Mobile Metamorphosis

Last night I went to the Chinwag Live mobile event in Soho with key industry speakers discussing the mobile landscape. For me, personally, it focused too much on trade marketing and discussions about data, rather than the consumer experience and what mobile means to them.  Nevertheless, a few interesting topics did emerge throughout the night:

• Personal expression - the idea that downloading mobile content actually delivers social benefits - for example music downloads that allow users to share ‘cool’ content with your friends.
• Privacy - while a unique benefit to mobile is that it is more location-specific than any other medium, the drawbacks of this are that people may find this too intrusive - i.e. would you feel comfortable receiving an SMS 2 for 1 offer for McDonalds as you’re walking past your local?
• Free vs. paid - while more and more people are becoming regular downloaders of mobile content - they are reluctant to pay for it - perhaps this promises a bright future for mobile user-generated content and ad-supported content?

Very cool mobile thing

I was just reading on Iain Tait’s blog are very cool mobile thing called Arcade Reality. You can literally play a mobile game in the real-world, where game objects are overlayed on your live camera view.  Very cool!  The graphics aren’t particularly amazing but the idea is fantastic - I can just imagine brands using this sort of cool technology to allow consumers to become completely immersed in a brand experience which crosses between the real-world and a virtual world.

  

Dangerous Liaisons

Watch the new Levi’s ad - they never fail to deliver.  Very sexy and cool…

 

Second Life Liberation Army, guess what, open up headquarters in SL

I read this a while back, and completely forgot to blog about it.  I remember being in stitches of laughter when I read it!  Yes that’s right, the SLLA have decided to open up their own offices in SL, due to the mounting campaigning they are doing for SL residents.

 

For those of you that don’t know, the SLLA is a national liberation movement working towards establishing citizens rights in SL. They have been causing havoc all over Second Life -  they have apparnetly placed a bounty on a number of high profile commercial contractors within the game, not to mention attacking Reebok and American Apparell stores, and posting the footage on YouTube.  Crazy huh?!

Woolworths turns to online gambling

Just read this in NMA - I couldn’t have made up a worst brand-fit even if I tried!

Lucozade does UGC?

Every week I read about a different brand that’s moving into the UGC, and this week it’s Lucozade! The way people now use the web has clearly evolved, but I can’t help thinking that every brand jumping on the bandwagon isn’t neccessarily the right move.  Why would I ever go online to talk to people I don’t know about Lucozade?  It’s completely irrelevant. You even have the chance to appear in a future ad campaign - why exactly would I want that?! Saying that at least there’s an idea behind this - Lucozade encourages consumers to send in videos of themselves having lost their edge.  Hmm, they are probably likely to receive some very interesting videos!

Gmail goes Global and Mobile

In the Guardian’s digital digest  I read that Google is to finally open its email service Gmail to all users globally  - this has only been available by invite-only (though everyone seems to have one!). This is just another step in Google taking over our lives - they already rule search, and email is the second most popular online activity (after search) so the move seems pretty obvious.

Google are also expecting to launch a mobile version of Gmail, with similar functionality. Google is always with us!

Pick me up

For when you think you have been stupid, always remember there is someone out there who is more stupid than you!

Google’s latest competitor

Powered by Live Search, Ms Dewey makes seaching the web a whole lot more fun.  One for the boys really! Check it out here. Its kinda of a novelty thing really, I found it quite funny for a while but I can’t say I’ll routinely use it.  Worth a look though.

 

The harsh reality of blogging

I have only recently started this blog mainly due to my passion for what I do, but also because of a few key people who have inspired me to do so - including Amelia Torode, Anthony Mayfield, and of course Russel Davies. That’s why I was shocked to read this from Russel Davies - he recently had to deal with the harsh reality that some people don’t like his blog!  Now although I have always understood the harsh reality of blogging, and has Russel, it is clearly a very different thing to experience this first hand. Fortunately this little knock has not stopped him blogging, nor me, and the comments from his audience were somewhat gushing! I say keep up the good work…