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 22:00:56 +0000

These are my links for August 10th through August 15th:

500 Internal Server Error – 500 Internal Server Error
The Little Book Series – Alterian produce the 'little book' series which are white papers about topics associated with social media marketing and digital engagement. They of course all skew back to promoting Alterian's products, but they're useful reads if you're serious about social media strategy planning and measurement.
The Google Wave That Crashed – When the future has arrived when you're already here, you may be forgiven for not being on the bus, or missing it entirely. Google Wave was suppose to set out a new precendent for communication and collaboration, combining open forums with email and instant messenging. Google have now killed Wave, which had very low adoption. It was impossible to fanthom out. it didn't really scratch an itch. But it shows that being a bleeding-edge technology developer, even one as cash-rich and assured as Google, is definitely not a fail safe profession. I didn't even get to wave it hello.
Maximidia | Ads of the World – Cute: 1950s style adverts for the products of today: Twitter, Skype, YouTube, Facebook.
Is local the new global in mobile search marketing? – By 2013 some 1bn searches for local content will be made on mobiles, and the local business benefits greatly from local search. This article talks about developing your Google Places Optimisation to get ahead of the race for local search.

Digital Consultant links for August 6th through August 8th

susi — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 14:00:09 +0000

These are my links for August 6th through August 8th:

Summer SEO – Use The Time For An SEO Health Check – More great tips from Hallam Internet on using the August lull to tweak your website to make sure those all important keywords are well displayed in all the right places on your site.
Google to allow trade marks as keywords across Europe – A big shift for those doing pay-per-click Google advertising, as trademark names, from Sept 14, can now be used in most international territories. This means retailers selling branded products can truly begin to cash in.
Big digital ambitions may be brewing at Starbucks – Starbucks have always been ahead of the game in their digital marketing, but a new twist will see the coffee stores in US and Canada competing with ISP portal to offer a channel of new, entertainment and retail content, plus unlimited wifi access in their stores (can we have this in the UK soon please?)
500 Internal Server Error – 500 Internal Server Error
10 reasons you need a digital marketing strategy – Digital marketing legend Dave Chaffey's survey shows a staggering 31% of marketers have a digital strategy, and the rest do digital marketing without a strategy.

Digital Consultant links for August 4th through August 6th

susi — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 16:00:57 +0000

These are my links for August 4th through August 6th:

Lonely Planet Tries Augmented Reality In Search For ‘Relevant Ubiquity’ – Here's a good technology/brand fit: Lonely Planet have created an Android augmented reality app. There are now more Android's in the market than iPhones so developers: let's see more of you creating content for Android (and not to mention Blackberry and Windows, we're crying out for some apps to buy!)
500 Internal Server Error – 500 Internal Server Error
500 Internal Server Error – 500 Internal Server Error
500 Internal Server Error – 500 Internal Server Error
How Are Email, Facebook and Twitter Audiences Different? – Interesting research showing that consumer, rather than being siloed, are engaging with brands across a range of marketing subscription medium including Facebook, Email and Twitter.

Digital Consultant links for July 23rd through July 27th

susi — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 10:00:15 +0000

These are my links for July 23rd through July 27th:

The Subjective Web: Semantic Evolution – A nice, easy to understand article on what the Semantic Web will mean for searching and finding information online, by Raymond Bentinck.
International SEO – An informative 26-page e-book by Hallam Internet which gives some great advice on considering your options for an international website – considering different trends in search, findability and language.
Facebook to launch PayPal-style ‘Credits’ in September – I'm sure we've been here before but it seems that Facebook will be launching their own credit system, going head to head with Paypal to allow users to pay for physical and virtual goods within the network. If anyone can take on PayPal it's Facebook – but the jury is out as to how many of it's users will adopt it. If this works well for micropayments this could be a big step in allowing all kinds of transaction models.
Companies Throw Their Weight Behind Online Video – State-side, we're seeing more and more growth in online video, with the vast majority of Top 50 retail companies now using video for product advertising and video blogging. The growth of video for marketing looks set to continue onwards and upwards.
Reality Check: Just Six Percent Of TV Viewing Is Non-Linear – As us people of the future wax lyrical about time-shifted TV and video-on-demand, the stark reality is that although many people do watch VOD channels, it only accounts for 6% of TV viewing time. It seems people are happy, after all, with scheduled TV.

Digital Consultant links for July 21st through July 22nd

susi — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 12:00:57 +0000

These are my links for July 21st through July 22nd:

Arab countries ‘need a long-term digital strategy’ – I've never really considered e-strategy in the Middle East – it's not the first territory you think of when considering a high tech hub, yet countries like Oman have already invested in growing their marketplace for e-commerce and digital. According to this press release countries like Iraq don't have sufficiently developed digital strategy. Well having a safe country and telecom network may be a bit of an issue here.
The Register comment guidelines 2010 – I thought these guidelines for a heavily commented on blog were pretty sensible and worth adapting for your own community site.
Universal broadband delayed until 2015 – Another government U-Turn: the much mooted 2Mbs broadband we've been promised won't arrive until 2015, 3 years later than scheduled. The government say they are "totally committed" to having the best broadband service in Europe, but given how far we are lagging behind our European neighbours in the advancements, and right to access, faster broadband, this is more hot air.
Who owns your social media? – Superb article on the internal challenges a business faces in 'owning' a social media strategy, and the conflict and opportunity between the needs of different internal teams and departments:

"Social media isn’t a two way street between you and your customer, it’s a crossroads between you, your customer, the network and all of their other customers."
Apps, Apps, and more Apps – Some beautiful design and facts on the market for mobile apps. I think this is a US only view, but the stats are quite stark: Symbian is the most popular platform by 3 to 1, far ahead of Blackberry, and trailed by iPhone. 90% of App developers don't make a sustainable return-on-investment. Are apps the news promotional tool rather than the saviour of monetizing online content?

Today’s Digital Consultant Links for July 16th

susi — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 13:00:50 +0000

These are my links for July 16th from 04:07 to 13:16:

YouTube to Award $5 Million in Grants to Video Producers in Pseudo-Production Fund – Since the decline of Bebo as an online video investor, it seems YouTube will be the next big investors exchanging product investment with ad sales. It certainly makes more sense as they're more sustainably funded (by Google) and there's an interest to them to make sure the content will drive audiences.
Why Many Teens Are Moving on from Facebook – US led research suggests Facebook may be losing it's sheen with the teens – the crucial market to ensure long-term success. The question I wonder is where are they going? Back to Bebo or MySpace? It seems not. Perhaps we are shifting now away from the big destination networks to slightly more specialist spaces.
Social media in China: an introduction – Some useful stats on how China is adapting to the internet. Although internet adoption is low, this still represents over 400 million internet users, all hungry for engagement, content and e-commerce.
What Can Small Businesses Learn From Old Spice Viral Social Media Campaign – Bit late to party but Old Spice is causing a splash with their video and Twitter campaign to speak to the spice's new pin-up. This is a great approach – delighting audiences with personal responses and fun content, the perfect use of social media.
Augmented Reality Explained by Common Craft – Another lovely hand made papercut video about high technology: this time Common Craft tackle augmented reality – what it is and what you can do with it today.

Digital Consultant links for July 12th through July 14th

susi — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 13:00:49 +0000

These are my links for July 12th through July 14th:

What makes the perfect Transmedia Producer? – In-depth discussion on the types of skills and approaches which are working in transmedia. It's heavily led to the Alternative Reality Game (ARG) producers rather than wider producer of entertainment media for new platforms.
Social media monitoring: time to say ’sod it’? – Thought piece on why moderating – and interrupting – Joe Public's conversations in social media may not be a great idea. I think it depends on what you do – people often Tweet about brands because they want help/ response, and certainly being responsive on your own profiles is critical. Joining in wider conversations (e.g. forums or general discussion) will depend on how useful a contribution you can make to the discussion. This may favour technology/product suppliers more than consumer goods and services.
UK online video stats: Youngsters favour C4 and ITV over BBC – Blimey: how online video has grown. 2010 sees 5.5 Billion online vdieo viewed each month in the UK, with BBC, ITV and BlinkX as fastest growing properties. Interestingly, the desirable youn 'uns (16-24 year olds) are preferring ITV and Channel to BBC properities.
Concept Feedback | Free Concept Reviews for Marketers, Designers and Developers – Here's an interesting 'concept' – this website is a community of designers which lets you upload your concepts for design, websites and print and get feedback from other community members. Offer enough feedback and it's free, or pay a small fee. A great way to get feedback within a community wider than your own organisation, but in a closed setting.
Cultivated Play: Farmville – Intelligent article by A. J Patrick Liszkiewicz on why Farmville defines many of the rules of being a good game, but creates social capital through effectively a peer pressure to be kind to your friends (& Farmville neighbours). I'm wondering in anyone in the gaming/digital industry actually like Farmville – no evidence yet, but no denying simple, formulaic social gaming is a major global phenomena. (hat tip: Pete Ashton).