Google+ vs Facebook

So which is more awesome Facebook or Google+ - watch this video and you can decide... AWESOME - although they need to bring it up to date to talk about how horrific timeline is? As the lovely Kevin put it: "‎- love the way Google are pushing, no, force feeding us Google Plus. The latest attempt via the new navigation bar and it's veiled funneling. It's no Facebook. Bottom line, why do you want two online social lives? If it could import your existing FB then they'd have something but, as it stands, it'll die just as its predecessor Google Wave and Google Buzz. Watch."

1 in 100 chance of winning a car*

*possibly.

Just read an interesting article about the lack of engagement with Facebook competitions meaning the chances of winning the top prizes can actually be quite high:

"In the rush the “engage” fans, and grow fan numbers, hundreds of brands are being very quick to give away fantastic prizes in competitions on their Facebook pages. The problem is very few of them actually think any more beyond this point. They get a prize, create a tab with the competition (those have read the guidelines and know not to use the wall etc for promotions) and think their job is done. In the race for fans very little thought is put into how people will find it and why people will actually want to enter this competition if they find it.

Unsurprisingly this results in hundreds of competitions a week being started by brands that only get a handful of entries. I’ve seen competitions giving away cars with less than 1,000 entries, and holidays to New York with less than 50 entries. With a one in fifty chance of winning a trip to New York you’d be silly not to enter."

Read the full article on: eatsleepsocial.

Tenuiously linked cat photo below:

Could YouTube turn professional?

I've just read a great BBC Click article about "Is Google taking the ‘you’ out of YouTube?". It's all about how YouTube is evolving. More and more the most viewed content is  becoming professional videos generated by corporates. Long gone, they say, are the days of cats playing the piano. I say long live cat piano, angry chip-munks, inappropriate cartoons and cute things exploding!


I have yet to engage with YouTube as a TV channel; I know it shows Channel 4 programmes now, but so far YouTube has remained a place for me to watch (mostly) amateur and semi-amateur memes. I also use it to watch premier content, such as, I guiltily confess, the first listen to the audio and preview of the video to the latest Lady Gaga songs.

The future of TV is online... or is the future of online TV? Actually it's all the same - the future is aggregated, a wonderful cross-platform smorgasbord of media. This is great but as corporations have realised and driven the future of the internet by realising it's potentential and investing heavily in it, providing rich, clean, functioning professional content are we at risk of loosing the essence? It would be daft for YouTube to forget it's roots in YOUser generated content, just as it's daft that Facebook is starting to forget it's users - both are becoming more and more driven by profit, allowing corporations to take over to the point that the user generated element that drove them to the place they are is being squashed.

In the case of YouTube - silly videos like the cat piano become viral memes that are propelled across the world and become instant hits - promoting YouTube and entertaining millions. Video blooper shows like You've been framed have never been off the air, and YouTube is the online equivalent for this kind of content. To take away the silly and focus on the professional content would drive users away from YouTube and into the arms of another platform willing to embrace user generated content. The answer - embrace both YouTube - make a clear distinction and provide us with both.

The same goes toward you Facebook, by all means fund yourself with greedy corporations wanting to advertise on your channel. But please don't forget you are a network built by people - if you spam us too much we'll go elsewhere.

You have been warned!

Royal Wedding

Who's set for the Royal Wedding?

I am! Only because my involvement goes as far as not giving a hoot. I may find myself watching it on the TV, but I'm far more likely to be down the pub, having a BBQ, at the gym or generally sunning myself. Nonetheless I'm grateful for this day off in a country with far too few public holidays and I suppose, deep inside, there is a little stirring of "isn't this nice".

As a royal UK event this one is probably quite unique in the sense that instead of gathering round the TV many people will be following the events online - perhaps on Twitter, streamed TV, Facebook updates, etc. No doubt long after the wedding footage will be watched again and again on YouTube of Kate Middleton and Prince William getting hitched ... and within a short space of time people will have re-dubbed the footage online and it'll be spreading virally. I look forward to hilarious voiceovers, Kate Middleton Exploding (see CuteThingsExploding YouTube channel), and Lolcats doctored into attending the royal wedding.

Personally I'll be most interested in seeing what her highness has to say on Twitter, or rather the hilarious personification of Queen Elizabeth II - @Queen_UK - if you don't already follow her then I suggest you do now. I suspect the Wedding will be cause for much hilarity!



So how is the UK gearing up for the royalist online event of the year? Well, one can check out the Royal Facebook page for starter or view the Royal YouTube Wedding channel. And of course there is always the official website.

Of course no doubt there will be plenty of references to the People's Princess - Princess Diana. I'd bet money that many tabloids and magazines will be comparing dresses, comparing ceremonies, etc. And I'm sure many of the online channels, bloggers and tweetsr of this world will be shameless mentioning her just to improve their keyword search. Disgusting!

So all in all, no bunting for me but I'll be keen to see how the UK embraces the Royal Wedding online. And will it lead to a rise in popularity for the Royal Family? Well in my book, if they give us a day off they are alright by me!

Your people say you can stay! God bless you!

Cheezburger network buys "know your Meme"

How interesting, seeing as I plunder lolcats on a daily basis I found this quite interesting. The Cheezburger Network has published "Know Your Meme"

"Meme catalogue website Know Your Meme has been swallowed by Ben Huh’s The Cheezburger Network this morning in a seven figure deal, Tubefilter’s Marc Hustvedt reports. The site, which has 3 million unique visitors per month and 20 million page views per month will be joining sites like Fail Blog, The Daily What and LOLmart in Cheezburger’s march towards total meme domination." source: techcrunch.com.

"
Know Your Meme is a site that researches and documents Internet memes and viral phenomena.
Founded in December of 2008, Know Your Meme's research is handled by an independent professional editorial and research staff and community members. In just a short 2-year period, the site grew to reach more than 2.5 million people every month and is considered the most authoritative source on news, history and origins of viral phenomena and Internet memes.
Much like wikis, any registered user can submit a meme or viral phenomena for research at knowyourmeme.com. Other users and staff researchers can contribute to the research of the topic and discussion about a meme. The research staff then confirms the meme or invalidates the meme by putting it in the "Deadpool." The editorial and research staff at KYM also provides interviews or Q&As with the people involved, such as Magibon or Scumbag Steve in addition to the research.
Internet memes have risen in popularity with the rise of Internet Culture as more and more people identify with and participate on the Web as their primary method of expression and content consumption. (An Internet memes is a piece of content or an idea that's passed from person to person, changing and evolving along the way. A piece of content that is passed from person to person, but does not evolve or change during the transmission process is considered viral content.)" source http://knowyourmeme.com/about.

Don't know what a Meme is? "The term Internet meme (pronounced /ˈmiːm/, rhyming with "cream"^[1]) is used to describe a concept that spreads via the Internet.[2]" - now you do. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_meme.

To be honest this was all an excuse to post up some more lolcats...

Brand new shiny website for Claire's

Blood, sweat, tears, glitter and sequins! It's been a busy fair few months, but after writing a painstakingly organised 29 page "Website and Technical Solution" document (it was mostly wireframes and designs with explanatory text), producing some very refined and carefully constructed Visio wireframes, many iterations of  interface design, a 50 page copy deck, several meetings and a thorough build and QA cycle the reward is here - a brand new careers website for Claire's - see www.clairescareers.co.uk. (Which they love!)

The old site (see below) was off brand and clunky. While a great piece of work when it was launched it had dated.  The biggest challenge I saw were bring a fashion brand like Claire's to life online while at the same time providing a clean and quick user experience for what is essentially a very content heavy site. The solution, jumbo-drop down.

The new site features at the top level large seasonally updated background imagery to position Claire's Careers not just as a recruitment site but to highlight it's a recruitment site for a fashion brand! As you drill deeper into the content the images become banner headers, randomly selected on page load, so that it is the copy and not the image that dominates. Still, Claire's products and seasonal photography dominate every element of the site from the backgrounds, page heading to the drivers that help guide users to related content on the right hand side of every page.

The jumbo nav lets users drill down to the content most relevant to them in one click rather than a convoluted search through landing pages and various navigation elements.

We wanted to introduce a social element to the site so every page features the latest tweets from the Claire's Career's twitter account. Every page, including job postings, contain share this links to Twitter and Facebook and "Add this" which covers most of the other major social networks.

 

To encourage engagement with the Claire's Careers channels every page also gives the user the ability to quickly join their Twitter, YouTube or Facebook channels. 

The site has been built to be as accessible as possible. While it is not mobile optimised, the way it has been developed means it will work on most smartphones to a degree. Every element of the site has been built with a layer of graceful degradation in mind. If you don't have JavaScript, no problem - you can still use the nav, you can still view video, and any flash components are not core to the journey and are politely hidden from sight. The navigation will need some tweaking to get it fully working on an iPhone, but not much.

To offer a level of interactivity, and to make a break from the tedium of reading through reams of copy, we've introduced video profiles to give an insight into what some Claire's employee's do. To avoid hosting costs, and because it just works, we decided to use YouTube instead of building a bespoke player. By default you will see the video played in full, for example see Glenn Pollards video profile, but you can skip to individual questions from a menu below (our MD's idea, a source of much grumpiness from me, but worth it). Each segment is supported by a transcript for those who are hard of hearing or just sneaking a look while at work.

All drivers are content managed from a central library and all the random seasonal images pull from a set folder. When we want to add the next seasons imagery it will take 5 minutes rather than running through everypage changing individual images.

The homepage features a carousel of drivers, easily content managed, to promote urgent roles and key content in the site. To make it flexible there are different driver types - big image with a link, big image with text and a link (two layouts), or a flash box (with an image fallback). Watch that space for some creative promotions in the future.

Online application - of course one of the biggest parts of the old and this site is the ability to apply entirely online using ThirtyThree's very powerful, and all ours, Applicant Tracking System. And if you don't find what you want today you can sign up for job alerts - forgotten your password, that's a new feature too (surprisingly!).

What else? A global search, links to the many European sister sites (Claire's a transnational company btw), site help, application help and a plan to roll this site out across Europe.

Perhaps the most exciting part of this project is Phase 2. I can't tell you much, it's a big secret at the moment! What I can say is we'll be trying something that, to my knowledge, has never been tried in the recruitment comms industry before. Fingers crossed it'll be a rip-roaring success and we'll be seeing some big accolades for Claire's Careers and ThirtyThree.

Leading the gay in social networking

When I was a young teen I was social networking before anyone had heard the words "MySpace" leave alone "Facebook". I was using chatrooms and messaging services at a time when most people my age were still using Encarta to do their homework. Of course back then "Social networking" was called online dating and to my friends it was the domain of geeks and dodgy types. And in all fairness, quite often it was.


The reason I was happy to embrace this new technology was because I had figured out at an early age that I'm gay. At the time I thought I was the only gay in the suburbs. These niche sites helped me to talk to people with similar interests... you know, bums, willies and Steps. With retrospect I could have done without Steps. The important thing for me it was a way to make friends like me, not just finding dates.

When sites like MySpace, Bebo and Facebook came along we slowly saw a shift in people's attitudes to who goes online. It was no longer for nerds and people who like wearing long trench coats, now you could connect with your mates and share your movie and music interests... and eventually you could poke them, tell them you've brushed your teeth, that you've just checked into the gym, that you're outside their window wearing nightvision goggles and touching yourself (whoops, back to the trench coats again!)

The idea of online dating, in the straight market, is becoming less weird. I know a fair few older couples that have gotten together via Friends Reunited and I know a few people who have started using sites like PlentyOfFish to meet and greet online. They are starting to realise that there is nothing dodgy about doing this, or there is but it's probably better than getting trashed in your local and waking up with a whale who's name you never bothered to learn.

But my point is I believe the gays led the way with social networking. Simply because we had to. It was that or cottaging (never done it, never will!) If you're a straight teen you can meet girls up the park, or in your local getting served underaged.

And once again the gays have been leading the way for awhile with social networking/online dating/finding a shag (what ever you decide to use it for) in the mobile market. The most prominent app is Grindr (cleverly promoted by Stephen Fry). A gay networking mobile appthat lets you meet other guys in the area (by geolocation) and start a conversation with them via instant messaging. Originally only available on the iPhone it has recently been released on Android (and the number of lads has doubled...) It's a simple yet clever bit of software that is massively addictive and just does exactly what you need it too. There is no web version at the moment, it's all about meeting people in the palm of your hand (giggles at the inuendo).

Now I'm getting excited by the prospect of a new project from the Grindr team who are moving into the straight market. The project is soon to be launched at SXSW. I think we're going to see the next big trend emerge from Grindr in the form of "Project Amicus" (Spanish for friend).

I don't yet know the specifics of Amicus yet but Grindr's blog says it's "the codename and website for a new location-based mobile app that lets users discover, interact, and meet with nearby people. This app is for everyone – straight, gay, and lesbian."

If it becomes as popular as Grindr, and is indeed "straight Grindr", then I fully believe this is going to be huge. It'll be interesting to see if they stick to a purely mobile based platform or are considering moving into a web-version too. I'm sure there are lots of ways they could expand their offering further, the app is great - but it could be part of a suite of web services... let's wait and see. Either way, I think this is going to be big!

Why not get onto the beta list and sign up here.

Just remember, never let your Lolcat on Grindr or Amicus:

Apocalypse now

It's 2012 next year and if you're to believe the Mayan calendar or the Bible or numerous other prophets it's due to be the end of the world. There are those who believe that current turmoil, starting with Egypt and Tunisia, in the Middle East is a sign of the Armegeddon yet to come. The doomsday clock is currently close to midnight. Oil is running out, the ice-caps are melting, the climate is changing in a way we cannot predict, polar bears are dying out, wars are breaking out, birds dropping from the sky, Google (aka Skynet) is preparing for judgement day, the ground is tearing apart, countries are pointing nuclear war-heads at eachother, the coral reefs are disapearing, fish stocks are on verge of collapse, Bees are disapearing threatening our global ecology, China is on the rise set to over-take from the USA (Cold war II anytime?) and Britain are in charge of the LoOlympics.

All in all it's an uncertain future... apocolypse, I'd say not, but a time of revolution, history making, change and potentially a milestone in our history that will affect the planet for thousands of years yet to come?
Perhaps we should pray that aliens invade and sort things out.

I try to look at things in a positive way and assume that we'll wipe ourselves out when we're good and ready and not at a set time defined by which ever deity you may herald. I am not alone in this outlook but there are plenty of people out there who will probably spend the next year forming theories, starting cults and proclaiming prophecies of doom and destruction. I'm looking forward to seeing what emerges over the next months / years.

Catption: You knew there would be cats in here somewhere!

Unlike during the time of the Mayans there will be a bigger role for digital this time around. At the time of writing, if you search "Apocalypse" on Twitter you mostly get references to Zombie Apocalypse. A subject dear to my heart which I have written about before. I'm starting to wonder if Zombie Apocalypse is as likely as I first thought. Still if you want to watch for the Apocalypse I'd say watch for it trending on Twitter first.

Who will take over after?

Point of this article? None!

Tweets in your calendar

I'm just trying out an app called Twistory which let's you sync your tweets with your calendar (including Google and iCal). Why you'd want to do this I'm not sure, but Techcrunch swears ""You didn't realize it, but you really want those Twitter messages in your calendar." I'm not sure I'm convinced but no doubt in a few weeks I'll wonder how I ever lived without a calendar record of my ramblings.

Ok ok, so I could just go on twitter and look and my tweet history - but this is my tweets in something else. That's exciting right?

Opinions?

Perhaps even more useful - an app that tells you where you checked in 4 years ago via foursquare (again a techcrunch article). Personally I'm not a Foursquare fan - it's all about Facebook Places!

Dream time for gamers

Just as Sony have announced the arrival of their first Playstation Phone and their next generation PSP the NGP I've started thinking about what I would want from the next generation of consoles.

Here is my wish list so far:

Firstly, interaction - don't drop the humble controller but do make it awesome from the start (don't release the rumble pack edition months after you've paid for the lame-ass edition). I don't want anything half-arsed, if you're going to build in motion sensitivity build it in properly! I love the speakers in the Wii remotes. Please copy this Sony and Microsoft!

Of course the Wii has shown that there is a market for other forms of interaction (and Playstation Move and XBox Kinnect have been launched so that MS/Sony can get their cut of this market). The Wii really changed everything. I doubt these new ways of playing games will disappear as a gimmick. I just hope that traditional gaming doesn't die as a result.

Innovate - has anyone created a game with audio control before? What about touch screens, is there a place for this sort of tech in the gaming domain yet? Certainly touch has opened up new gaming possibilities not available before, can Angry Birds work with a controller? I doubt it (although I've yet to try it on the Ps3)

Have fun - of course there are other ways of controlling certain games that require specialist equipment, e.g. Karoke mics, drum kits, guitars, dance matts, balance or fitness boards, etc - these are all great and have their place. So basically carry on as you were here please Sony/Nintendo/Microsoft/Newcomers?

Secondly the hardware: I want to see some kick-ass graphics and massive processing power in any new system. The Wii's only flaw was a lack of power. The PS3 and XBox rule here, but even they are being stretched these days. 

Blu-Ray player - This is one of the most expensive parts of the PS3 but to drop it would be mad. People like owning things i.e. disks, I want a console I can play my old games on (dropping a disk player would make this impossible), and I want to play Blu-Ray's - part of the attraction of the PS3 is it's a Blu-Ray player, and regardless of how big my hard-drive is one day it will get full! (and no - we're not interested in another format). 

Massive harddrive and cloud computing - A massive hard-drive is ideal to store all those updates and downloads (I've one of the larger PS3 drives and it's clogged; and seamingly with absolutely nothing). Cloud computing could allow my most frequently used data to be stored locally for quick access and my less frequently stored data to be stored elsewhere but not lost. i.e. infinite space on your console via cloud but no lag via hard drive. Cloud computing would allow for back-up's in case of system melt-down. In theory cloud could replace a HDD but only if broadband allows; personally I hate lags of any kind. Users still need locally cached data and lots of it.

Thirdly, I want an entertainment system. - I want my new console to be a practical media server, web-browser, family and indvidual games system, I want IP TV, apps?, social networks? (PlayStation Home had so much potential, as did platforms like SecondLife. I'm hoping the next gen consoles can deliver hi-res, Tron/secondlife-on-speed-eque social networking). I can already do most of this on my PS3; the PS4 I hope will take all of this to the next level (and hopfully integrate with other tech, i.e. my phone, TV, laptop...)

Fourthly, the visuals have to be great. I'm thinking HD and 3D, ideally without the need for silly glasses.   Saying that, is the time right for virtual reality helmets to make a return? Why not, with Kinnect/Wii/Move like controls a VR helmet could fully immerse you into the gaming world (of course the potential for bumping into coffee tables needs to be worked out!)

Finally, make it work - no red rings of death, no half-arsed attempts (yes, I'm talking to you PlayStation Home) - just get it right!

The TechRadar articles are great for some further reading on the next gen consoles:

• Playstation 4: Read TechRadar.com's thoughts on what might be incorporated into the PS4.
• XBox 720: Read TechRadar.com's thoughts on what might be incorporated into the XBox 720.
• Wii2: Read TechRadar.com's thoughts on what might be incorporated into the Wii 2. 

I'd love to hear what extras you think they should have have. Does anyone have the word on what they are planning?

How addicted to Twitter are you?

Created by Oatmeal

One company to rule them all

A mate (thank you kindly Alex B) just pointed me to this rather interesting article about the internet monopolies - i.e. the giants like Facebook and Google and how if you were to ditch them you would have to give up "whole categories of activity".

It's a great read - I would recommend.

Social banners

Banner adverts are annoying... fact. Yet many companies still make a lot of money out of them and the number of people who click through is still sufficient to make the placement of banner advertising on websites a lucrative business.

Banners are generally set dimensions and easy for advertisers to understand - they are, to many, considered analogous to print advertising. i.e. flat and boring.

There is of course so much more you can do with an advert online, be that to build it in flash and make it "whizzy" or do something more intelligent with multiple ad's working together, using clever campaigns, using expandable content, use video, introduce a game, make it an adventure, stick a chicken in a gimp suit on it and so fourth.

A new dimension advertisers are starting to, rightly, look at is introducing a social aspect. An advert suddenly becomes more interesting if you know your peers on Facebook "like" it, or it becomes less static if you can see in real-time what people are tweeting about the brand. At least that's the theory - read more about social banner advertising here.

This sort of advertising is nothing like traditional print - it's interactive, it is involving - it's fucking fantastic!

Social is the way forward - actually it's the way you should be already because social has been around for ages.

Content shouldn't be static, it shouldn't be boring, it should be intelligent, it should know who you are, where you are and what you want. It should be relevant and interesting. I don't want to enlarge my penis, I don't care about women's clothing, Jessica is not horny and online now - I want to know that that film I saw with my mates a few weeks ago is now available on DVD, that the bike I just tweeted about is now discounted at my local store, I want that job vacancy that has just come up in MY city doing what i ACTUALLY do.

I guess there are heaps of issues with privacy here. For advertising to really get to know you it has to get to know you, i.e. advertisers have access to information you might not want them to. Anyway - I'm rambling.

The more clever things you can do the better (as long as they are relevant to the brand of course ). But in a world of noise you should always strive to create something that you would click on, that you would enjoy, that offers value that isn't just more noise.