Living in a digital world

Pretty much everybody in our industry has been saying for years that mobile is going to be huge and the boom is just round the corner. An interesting post and set of slides on o’reilly radar demonstrates exactly why this this - There are 3.3 billion mobile phones in use worldwide:

What really interested me is the next slide about iPhone usage that can give us an insight into why mobile internet use hasn’t taken off in the west as we expected it to:

I think a very good argument can be made that the pre-iPhone generation of mobile phones were simply too difficult to use for mobile browsing and the stripped down version of the internet they can browse was simply too limiting.

In my opinion it is the simple and intuitaive user interface that has enabled internet use on the go to be pleasurable and useful rather than a battle that has led to the huge uplift in mobile browsing on the iPhone.

Other mobile manufactuers have learnt from the iPhone, when they have fully incorporated its lessons into their user interface, mobile internet use will explode.

There is also a lesson to be learnt by all agencies and companies that develop applications and sites on the web. Usability matters. An easy to use, simple website often has a competitive advantage over it’s rivals. As an agency and an industry we sometimes fail to recognise this. We’ll return to this point in more detail over the next few weeks.

Here is the full slideshow from the mobile presentation I took the two slides from, it’s well worth a look if you’re interested in the ins and outs of developing for the mobile web:

Affiliate marketing is a very powerful online advertising technique. If you haven’t heard of it before, it’s basically a way of earing commission by referring a customer to an online retailer, you get paid an agreed amount when the customer buys something on the site you referred them to. The amount that can be made by a referral can be fairly significant, for instance some financial services companies will pay over £100 for a customer that buys car insurance or an ISA from them.

As an online marketer, affiliates are a great tool for generating sales but as a consumer it is slightly annoying that I am paying for these commissions through increased prices.

Quidco is a surprisingly altruistic site that gives all the commission back to consumers if they use the site to refer themselves to retailers. So if you sign up to Sky Digital you get a £130 kickback from the commission that is paid to Quidco for that referral.

It’s also a good way for marketers to target savvy consumers with discounts and incentives that don’t cost them any more than their existing affiliate scheme. For instance Virgin Media only give a £55 kickback as opposed to Sky’s £130 - for some consumers that might push them towards taking Sky.

A friend of mine who works in the video game industry just sent me this awesome demo of a PS3 hack that uses exposed camera film, a pair of old sunglasses and an infrared LED to show how video games and interfaces could become even more immersive in a few years time:

To me, the images look almost holographic in their depth and 3D effect….the immediate possibilities are obvious - a first person shooter that lets you look around corners, a racing game that makes it easier to see who is trying to ram you off the road…

Here’s a great run down of the campaign Warner Brothers are running for the new Batman film Dark Knight. Those of you at the DigiTell session this week will already be familiar with the campaign and the alternate reality game (ARG) that is at the core of it, but since the presentation the story has unfolded:

The short version is that participants have been sent on a scavenger hunt around various cities in the US, culminating in fans finding mobile phones, a joker card and a set of instructions on what to do next (hidden in a cake). The participants have been recruited into “The Joker’s Army” and are now waiting for the next part of the game to kick off. Genius.

Read the full story here

Everyone in the digital industry keeps talking about how big mobile is going to be. They’ve been saying it for almost a decade. But we don’t actually always see that much work - at least not in Europe. Well, that is all about to change very very soon. And looking at other territories can show us just how big mobile is going to be. Here’s a great example from Japan:

In the last year or so there has been a boom in Japan for novels written and read on a mobile phone . The latest sales figures are staggering - half of Japans top 10 selling works of fiction were written on a mobile phone…with some selling over 1 million copies.

More at the sydney morning herald and wired

If you’re a regular reader of this blog you’ll know that I am a huge fan of QR codes and their ability to open up the mobile web (see the post big in japan)

I’ve always thought that QR codes will only take off here if the mobile providers kick start it by including the reader software in their handsets by default (as NTT DoCoMo did in Japan). Despite this they are starting to go mainstream with The Sun devoting several pages of yesterdays edition to them and introducing the codes throughout the paper as a way to connect with readers through their phones.

If the initiative takes off it will open up all sorts of opportunities for advertisers to use the codes to link offline and mobile campaigns.

More info at The Sun

 Apple have been running a really cheeky campaign on the CNET windows vista page.

If, like me you can’t view it at work, watch the ad on youtube link above. And turn your sound on.

Back in June we wrote about a clever idea that applied the wisdom of crowds idea to a football club. To recap, the idea is that thousands of football fans band together and buy a football club, each person is part owner of the club. Using the internet each person will be able to vote for team selection, formation, substitutions and discuss tactics and player transfers.

The update is that MyFootballClub has actually bought a conference team - Ebbsfleet United. It’s going to be fascinating to see how the idea actually works in practice.

www.myfootballclub.co.uk

Very interesting info on the rumor around the new Facebook ad platform - from (the excellent) Valleywag

“We called it: Facebook is launching an ad network that will reach far beyond its website, much like Google’s AdSense. Now others are confirming it. A source told AllFacebook the SocialAds ad network Facebook will announce in New York on November 6 will work by installing cookies on members’ browsers. Then, when these members visit publishers in the SocialAds network, Facebook will serve ads, targeted by the personal information it has on those users. The skeptics’ take? Some in tech aren’t convinced the information a Facebook user puts in the profile indicates any useful information, such as an intent to buy. But then again, the advertising industry plans to fund Sex and the City reruns for the next 40 years with tampon commercials. Just getting basic demographics right will count for a lot. “

Source: E-Consultancy

As the graph shows, the 55+ market has been responsible for an increasing share of website visits over the past 3 years. They are forecast to have the biggest growth in internet use in the next 6 years.

By 2012 nearly 70% of all 55-64 year olds and around 1/3 of people aged 65+, will use the internet at least once a week.
(nVision Research. 2006-based projection)

But, how they are using the internet offers much more insight. An Axa survey of over-65s in 11 countries has found that internet use has overtaken traditional pastimes of DIY and gardening. It reported that:

* 40% of retired people are regular e-shoppers
* Travel tickets are the most popular item, with 45% regularly booking online
* 84% use the internet for keeping in touch with friends and relatives via email
* The next most popular online activity was ‘looking for information’, selected by 83%
* 35% go online for banking activities

(Source: All from Internet Statistics Compendium E-consultancy 11th July, 2007)

Social networking sites are popping up specifically for this age group, which mirror the functions of the younger Facebook. One example, of many, is the 50+ site Eons where members can build a profile, upload photos, chat with others their age, book travel, date online etc. The site claims to have 1 million clicks a month.

However there is speculation that the market is saturated with these targeted sites and infact, the over 50’s would rather be part of the younger sites like Facebook. Users over 35 now account for the majority of Facebook members

Perhaps the true value for this online market is not through dedicated social networking sites to their demographic. Rather sites that link relevant content for them to social networking facilities relating to that content.

A great example of this is Waitrose.com. It has linked its e-commerce facility with discussion forums and recipe scrapbooks that members can build up. It even has a canapé calculator to work out how many you need for your party.

As this market continues to grow as a viable online target, more research will be done into further segmenting the over 50’s age demographic rather than treating them as one homogenous market. What are the different needs of a 55 year old, 65 and 75 year old surfer and what will they be in the future?